Originally published in 1995. Providing the most influential historical criticism, but also some contemporary pieces written for the volume, this collection includes the most essential study and reviews of this tragic play. The first part contains critical articles arranged chronologically while the second part presents reviews of stage performances from 1901 to 1988 from a variety of sources. Chapters chosen are representative of their given age and critical approach and therefore show the changing responses and the topics that interested critics in the play through the years. Coriolanus is an unsympathetic character and the play has been traditionally less popular than other tragedies - a comprehensive introduction by the editor discusses these attitudes to the play and the reasons behind them.

Originally published in 1984. With selections organised chronologically, this collection presents the best writing on one of Shakespeare's most studied plays. The structure displays the changing responses to the play and includes a wide range of criticism from the likes of Coleridge, Hazlitt, Moulton, Granville-Barker, Orwell, Levin, Stampfer, Gardner and Speaight interspersed with short entries from Keats, Raleigh, Freud and others. The final chapter by the editor elucidates his own thoughts on Lear, building on his commentary in the Introduction which puts the collection in context.

In What a Body Can Do, Ben Spatz develops, for the first time, a rigorous theory of embodied technique as knowledge. He argues that viewing technique as both training and research has much to offer current debates over the role of practice in the university, including the debates around "practice as research." Drawing on critical perspectives from the sociology of knowledge, phenomenology, dance studies, enactive cognition, and other areas, Spatz argues that technique is a major area of historical and ongoing research in physical culture, performing arts, and everyday life.

In What a Body Can Do, Ben Spatz develops, for the first time, a rigorous theory of embodied technique as knowledge. He argues that viewing technique as both training and research has much to offer current debates over the role of practice in the university, including the debates around "practice as research." Drawing on critical perspectives from the sociology of knowledge, phenomenology, dance studies, enactive cognition, and other areas, Spatz argues that technique is a major area of historical and ongoing research in physical culture, performing arts, and everyday life.

A transdisciplinary approach to practice-as-research, complete with its own elaborate theory of practice and a set of four multi-year-performance research projects through which the theory plays out. Its methodology is at times ethnographic as Henry Daniel deftly inserts himself and his Caribbean West African ancestry into a series of complex cortical and geographic maps, which become choreographic in every sense of the term. The central argument in the book is based on a claim that human beings are cognitively embodied through their own lived experiences of movement through space and time; the spaces we inhabit and the practices we engage in are documented through cortical and cartographic maps. In short, as we inhabit and move through spaces our brains organise our experiences into unique cortical and spatial maps, which eventually determine how we see and deal with, i.e., 'become' subjects in a world that we also help create. The argument is that through performance, as a re-cognising and re-membering of these movements, we can claim the knowledge that is in the body as well as in the spaces through which it travels. To demonstrate how the brain organises our experiences of the world according to cartographic (graphically mapping procedures) and cortical (motor, sensory and visual functions) mapping and exploring the impact of this mapping to choreographic practice, considering how maps might be disrupted or altered by change of circumstances. This is illustrated through scientific, creative and reflective approaches to exploring neurological process of embodied experiences, as well as the analysis of projects that have utilized this practice thus far. Audience will include Dance and Performance Studies Scholars; Dancers and Choreographers; Undergraduate and Advanced Students; Researchers

This broad-based collection of essays is an introduction both to the concerns of contemporary folklore scholarship and to the variety of forms that folk performance has taken throughout English history. Combining case studies of specific folk practices with discussion of the various different lenses through which they have been viewed since becoming the subject of concerted study in Victorian times, this book builds on the latest work in an ever-growing body of contemporary folklore scholarship. Many of the contributing scholars are also practicing performers and bring experience and understanding of performance to their analyses and critiques. Chapters range across the spectrum of folk song, music, drama and dance, but maintain a focus on the key defining characteristics of folk performance - custom and tradition - in a full range of performances, from carol singing and sword dancing to playground rhymes and mummers' plays. As well as being an essential reference for folklorists and scholars of traditional performance and local history, this is a valuable resource for readers in all disciplines of dance, drama, song and music whose work coincides with English folk traditions.

