Inside The Performance Workshop: A Sourcebook for Rasaboxes and Other Exercises is the first full-length volume dedicated to the history, theory, practice, and application of a suite of performer training exercises developed by Richard Schechner and elaborated by the editors and contributors. This work began in the 1960s with The Performance Group, and has continued to evolve. Rasaboxes - a featured set of exercises - is an interdisciplinary approach for training emotional expressivity through the use of breath, body, voice, movement, and sensation. It brings together: the concept of rasa from classical Indian performance theory and practice research on emotion from neuroscience and psychology experimental performance practices theories of ritual, play, and performance This book combines both practical 'how-to' guidance, and applications in diverse contexts including undergraduate and graduate actor training, television acting, K-12 education, devising, and drama therapy. The book serves as an introduction to the work as well as an essential resource for experienced practitioners.

Inside The Performance Workshop: A Sourcebook for Rasaboxes and Other Exercises is the first full-length volume dedicated to the history, theory, practice, and application of a suite of performer training exercises developed by Richard Schechner and elaborated by the editors and contributors. This work began in the 1960s with The Performance Group, and has continued to evolve. Rasaboxes - a featured set of exercises - is an interdisciplinary approach for training emotional expressivity through the use of breath, body, voice, movement, and sensation. It brings together: the concept of rasa from classical Indian performance theory and practice research on emotion from neuroscience and psychology experimental performance practices theories of ritual, play, and performance This book combines both practical 'how-to' guidance, and applications in diverse contexts including undergraduate and graduate actor training, television acting, K-12 education, devising, and drama therapy. The book serves as an introduction to the work as well as an essential resource for experienced practitioners.

What is physical dramaturgy? While the traditional dramaturg shares research intellectually, the physical dramaturg does so viscerally and somatically. By combining elements of text, history, dramatic structure, and the author's intent with movement analysis and physical theatre pedagogies, the physical dramaturg gives actors the opportunity to manifest their work in a connected and intuitive manner and creates a field that is as varied and rich as the theatre itself. Physical Dramaturgy: Perspectives from the Field explores the ways in which this unique role can benefit the production team during the design and rehearsal phases of both traditional and devised productions. Individual chapters look at new ways of approaching a wealth of physical worlds, from the works of Shakespeare and other period playwrights to the processes of Jerzy Grotowski, Lloyd Williamson, Richard Schechner, and Michael Chekhov, and devising original works in a variety of contexts from Pig Iron, Dell'Arte International, Bill Bowers and mime, Tectonic Theater Project, and Liz Lerman's Dance Exchange. This anthology gives dramaturgs, actors, and directors new ways of looking at existing methods and provides examples of how to translate, combine, and adapt them into new explorations for training, rehearsal, or research.

What is physical dramaturgy? While the traditional dramaturg shares research intellectually, the physical dramaturg does so viscerally and somatically. By combining elements of text, history, dramatic structure, and the author's intent with movement analysis and physical theatre pedagogies, the physical dramaturg gives actors the opportunity to manifest their work in a connected and intuitive manner and creates a field that is as varied and rich as the theatre itself. Physical Dramaturgy: Perspectives from the Field explores the ways in which this unique role can benefit the production team during the design and rehearsal phases of both traditional and devised productions. Individual chapters look at new ways of approaching a wealth of physical worlds, from the works of Shakespeare and other period playwrights to the processes of Jerzy Grotowski, Lloyd Williamson, Richard Schechner, and Michael Chekhov, and devising original works in a variety of contexts from Pig Iron, Dell'Arte International, Bill Bowers and mime, Tectonic Theater Project, and Liz Lerman's Dance Exchange. This anthology gives dramaturgs, actors, and directors new ways of looking at existing methods and provides examples of how to translate, combine, and adapt them into new explorations for training, rehearsal, or research.

During the week before Labor Day every year, 35,000 people gather in Nevada's Black Rock Desert and build Black Rock City. At the center of Black Rock City is a 40-foot wooden effigy of a man, an icon around which art, performance, and community revolve. Since 1986, the Burning Man Festival named for this effigy has evolved from founder Larry Harvey's personal healing ritual into a cultural movement where ceremony, religion, visual art, and performance converge on an epic scale.

In "On the Edge of Utopia," Rachel Bowditch-- performer, theatre director, scholar, and Burning Man participant--explores the spectrum of performance and ritual practices within Black Rock City from the everyday to wild spectacle, the profane to the sublime. Bowditch argues that Burning Man can be understood as a contemporary galaxy of happenings, a revival of the ancient Roman Saturnalia, a site for rehearsals of utopia, and a secular pilgrimage. As Burning Man continues to grow, it will create new paradigms for performance, installation art, community, and invented rituals that bridge ancient traditions to the twenty-first century.

In her landmark study Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theatre, Jill Dolan departed from historical writings on utopia, which suggest that social reorganization and the redistribution of wealth are utopian efforts, to argue instead that utopia occurs in fragmentary "utopian moments," often found embedded within performance. While Dolan focused on the utopian performative within a theatrical context, this volume, edited by Rachel Bowditch and Pegge Vissicaro, expands her theories to encompass performance in public life from diasporic hip-hop battles, Chilean military parades, commemorative processions, Blackfoot powwows, and post-Katrina Mardi Gras to the Philadelphia Mummers Parade, Festas Juninas in Brazil, the Renaissance Fairs in Arizona, and neoburlesque competitions. How do these performances rehearse and enact visions of a utopic world? What can the lens of utopia and dystopia illuminate about the potential of performing bodies to transform communities, identities, values, and beliefs across time? Performing Utopia not only answers these questions, but offers a diverse collection of case studies focusing on utopias, dystopias, and heterotopias enacted through the performing body.