In this collection of essays, performance studies scholar and artist Richard Schechner brings his unique perspective to bear upon some of the key themes of society in the 21st century.

Schechner connects the avantgarde and terror, the counter-cultural movement of the 1960s/70s and the Occupy movement; self-wounding art, popular culture, and ritual; the Ramlila cycle play of India and the way imagination structures reality; the corporate world and conservative artists. Schechner asks artists to redeploy Nehru's Third World as a movement not of nations but of like-minded culture workers who must propose counter-performances to war, violence, and the globalized corporate empire.

With characteristic brio, Schechner urges us to play for keeps. "Playing deeply is a way of finding and embodying new knowledge," he writes."

A New Third World of Performance "ranges through some of the key moves within Schechner s oeuvre, and challenges today s experimental artists, activists, and scholars to generate a new, third world of performance. "

In this collection of essays, performance studies scholar and artist Richard Schechner brings his unique perspective to bear upon some of the key themes of society in the 21st century.

Schechner connects the avantgarde and terror, the counter-cultural movement of the 1960s/70s and the Occupy movement; self-wounding art, popular culture, and ritual; the Ramlila cycle play of India and the way imagination structures reality; the corporate world and conservative artists. Schechner asks artists to redeploy Nehru's Third World as a movement not of nations but of like-minded culture workers who must propose counter-performances to war, violence, and the globalized corporate empire.

With characteristic brio, Schechner urges us to play for keeps. "Playing deeply is a way of finding and embodying new knowledge," he writes."

A New Third World of Performance "ranges through some of the key moves within Schechner s oeuvre, and challenges today s experimental artists, activists, and scholars to generate a new, third world of performance. "

In The Future of Ritual, Richard Schechner explores the nature of ritualised behaviour and its relationship to performance and politics. A brilliant and uncontainable examination of cultural expression and communal action, The Future of Ritual asks pertinent questions about art, theatre and the changing meaning of 'culture' in today's intercultural world. An exciting new work by the author of Performance Theory.

Richard Schechner's pioneering textbook is a lively, accessible overview of the full range of performance, with primary extracts, student activities, key biographies, and over 200 images of global performance. The publication of Performance Studies: An Introduction was a defining moment for the field. This fourth edition has been revised with two new chapters, up-to-date coverage of global and intercultural performances, and an in-depth exploration of the growing international importance of performance studies. Among the book's topics are the performing arts and popular entertainments, rituals, play and games, social media, the performances of the paleolithic period, and the performances of everyday life. Supporting examples and ideas are drawn from the social sciences, performing arts, poststructuralism, ritual theory, ethology, philosophy, and aesthetics. Performance Studies: An Introduction features the broadest and most in-depth analysis possible. Performance Studies: An Introduction is the definitive overview for undergraduates at all levels and beginning graduate students in performance studies, the performing arts, and cultural studies. This new edition is also supported by a fully updated companion website, offering a variety of interactive resources, teaching tools, and research links.

This is the first volume to provide a comprehensive overview of the phases of Jerzy Grotowski's long and multi-faceted career. The Grotowski Sourcebook assembles materials that have appeared in diverse publications and languages over a period of more than 30 years. The sourcebook features:
* international contributions from all the key performance theorists to have worked on Grotowski, including Eugenio Barba, Peter Brook, Jan Kott, Eric Bentley and Jennifer Kumiega
* writings which trace every phase of Grotowski's development, from his 'theatre of productions', through 'paratheatre' and 'theatre of sources' to 'objective drama' and 'art as vehicle'
* a unique collection of Grotowski's own writings plus an interview with his closest collaborator and 'heir' Thomas Richards
* a vast range of stunning photographic documentation of Grotowski and his followers in action
* a historical-critical study of Grotowski by Richard Schechner, published here for the first time.

In The Future of Ritual, Richard Schechner explores the nature of ritualised behaviour and its relationship to performance and politics. A brilliant and uncontainable examination of cultural expression and communal action, The Future of Ritual asks pertinent questions about art, theatre and the changing meaning of 'culture' in today's intercultural world. An exciting new work by the author of Performance Theory.

Few have had quite as much impact in both the academy and in the world of theatre production as Richard Schechner. For more than four decades his work has challenged conventional definitions of theatre, ritual and performance. When this seminal collection first appeared, Schechner's approach was not only novel, it was revolutionary: drama is not just something that occurs on stage, but something that happens in everyday life, full of meaning, and on many different levels. Within these pages he examines the connections between Western and non-Western cultures, theatre and dance, anthropology, ritual, performance in everyday life, rites of passage, play, psychotherapy and shamanism.

In performances by Euro-Americans, Afro-Americans, Native Americans, and Asians, Richard Schechner has examined carefully the details of performative behavior and has developed models of the performance process useful not only to persons in the arts but to anthropologists, play theorists, and others fascinated (but perhaps terrified) by the multichannel realities of the postmodern world.Schechner argues that in failing to see the structure of the whole theatrical process, anthropologists in particular have neglected close analogies between performance behavior and ritual. The way performances are created--in training, workshops, and rehearsals--is the key paradigm for social process.

This acclaimed volume is the first to provide a comprehensive overview of Jerzy Grotowski's long and multi-faceted career. It is essential reading for anyone interested in Grotowski's life and work.
Edited by the two leading experts on Grotowski, the sourcebook features:
*essays from the key performance theorists who worked with Grotowski, including Eugenio Barba, Peter Brook, Jan Kott, Eric Bentley, Harold Clurman, and Charles Marowitz
*writings which trace every phase of Grotowski's career from his 'theatre of production' to 'objective drama' and 'art as vehicle'
*a wide-ranging collection of Grotowski's own writings, plus an interview with his closest collaborator and 'heir', Thomas Richards
*an array of photographs documenting Grotowski and his followers in action
*a historical-critical study of Grotowski by Richard Schechner.