Beginning with Richard Drew's controversial photograph of a man falling from the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, Learning How to Fall investigates the changing relationship between world events and their subsequent documentation, asking: Does the mediatization of the event overwhelm the fact of the event itself? How does the mode by which information is disseminated alter the way in which we perceive such information? How does this impact upon our memory of an event? T. Nikki Cesare Schotzko posits contemporary art and performance as not only a stylized re-envisioning of daily life but, inversely, as a viable means by which one might experience and process real-world political and social events. This approach combines two concurrent and contradictory trends in aesthetics, narrative, and dramaturgy: the dramatization of real-world events so as to broaden the commercial appeal of those events in both mainstream and alternative media, and the establishment of a more holistic relationship between politically and aesthetically motivated modes of disseminating and processing information. By presenting engaging and diverse case studies from both the art world and popular culture - including Aliza Shvarts's censored senior thesis at Yale University, Kerry Skarbakka's provocative photographs of falling, Didier Morelli's crawl through Toronto, and Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom - Learning How to Fall creates a new understanding of the relationship between the event and its documentation, where even the truth of an event might be called into question.

Zbigniew Cynkutis writings constitute invaluable testimony of his work with Jerzy Grotowski during the theatre of productions phase and beyond. Cynkutis insights elucidate aspects of the Laboratory Theatre s praxis and provide a unique perspective on the questions most often asked about Grotowski. Authored by one of the Laboratory Theatre s most accomplished actors, this book draws on long-term theatre research and deep knowledge of the craft of acting to offer practical advice indispensable to the professional and aspiring actor alike. The volume offers the English-speaking reader an unprecedented richness of primary source material, which sheds new light on the practical work of one of the most influential theatre directors of the 20th century. Cynkutis voice is sincere and direct, and will continue to inspire new generations of theatre practitioners. " "Dominika Laster, Yale University"

Acting with Grotowski: Theatre as a Field for Experiencing Life" explores the actor-director dynamic through the experience of Zbigniew Cynkutis, one of Polish director Jerzy Grotowski s foremost collaborators. Cynkutis s work as an actor, combined with his later work as a director and theatre manager, gave him a visionary overview based on precise embodied understanding.

Cynkutis s writings yield numerous insights into the commitment needed to make innovative, challenging theatre. A central component of "Acting with Grotowski "is his distinctive approach to training: Conversations with the Body includes a range of techniques and approaches to warming up, rehearsing and creating work from a physical starting point, beautifully illustrated by Bill Ireland.

The book comprises reflections and practical suggestions on a range of subjects theatre and culture, improvisation, ethics, group dynamics, and Cynkutis s vision for the Wroc aw Second Studio. It contains visual and textual materials from Cynkutis s own private archive, such as diary entries and letters. "Acting with Grotowski "demonstrates the thin line that separates life and art when an artist works with extreme commitment in testing political and social conditions."

Zbigniew Cynkutis writings constitute invaluable testimony of his work with Jerzy Grotowski during the theatre of productions phase and beyond. Cynkutis insights elucidate aspects of the Laboratory Theatre s praxis and provide a unique perspective on the questions most often asked about Grotowski. Authored by one of the Laboratory Theatre s most accomplished actors, this book draws on long-term theatre research and deep knowledge of the craft of acting to offer practical advice indispensable to the professional and aspiring actor alike. The volume offers the English-speaking reader an unprecedented richness of primary source material, which sheds new light on the practical work of one of the most influential theatre directors of the 20th century. Cynkutis voice is sincere and direct, and will continue to inspire new generations of theatre practitioners. " "Dominika Laster, Yale University"

Acting with Grotowski: Theatre as a Field for Experiencing Life" explores the actor-director dynamic through the experience of Zbigniew Cynkutis, one of Polish director Jerzy Grotowski s foremost collaborators. Cynkutis s work as an actor, combined with his later work as a director and theatre manager, gave him a visionary overview based on precise embodied understanding.

