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The experiences of a diverse range of progressive theater and
performance makers in their own words. Curated stories from over 75
interviews and informal exchanges offer insight into the field and
point out limitations due to discrimination and unequal opportunity
for performance artists in the United States over the past 55
years. In this work, performers, often unknown beyond their
immediate audience, articulate diverse influences. They also
reflect on how artists are educated and supported, what content is
deemed valuable and how it is brought to bear, as well as which
audiences are welcome and whether cross-community exchange is
encouraged. The book's voices bring the reader from 1965 through
the first wave of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020. They point to more
diverse and inclusive practices and give hope for the future of the
art.
Engaging Performance: Theatre as Call and Response presents a
combined analysis and workbook to examine "socially engaged
performance." It offers a range of key practical approaches,
exercises, and principles for using performance to engage in a
variety of social and artistic projects. Author Jan Cohen-Cruz
draws on a career of groundbreaking research and work within the
fields of political, applied, and community theatre to explore the
impact of how differing genres of theatre respond to social
"calls." Areas highlighted include: playwrighting and the engaged
artist theatre of the oppressed performance as testimonial the
place of engaged art in cultural organizing the use of local
resources in engaged art revitalizing cities and neighborhoods
through engaged performance training of the engaged artist.
Cohen-Cruz also draws on the work of major theoreticians, including
Bertolt Brecht, Augusto Boal, and Doreen Massey, as well as
analyzing in-depth case studies of the work of US practitioners
today to illustrate engaged performance in action. Jan Cohen-Cruz
is director of Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public
Life. She is the author of Local Acts: Community-based Performance
in the US; the editor of Radical Street Performance; co-editor,
with Mady Schutzman, of Playing Boal: Theatre, Therapy, Activism
and A Boal Companion; and a University Professor at Syracuse
University.
Street performance has long been a staple of radical and visionary
political movements. Typically, theater transports an audience to a
reality apart from the everyday. Radical street performance strives
to transport everyday reality to something more ideal. Because the
spectators are not necessarily predisposed to theater-going, it
takes place in public spaces and is usually free of charge.
Potentially, street performance creates a bridge between imagined
and real actions, , often facilitated by staging the event at the
very sites of power the performers seek to transform.
"Radical Street Performance" is the first volume to collect the
fascinating array of writings by activists, directors, performers,
critics, scholars and journalists who have documented political
performance in streets around the world. These essays look at
performance in Europe, Africa, China, India and both of the
Americas, and describe engagements with issues as diverse as
abortion, colonialism, the environment and homophobia, to name only
a sampling. Including coverage of the highly performative political
activities of organizations such as ACT-UP and Greenpeace, the
public spectacle of Abbie Hoffman's political radicalism, and the
writings of Tolstoy, this is truly a new kind of primer for the
study of politics and performance.
"Radical Street Performance" is an inspirational testimony to this
international performance tradition, and a valuable record of a
form of theater that continues to flourish in an increasingly
apolitical and televisual age. Contributors: Eugenio Barba, Augusto
Boal, Dwight Conquergood, Abbie Hoffman, Baz Kershaw, Nellie
Richard, Richard Schechner, Diana Taylor, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, David
Welch.
Playing Boal is the first book to examine the techniques in application of Augusto Boal, creator of Theatre of the Oppressed and internationally renowned Brazilian theatre maker and political activist. Boal's work is becoming famous, say the editors of this volume, for its ability to effect change on both a personal and social level. But what happens to the techniques when they are used in different contexts? Playing Boal looks at the use of the Theatre of the Oppressed exercises by a variety of practitioners and scholars working in Europe, North America and Canada. It explores the possibilities of these tools for 'active learning and personal empowerment, cooperative education and healing, participatory theatre and community action.' A fascinating collection in itself, Playing Boal will illuminate and invigorate discussion about Augusto Boal's work and the transformative potential of theatre. It includes two interviews with Boal and two pieces of his own writing, making it the most comprehensive and in-depth volume on Augosto Boal's work to date.