Richard Schechner's pioneering textbook is a lively, accessible overview of the full range of performance, with primary extracts, student activities, key biographies, and over 200 images of global performance.

The publication of Performance Studies: An Introduction was a defining moment for the field. This fourth edition has been revised with two new chapters, up-to-date coverage of global and intercultural performances, and an in-depth exploration of the growing international importance of performance studies. Among the book’s topics are the performing arts and popular entertainments, rituals, play and games, social media, the performances of the paleolithic period, and the performances of everyday life. Supporting examples and ideas are drawn from the social sciences, performing arts, poststructuralism, ritual theory, ethology, philosophy, and aesthetics. Performance Studies: An Introduction features the broadest and most in-depth analysis possible.

Performance Studies: An Introduction is the definitive overview for undergraduates at all levels and beginning graduate students in performance studies, the performing arts, and cultural studies.

This new edition is also supported by a fully updated companion website, offering a variety of interactive resources, teaching tools, and research links.

Table of Contents

Preface Acknowledgements Margin Icons 1. WHAT IS PERFORMANCE? 2. WHAT IS PERFORMANCE STUDIES? 3. PERFORMANCE PROCESSES 4. THE BROAD SPECTRUM OF PERFORMANCE 5. RITUAL 6. PLAY 7. PERFORMING IN THE PALEOLITHIC 8. PERFORMATIVITY 9. SOCIAL MEDIA 10. INTERCULTURAL AND GLOBAL PERFORMANCES Bibliography Index

New Russian Drama took shape at the turn of the new millennium-a time of turbulent social change in Russia and the former Soviet republics. Emerging from small playwriting festivals, provincial theaters, and converted basements, it evolved into a major artistic movement that startled audiences with hypernaturalistic portrayals of sex and violence, daring use of non-normative language, and thrilling experiments with genre and form. The movement's commitment to investigating contemporary reality helped revitalize Russian theater. It also provoked confrontations with traditionalists in society and places of power, making theater once again Russia's most politicized art form. This anthology offers an introduction to New Russian Drama through plays that illustrate the versatility and global relevance of this exciting movement. Many of them address pressing social issues, such as ethnic tensions and political disillusionment; others engage with Russia's rich cultural legacy by reimagining traditional genres and canons. Among them are a family drama about Anton Chekhov, a modern production play in which factory workers compose haiku, and a satirical verse play about the treatment of migrant workers, as well a documentary play about a terrorist school siege and a postdramatic "text" that is only two sentences long. Both politically and aesthetically uncompromising, they chart new paths for performance in the twenty-first century. Acquainting English-language readers with these vital works, New Russian Drama challenges us to reflect on the status and mission of the theater.

New Russian Drama took shape at the turn of the new millennium-a time of turbulent social change in Russia and the former Soviet republics. Emerging from small playwriting festivals, provincial theaters, and converted basements, it evolved into a major artistic movement that startled audiences with hypernaturalistic portrayals of sex and violence, daring use of non-normative language, and thrilling experiments with genre and form. The movement's commitment to investigating contemporary reality helped revitalize Russian theater. It also provoked confrontations with traditionalists in society and places of power, making theater once again Russia's most politicized art form. This anthology offers an introduction to New Russian Drama through plays that illustrate the versatility and global relevance of this exciting movement. Many of them address pressing social issues, such as ethnic tensions and political disillusionment; others engage with Russia's rich cultural legacy by reimagining traditional genres and canons. Among them are a family drama about Anton Chekhov, a modern production play in which factory workers compose haiku, and a satirical verse play about the treatment of migrant workers, as well a documentary play about a terrorist school siege and a postdramatic "text" that is only two sentences long. Both politically and aesthetically uncompromising, they chart new paths for performance in the twenty-first century. Acquainting English-language readers with these vital works, New Russian Drama challenges us to reflect on the status and mission of the theater.

"There is an actual, living relationship between the spaces of the body and the spaces the body moves through; human living tissue does not abruptly stop at the skin, exercises with space are built on the assumption that human beings and space are both alive". Here are the exercises which began as radical departures from standard actor training etiquette and which stand now as classic means through which the performer discovers his or her true power of transformation. Available for the first time in fifteen years, the new expanded edition of Environmental Theater offers a new generation of theater artists the gospel according to Richard Schechner, the guru whose principles and influence have survived a quarter-century of reaction and debate.

Few have had quite as much impact in both the academy and in the world of theatre production as Richard Schechner. For more than four decades his work has challenged conventional definitions of theatre, ritual and performance. When this seminal collection first appeared, Schechner's approach was not only novel, it was revolutionary: drama is not just something that occurs on stage, but something that happens in everyday life, full of meaning, and on many different levels. Within these pages he examines the connections between Western and non-Western cultures, theatre and dance, anthropology, ritual, performance in everyday life, rites of passage, play, psychotherapy and shamanism.

The field of performance studies covers all kinds of performance behavior in all contexts. This volume investigates performance behavior in a variety of circumstances and cultures. The contributors consider such issues as the relationship between training and the finished performance; whether performance behavior is universal or culturally specific; and the relationships among ritual and aesthetics, popular entertainment and religion, and sports and theater and dance.