Cynkutis s writings yield numerous insights into the commitment needed to make innovative, challenging theatre. A central component of "Acting with Grotowski "is his distinctive approach to training: Conversations with the Body includes a range of techniques and approaches to warming up, rehearsing and creating work from a physical starting point, beautifully illustrated by Bill Ireland.

The book comprises reflections and practical suggestions on a range of subjects theatre and culture, improvisation, ethics, group dynamics, and Cynkutis s vision for the Wroc aw Second Studio. It contains visual and textual materials from Cynkutis s own private archive, such as diary entries and letters. "Acting with Grotowski "demonstrates the thin line that separates life and art when an artist works with extreme commitment in testing political and social conditions."

Live Art is a contested category, not least because of the historical, disciplinary and institutional ambiguities that the term often tends to conceal. Live Art can be usefully defined as a peculiarly British variation on particular legacies of cultural experimentation - a historically and culturally contingent translation of categories including body art, performance art, time-based art, and endurance art. The recent social and cultural history of the UK has involved specific factors that have crucially influenced the development of Live Art since the late 1970s. These have included issues in national cultural politics relating to sexuality, gender, disability, technology, and cultural policy. In the past decade there has been a proliferation of festivals of Live Art in the UK and growing support for Live Art in major venues. Nevertheless, while specific artists have been afforded critical essays and monographs, there is a relative absence of scholarly work on Live Art as a historically and culturally specific mode of artistic production. Through essays by leading scholars and critical interviews with influential artists in the sector, Critical Live Art addresses the historical and cultural specificity of contemporary experimental performance, and explores the diversity of practices that are carried out, programmed, read or taught as Live Art. This book is based on a special issue of Contemporary Theatre Review.

Improvisation is a performance practice that animates and activates diverse energies of inspiration, critique, and invention. In recent years it has coalesced into an exciting and innovative new field of interdisciplinary scholarly inquiry, becoming a cornerstone of both practical and theoretical approaches to performance."

The Improvisation Studies Reader" draws together the works of key artists and thinkers from a range of disciplines, including theatre, music, literature, film, and dance. Divided by keywords into eight sections, this book bridges the gaps between these fields. The book includes case studies, exercises, graphic scores and poems in order to produce a teaching and research resource that identifies central themes in improvisation studies. The sections include:

• Listening
• Trust/Risk
• Flow
• Dissonance
• Responsibility
• Liveness
• Surprise
• Hope

Each section of the Reader is introduced by a newly commissioned think piece by a key figure in the field, which opens up research questions reflecting on the keyword in question.

By placing key theoretical and classic texts in conversation with cutting-edge research and artists statements, this book answers the urgent questions facing improvising artists and theorists in the mediatized Twenty-First Century. "

This book offers a unique Australian perspective on the global crisis in refugee protection. Using performance as both an object and a lens, this volume explores the politics and aesthetics of migration control, border security and refugee resistance. The first half of the book, titled On Stage, examines performance objects such as verbatim and documentary plays, children's theatre, immersive performance, slam poetry, video art and feature films. Specifically, it considers how refugees, and their artistic collaborators, assert their individuality, agency and authority as well as their resistance to cruel policies like offshore processing through performance. The second half of the book, titled Off Stage, employs performance as a lens to analyse the wider field of refugee politics, including the relationship between forced migrants and the forced displacement of First Nations peoples that underpins the settler-colonial state, philosophies of cosmopolitanism, the role of the canon in art history and the spectacle of bordering practices. In doing so, it illuminates the strategic performativity-and nonperformativity-of the law, philosophy, the state and the academy more broadly in the exclusion and control of refugees. Taken together, the chapters in this volume draw on, and contribute to, a wide range of disciplines including theatre and performance studies, cultural studies, border studies and forced migration studies, and will be of great interest to students and scholars in all four fields.