Completing a trilogy of works by Jan Cohen-Cruz, Remapping
Performance focuses on the work of artists and experts who
collaborate across fields to address social issues. The book
explores work of a range of artists who employ artistic training,
methodologies and mind-sets in their work with experts from other
sectors such as medicine and healthcare and from other disciplines,
to draw an expanded map of performance platforms including
university/ community partnerships, neighbourhood-bases, and
cultural diplomacy. Case studies include ArtSpot Productions/Mondo
Bizarro's Cry You One about climate change in southern Louisiana,
incorporating theatrics and organizing; Michael Rohd/Sojourn
Theatre's social and civic practices; Anne Basting's University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee-based integration of performance and creative
aging; and the collaborative cultural diplomacy experiment,
smARTpower. Short companion pieces add expertise from Helen
Nicholson, Todd London, Julie Thompson Klein, Nancy Cantor, Maria
Rosario Jackson, and Penny Von Eschen. Jan Cohen-Cruz ends with
suggestions for fully integrating performance in cross-sector
initiatives. This latest book by a leading figure in engaged/
applied theatre and performance builds on its predecessors by
offering a future-oriented perspective, a vision of art and
performance interacting with a range of social sectors and with an
emphasis on HE in such partnerships, and will be a 'must-read' for
all students and scholars working in this field.
Radical Street Performance is the first volume to collect together the fascinating array of writings by activists, directors, performers, critics, scholars and journalists who have documented street theatre around the world. More than thirty essays explore the myriad forms this most public of performances can take: * agit-prop * invisible theatre * demonstrations and rallies * direct action * puppetry * parades and pageants * performance art * guerrilla theatre * circuses These essays look at performaces in Europe, Africa, China, India and both the Americas. They describe engagement with issues as diverse as abortion, colonialism, the environment and homophobia, to name only a few. Introduced by editor Jan Cohen-Cruz, the essays are organized into thematic sections: Agitating; Witnessing; Involving; Imagining; and Popularizing. Radical Street Performance is an inspiring testimony to this international performance phenomenon, and an invaluable record of a form of theatre which continues to flourish in a televisual age.
Ensemble theater is one of the vibrant, meaningful American
performance forms today. It's more than art- it's a social
movement. Ensemble theater is one of the hottest, most engaging
American performance forms today. It's more than art- it's a
movement. Performing Communities is an inquiry into a genre of
theater that arises from and empowers the grassroots. The book
profiles established ensemble groups from inner-city Los Angeles,
small-town northern California, African-American South,
multicultural southern Texas, low-income central Appalachia,
economically struggling South Bronx New York, and cross-continental
Native America. This compendium of critical writing about the role
these theaters play in building community shows how these artist
groups are forged by working in and with their communities over
time. Ensemble theater is discovered to be neither alternative nor
marginalized, but vanguard, a natural evolution of the movement
that propelled regional theater "away from the commercial
restraints of New York and toward a theater expressive of the rich
diversity of American culture." It is theater that is politically
and emotionally charged. It can be cathartic, healing, and has a
proven ability to effect social change. The book Performing
Communities is a project of the Community Arts Network. It has been
created from interviews, analytical essays, and play excerpts from
the "Grassroots Theater Ensemble Research Project," an inquiry into
American ensemble theaters that have been working in communities
for 10 to 35 years. Although originating from a scholarly report,
the language has been edited for a popular audience and offers an
intimate glimpse into each local ensemble community. The book will
appeal to followers of contemporary and popular theater, social
change activists, community building specialists, and a public
curious about cultural development in the United States.
Engaging Performance: Theatre as Call and Response presents a
combined analysis and workbook to examine "socially engaged
performance." It offers a range of key practical approaches,
exercises, and principles for using performance to engage in a
variety of social and artistic projects. Author Jan Cohen-Cruz
draws on a career of groundbreaking research and work within the
fields of political, applied, and community theatre to explore the
impact of how differing genres of theatre respond to social
"calls." Areas highlighted include: playwrighting and the engaged
artist theatre of the oppressed performance as testimonial the
place of engaged art in cultural organizing the use of local
resources in engaged art revitalizing cities and neighborhoods
through engaged performance training of the engaged artist.