This book provides an engaging and contextualised insight into a South African township-based arts centre that has survived the vicissitudes of steady militarisation in townships during some of the worst years of apartheid as well as the exhilaration of a new democratic policy while attempting to circumnavigate different policies and funding dispensations.

Sibikwa provides arts centres across the world and especially those in decolonising countries with strategies for survival in tumultuous times. This multi-disciplinary book maps and co-ordinates wider historical, political, and social contextual concerns and events with matters specific to a community-based east of Johannesburg and provides an exploration and analysis by experts of authentic theatre-making and performance, dance, indigenous music, arts in education and NGO governance. It has contemporary significance and raises important questions regarding inclusivity and transformation, the function and future of arts centres, community-based applied arts practices, creativity, and international partnerships.

This study will be of great interest to students and scholars in theatre and performance, indigenous music, dance, and South African history.

Table of Contents

List of contributors

Acknowledgements

　

PART 1

Chapter 1. The Political is Personal: Smal Ndaba and Phyllis Klotz in Thumbnail Portraits of Origins and Orientations

Sarah Roberts

Chapter 2. Founding Sibikwa: A Professional Partnership Tempered in the Forge of Apartheid’s Final Years

Sarah Roberts

Chapter 3. Democracy, the First Decade: The Mandela-Mbeki Years (1994-2005)

Sarah Roberts

Chapter 4. The Trouble with Freedom: Mbeki’s Dream of an African Renaissance, Nation-building and Issues Surrounding HIV/AIDS in South Africa

Sarah Roberts

Chapter 5. Issues of Governance, Policy, Delivery, and Accountability Escalate: Sibikwa Responds to Developments in Arts and Culture Policy Documents and with Theatre-in-Education Projects

Sarah Roberts

　

Chapter 6. The Struggle for Social Justice in Confronting Gender-based Violence and Srategies of Intensifying an African Cultural Heritage as the Project Moves into the Future

Sarah Roberts

Appendix :1 A Chronology of Major Political Events, Cultural Developments and Sibikwa Plays

PART II

Chapter 7.Governance of Sibikwa Arts Centre: A Reflection on the Agility, Progress, and Longevity of the Organisation

Munyaradzi Chatikobo and Caryn Green

Chapter 8. Sibikwa’s Educational Programmes

Vanessa Bower and Hazel Barnes

Appendix 2: A Chronology of Educational and Vocational Training Programmes

Chapter 9. Living Proof: Thirty Years of Sibikwa’s Theatre Productions

Sarah Roberts

Appendix 3: A Chronology of Sibikwa Productions

Chapter 10. Celebrating Sibikwa’s Legacy of Dance and Physical Theatre from Community to Professional Dance Development

Clare Craighead and Lliane Loots

Appendix 4: A Chronology of Sibikwa Dance Company Productions and Festivals

Chapter 11. Keeping the African Sound Relevant

Evans Netshivhambe

Appendix 5: A Chronology of Sibikwa’s Music History

Chapter 12. Framing the Intersectional Gender Politics of the Sibikwa Legacy

Lliane Loots

Appendix 6- A Chronology of Gender Based Productions, Festivals and Training

Index

List of Contributors

Phyllis Klotz is the artistic director and co-founder of the Sibikwa Arts Centre in Benoni and has been at the forefront of arts training and development for youth for over 40 years. Her work has always been focused on the empowerment of young black females. She has been and still is involved in developmental theatre and arts education and is recognised as an expert in the development of community arts centres. She is the recipient of several awards for her contribution to South African theatre and has directed and co-written the seminal theatre piece, You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock. She has served on boards of the National Arts Council, State Theatre, CATHSSETA and the Market Theatre. She is also the recipient of the Naledi Lifetime Achievement Award.

Smal Ndaba is the co-founder and managing director of the Sibikwa Arts Centre; as an actor, playwright and director he has toured all over Southern Africa, the USA and Europe and has gained both national and international recognition for his work. He has initiated arts programmes to assist street children and juvenile prisoners; he assists South African and Mozambican community arts centres to build capacity. The majority of plays directed and written by Smal, focus on community issues. Smal has over 30 years’ experience working in the community arts and imparts his knowledge frequently through conducting workshops in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and the USA. He is joint winner of the Naledi Lifetime Achievement Award 2005 with co-director Phyllis Klotz.

Prof Hazel Barnes is retired head of the Drama and Performance Studies Programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg campus where she lectured, researched, performed and directed theatre and also developed the applied drama and theatre option. She was the university orator for a number of years and also assistant Dean. Since retirement she has been a Mellon visiting scholar at the University of Cape Town and visiting lecturer and chair of the research committee of the Drama for Life Programme University of the Witwatersrand. She has written on the use of applied drama with the deaf, for reconciliation and trauma recovery, and on the work of South African playwrights, Greig Coetzee, whose plays she has anthologised, and Mandla Mothwe.

Vanessa Bower studied English and Speech & Drama and taught at various institutions in Cape Town. In 1998 she joined the staff of Sibikwa Community Theatre Project, where she facilitated teacher training programmes for seven years. She was later involved in the Learnership Programmes and subsequently trained a number of artists in arts facilitation at Sibikwa, in preparation for the Artists in Schools Programme. She has published a book on Assessment of Arts & Culture and has produced Creative Arts teacher support manuals for the Gauteng Department of Education. She has also provided training in Workplace Communications.

Munyaradzi Chatikobo is a Lecturer in Drama for Life and Cultural Policy and Management in the Wits School of Arts. He has considerable experience in Cultural Leadership and Arts Management training. His academic and research interests are in Cultural Policy and Management which includes Community Arts, Culture and Development, Cultural and Creative Industries, Culture and Diplomacy as well as Social and Cultural Entrepreneurship. He is a board member for Nhimbe Trust and CHIPAWO Trust in Zimbabwe. He is also a Non-Executive Director of Andani.Africa. He is a registered PhD candidate in the Wits School of Arts and his area of study is Cultural Policy and Community Theatre in South Africa. In 2018 he teamed up with Avril Joffe, Johanna Mavhungu and Annabell Lebethe to author a book chapter on Cultural Governance in South Africa. The chapter appears in a book edited by Ian W King and Annick Schramme titled Cultural Governance in the Global Context; An International Perspective on Arts Organisations (Palgrave).

Clare Craighead has been the company manager to Flatfoot Dance Company for the past 15 years. She holds an MA degree in Drama and Performance Studies from UKZN and has published in Critical Arts, South African Theatre Journal, South African Dance Journal and Agenda: A Journal of Feminist Media. Craighead spearheaded and continues to facilitate the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Festival’s graduate writing residency programme. "JOMBA! KHULUMA". which is an intensive platform that takes graduate students - under festival conditions - through the rigours of reviewing and critically engaging dance. She has also been a contract lecturer/tutor to UKZN’s Drama and Performance Studies and Gender Studies Programmes and has a long-standing position as a moderator for Embury Institute for Education’s "Education and Diversity" module. Currently she is working as a lecturer at Durban University of Technology’s Drama and Production Studies Department.

Dr Lliane Loots holds the position of Lecturer in the Drama and Performance Studies Programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She has a MA degree in Gender Studies and completed her PhD in 2018 looking at contemporary dance/performance histories on the African continent. As an artist/scholar her PhD research is framed within an ethnographic and autoethnographic paradigm with a focus on narrative as methodology. Loots has published widely within this area of academic/praxis enquiry. Loots holds the founding position of Artistic Director for UKZN’s Centre for Creative Arts annual international JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience – a festival that turns 23 in 2021. She has recently completed a 3-year stretch on the National Arts Festival’s Artistic Committee for dance. Loots founded Flatfoot Dance Company as a professional dance company in 2003 when it grew out of a dance training programme that originally began in 1994. As the artistic director and resident choreographer for Flatfoot, she has won numerous national choreographic awards and commissions and has travelled extensively in Europe, America and within the African continent with her dance work. Loots was awarded the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters) by the French government in 2017 for her work in the South African dance sector.