Cohen-Cruz also draws on the work of major theoreticians, including
Bertolt Brecht, Augusto Boal, and Doreen Massey, as well as
analyzing in-depth case studies of the work of US practitioners
today to illustrate engaged performance in action. Jan Cohen-Cruz
is director of Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public
Life. She is the author of Local Acts: Community-based Performance
in the US; the editor of Radical Street Performance; co-editor,
with Mady Schutzman, of Playing Boal: Theatre, Therapy, Activism
and A Boal Companion; and a University Professor at Syracuse
University.
Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) is often referred to as a body of
theatrical techniques. Yet this does not do justice to the rich
contribution of Brazilian theatre director Augusto Boal, TO's
founder and innovator of over 40 years.
"A Boal Companion" explores performative and cultural ideas and
practices that inform Boal's work by putting them alongside those
from related disciplines. Contributors in this anthology put TO
into dialogue with complexity theory, Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel
Levinas, race theory, feminist performance art, Deleuze and
Guattari, and liberation psychology -- to name just a few. In this
way, kinship between Boal's project and multiple fields including
social psychology, ethics, biology, comedy, trauma studies, and
political science is made visible.
This collection not only expands the knowledge of TO practitioners
and scholars but invites into TO those readers unfamiliar with
Boal's work whose primary interests lie in one of the related
disciplines addressed in these essays. The ideas generated
throughout the collection will:
- Expand readers' understanding of TO as a complex,
interdisciplinary, multi-vocal body of philosophical
discourses
- Provide a variety of lenses through which to practice and
critique TO
- Make explicit the relationships between TO and other bodies of
work.
The experiences of a diverse range of progressive theater and
performance makers in their own words. Curated stories from over 75
interviews and informal exchanges offer insight into the field and
point out limitations due to discrimination and unequal opportunity
for performance artists in the United States over the past 55
years. In this work, performers, often unknown beyond their
immediate audience, articulate diverse influences. They also
reflect on how artists are educated and supported, what content is
deemed valuable and how it is brought to bear, as well as which
audiences are welcome and whether cross-community exchange is
encouraged. The book's voices bring the reader from 1965 through
the first wave of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020. They point to more
diverse and inclusive practices and give hope for the future of the
art.
Ensemble theater is one of the vibrant, meaningful American
performance forms today. It's more than art- it's a social
movement. Ensemble theater is one of the hottest, most engaging
American performance forms today. It's more than art- it's a
movement. Performing Communities is an inquiry into a genre of
theater that arises from and empowers the grassroots. The book
profiles established ensemble groups from inner-city Los Angeles,
small-town northern California, African-American South,
multicultural southern Texas, low-income central Appalachia,
economically struggling South Bronx New York, and cross-continental
Native America. This compendium of critical writing about the role
these theaters play in building community shows how these artist
groups are forged by working in and with their communities over
time. Ensemble theater is discovered to be neither alternative nor
marginalized, but vanguard, a natural evolution of the movement
that propelled regional theater "away from the commercial
restraints of New York and toward a theater expressive of the rich
diversity of American culture." It is theater that is politically
and emotionally charged. It can be cathartic, healing, and has a
proven ability to effect social change. The book Performing
Communities is a project of the Community Arts Network. It has been
created from interviews, analytical essays, and play excerpts from
the "Grassroots Theater Ensemble Research Project," an inquiry into
American ensemble theaters that have been working in communities
for 10 to 35 years. Although originating from a scholarly report,
the language has been edited for a popular audience and offers an
intimate glimpse into each local ensemble community. The book will
appeal to followers of contemporary and popular theater, social
change activists, community building specialists, and a public
curious about cultural development in the United States.
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