Dr Evans Netshivhambe (ORCiD: 0000-0003-0362-4110) is a young South African composer lecturing in African music at the University of Pretoria with an interest in African music identity through African art composition. His PhD in African music composition incorporates Venda rhythmic elements into African art music, exploring a new 'sound world' through composition. He is currently a lecturer in African music studies, at the University of Pretoria. In 2008, Evans was awarded third prize in a choral music competition held by the Southern African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO), which showcased 20th century choral music style. He also received three commissions from the SAMRO Foundation (in 2010, 2011 and 2012 respectively).

Dr Sarah Roberts’(ORCiD:0000-0002-4383-4668) areer synthesises professional practice with a commitment to education, development and scholarship. Recently retired from the University of the Witwatersrand, where she was an Associate Professor, she has developed and implemented a range of undergraduate courses in cultural studies, performance and design in the Division of Theatre and Performance. Her focus on developing improvisation skills and the agency of actors as an ensemble is documented in publications in the Journal of the Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa and the Journal of Contemporary Drama in English. A multi-award-winning professional production designer, her portfolio includes significant productions emerging from South Africa since 1985 including designing the stage for the Union Building Gardens for President Nelson Mandela’s inauguration in addition to landmark productions across the spectrum of musical theatre, contemporary dance and drama, including Sarafina!, Sophiatown andNothing But the Truth. These productions, including a significant number of Sibikwa productions over the span of thirty years, have been feted nationally and internationally. One of the original Board members of Sibikwa at its inception, she served as a trustee for the project for ten years and has since continued to be closely associated with a range of Sibikwa projects, productions and conferences.

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Jerzy Grotowski's Journeys to the East is an unusual collection of facts, quotations, and commentaries documenting the real and metaphorical journeys of the Polish theatre director and 'teacher of performers' into a geographical and cultural dimension which we used to and still call the Orient. Grotowski's contacts and meetings with the East are placed here in the context of his biography. Painstakingly researched by Grotowski's main biographer Zbigniew Osinski, this book is necessary reading for those interested in Grotowski's deep relationship with the East and in the inspiration he drew from its various cultures. The book will appeal to all readers who feel a need to have a glimpse of the East from the perspective of one of the main theatre reformers in the twentieth century.

Towards a Theory of Mime is a genuinely unique book about non-verbal communication and performance. Combining a broad global history of the evolution of human communication with an introduction to the general practice of mime, Alexander Iliev traces a lineage from Marceau and Barrault to his own distinguished practice as performer and teacher. The book moves from a fascinating description of the first principles of gestural language to a stunning sequence of specific exercises in practical training. Written in a sometimes poetic, always accessible and often humorous style, Towards a Theory of Mime conveys complex ideas in a strikingly accessible way. Alexander Iliev has over forty years experience practising and teaching both theatre and anthropology around the world. He is currently Associate Professor at the National Academy in Sofia.

Towards a Theory of Mime is a genuinely unique book about non-verbal communication and performance. Combining a broad global history of the evolution of human communication with an introduction to the general practice of mime, Alexander Iliev traces a lineage from Marceau and Barrault to his own distinguished practice as performer and teacher. The book moves from a fascinating description of the first principles of gestural language to a stunning sequence of specific exercises in practical training. Written in a sometimes poetic, always accessible and often humorous style, Towards a Theory of Mime conveys complex ideas in a strikingly accessible way. Alexander Iliev has over forty years experience practising and teaching both theatre and anthropology around the world. He is currently Associate Professor at the National Academy in Sofia.

This edited collection charts the development of contemporary dance in Central and Eastern Europe since the literal and symbolic revolutions of 1989. Central Europe and the former Soviet Bloc countries were a major presence in dance - particularly theatrical dance - throughout the twentieth century. With the fragmentation of traditional structures in the final decade of the century came a range of aesthetic and ideological responses from dance practitioners. These ranged from attempts to reform classical ballet to struggles for autonomy from the state, and the nature of each was influenced by a set of contexts and circumstances particular to each country. Each contribution covers the strategies of a different country's dance practitioners, using a similar structure in order to invite comparisons. In general, they address: Historical context, showing the roots of contemporary dance forms The socio-political climates that influenced emerging companies and forms The relationships between aesthetic exploration and institutional patronage The practitioners who were central to the development of dance in each country A diagnosis of the current state of the art and how it has come about The book's main through-line is the concept of community, and how all of the different approaches that it documents have in some way engaged with this notion, consciously or otherwise. This can take the form of oppositional relationships, institutional formations, or literally, in identifiable communities of dancers and choreographers.

This edited collection charts the development of contemporary dance in Central and Eastern Europe since the literal and symbolic revolutions of 1989. Central Europe and the former Soviet Bloc countries were a major presence in dance - particularly theatrical dance - throughout the twentieth century. With the fragmentation of traditional structures in the final decade of the century came a range of aesthetic and ideological responses from dance practitioners. These ranged from attempts to reform classical ballet to struggles for autonomy from the state, and the nature of each was influenced by a set of contexts and circumstances particular to each country. Each contribution covers the strategies of a different country's dance practitioners, using a similar structure in order to invite comparisons. In general, they address: Historical context, showing the roots of contemporary dance forms The socio-political climates that influenced emerging companies and forms The relationships between aesthetic exploration and institutional patronage The practitioners who were central to the development of dance in each country A diagnosis of the current state of the art and how it has come about The book's main through-line is the concept of community, and how all of the different approaches that it documents have in some way engaged with this notion, consciously or otherwise. This can take the form of oppositional relationships, institutional formations, or literally, in identifiable communities of dancers and choreographers.

In recent years we have witnessed an increasing convergence of work in International Politics and Performance Studies around the troubled, and often troubling, relationship between politics and aesthetics. Whilst examination of political aesthetics, aesthetic politics, and politics of aesthetic practice has been central to research in both disciplines for some time, the emergence of a distinctive 'performative turn' in International Politics and a critical return to the centrality of politics and the concept of 'the political' in Performance Studies highlights the importance of investigating the productivity of bringing the methods and approaches of the two fields of enquiry into dialogue and mutual relation. Exploring a wide range of issues including rioting, youth-driven protests, border security practices and the significance of cultural awareness in war, this text provides an accessible and cutting edge survey of the intersection of international politics and performance examining issues surrounding the politics of appearance, image, event and place; and discusses the development and deployment of innovative critical and creative research methods, from auto-ethnography to site-specific theatre-making, from philosophical aesthetics to the aesthetic thought of new securities scenario-planning. The book's focus throughout is on the materiality of performance practices-on the politics of making, spectating, and participating in a variety of modes as political actors and audiences-whilst also seeking to explicate the performative dynamics of creative and critical thinking. Structured thematically and framed by a detailed introduction and conclusion, the focus is on producing a dialogue between contributors and providing an essential reference point in this developing field. This work is essential reading for students of politics and performance and will be of great interest to students and scholars of IR, performance studies and cultural studies.

In recent years we have witnessed an increasing convergence of work in International Politics and Performance Studies around the troubled, and often troubling, relationship between politics and aesthetics. Whilst examination of political aesthetics, aesthetic politics, and politics of aesthetic practice has been central to research in both disciplines for some time, the emergence of a distinctive 'performative turn' in International Politics and a critical return to the centrality of politics and the concept of 'the political' in Performance Studies highlights the importance of investigating the productivity of bringing the methods and approaches of the two fields of enquiry into dialogue and mutual relation. Exploring a wide range of issues including rioting, youth-driven protests, border security practices and the significance of cultural awareness in war, this text provides an accessible and cutting edge survey of the intersection of international politics and performance examining issues surrounding the politics of appearance, image, event and place; and discusses the development and deployment of innovative critical and creative research methods, from auto-ethnography to site-specific theatre-making, from philosophical aesthetics to the aesthetic thought of new securities scenario-planning. The book's focus throughout is on the materiality of performance practices-on the politics of making, spectating, and participating in a variety of modes as political actors and audiences-whilst also seeking to explicate the performative dynamics of creative and critical thinking. Structured thematically and framed by a detailed introduction and conclusion, the focus is on producing a dialogue between contributors and providing an essential reference point in this developing field. This work is essential reading for students of politics and performance and will be of great interest to students and scholars of IR, performance studies and cultural studies.

What is artistic resonance and how can it be linked to one's life and one's art? This latest book of essays from legendary theatre director Anne Bogart, considers the creation of resonance in the artistic endeavour, with a focus on the performing arts. The word 'resonance' comes from the Latin meaning to 're-sound' or 'sound together'. From music to physics, resonance is a common thread that evokes a response and, in general, is understood as a quality that makes something personally meaningful and valuable. For Bogart, curiosity is a key personal quality to be nurtured throughout life and that very same curiosity, as an artist, thinker and human being. Creating pathways between performance theory, art history, neuroscience, music, architecture and the visual arts, and consistently forging new thought-paths, the writing draws upon Anne Bogart's own life and artistic journeys to illuminate potent philosophical ideas. Woven with personal anecdotes, stories and reflections, this is a book that will be of interest to any theatre artist and anyone who reflects on the power of the arts, of theatre-making and what it means to be engaged in the artistic process.

Live Art is a contested category, not least because of the historical, disciplinary and institutional ambiguities that the term often tends to conceal. Live Art can be usefully defined as a peculiarly British variation on particular legacies of cultural experimentation - a historically and culturally contingent translation of categories including body art, performance art, time-based art, and endurance art. The recent social and cultural history of the UK has involved specific factors that have crucially influenced the development of Live Art since the late 1970s. These have included issues in national cultural politics relating to sexuality, gender, disability, technology, and cultural policy. In the past decade there has been a proliferation of festivals of Live Art in the UK and growing support for Live Art in major venues. Nevertheless, while specific artists have been afforded critical essays and monographs, there is a relative absence of scholarly work on Live Art as a historically and culturally specific mode of artistic production. Through essays by leading scholars and critical interviews with influential artists in the sector, Critical Live Art addresses the historical and cultural specificity of contemporary experimental performance, and explores the diversity of practices that are carried out, programmed, read or taught as Live Art. This book is based on a special issue of Contemporary Theatre Review.

This volume focuses on the highly debated topic of theatrical translation, one brought on by a renewed interest in the idea of performance and translation as a cooperative effort on the part of the translator, the director, and the actors. Exploring the role and function of the translator as co-subject of the performance, it addresses current issues concerning the role of the translator for the stage, as opposed to the one for the editorial market, within a multifarious cultural context. The current debate has shown a growing tendency to downplay and challenge the notion of translational accuracy in favor of a recreational and post-dramatic attitude, underlying the role of the director and playwright instead. This book discusses the delicate balance between translating and directing from an intercultural, semiotic, aesthetic, and interlingual perspective, taking a critical stance on approaches that belittle translation for the theatre or equate it to an editorial practice focused on literality. Chapters emphasize the idea of dramatic translation as a particular and extremely challenging type of performance, while consistently exploring its various textual, intertextual, intertranslational, contextual, cultural, and intercultural facets. The notion of performance is applied to textual interpretation as performance, interlingual versus intersemiotic performance, and (inter)cultural performance in the adaptation of translated texts for the stage, providing a wide-ranging discussion from an international group of contributors, directors, and translators.

Les Waters is a master director who has worked with many of the most important American theatre artists of the 21st century. A thorough examination of his creative practice and body of work amounts to a picture of American theatre in our time. While collaboration is promoted and celebrated in practical theatre courses and professional training programs far and wide, this book offers concrete and situation-specific examples of how accomplished theatre artists have grapple with the challenges of creating together. The book features writing from the full spectrum of professional disciplines (actors, designers, stage managers, and dramaturgs, as well as directors and playwrights).