Performance Studies in Motion offers multiple perspectives on the current field of performance studies and suggests its future directions. Featuring new essays by pioneers Richard Schechner and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, and by international scholars and practitioners, it shows how performance can offer a new way of seeing the world, and testifies to the dynamism of this discipline. Beginning with an overview of the development of performance studies, the essays offer new insights into: contemporary experimental and postdramatic theatre; participatory performance and museum exhibitions; the performance of politicians, political institutions and grassroots protest movements; theatricality at war and in contemporary religious rituals, and performative practices in therapy, education and life sciences. Employing original reflexive approaches to concrete case studies and situations, contributors introduce a variety of applications of performance studies methodologies to contemporary culture, art and society, creating new interdisciplinary links between the arts, humanities, and social and natural sciences. With studies from and about places as diverse as Austria, Belgium, China, France, Germany, Israel, Korea, Palestine, the Philippines, Poland, Rwanda and the USA, Performance Studies in Motion showcases the vitality and breadth of the field today.

This book examines the relations between Western religion, secularism, and modern theatre and performance. Sharon Aronson-Lehavi posits that the ongoing cultural power of religious texts, icons, and ideas on the one hand and the artistic freedom enabled by secularism and avant-garde experimentalism on the other, has led theatre artists throughout the twentieth century to create a uniquely modern theatrical hybrid - theatre performances that simultaneously re-inscribe and grapple with religion and religious performativity. The book compares this phenomenon with medieval forms of religious theatre and offers deep and original analyses of significant contemporary works ranging from plays and performances by August Strindberg, Hugo Ball (Dada), Jerzy Grotowski, and Hanoch Levin, to those created by Adrienne Kennedy, Rina Yerushalmi, Deb Margolin, Milo Rau, and Sarah Ruhl. The book analyses a new and original historiography of a uniquely modern theatrical phenomenon, a study that is of high importance considering the reemergence of religion in contemporary culture and politics.

This is an anthology of seven contemporary Israeli plays, written by established and emerging Israeli playwrights and theatre creators. The collection offers a look into the variety of Israeli drama, theatre, and performance, reflecting central questions of identity in Israeli society. The anthology will include a substantive introduction discussing the theatrical contexts of the plays and some of the major issues that Israeli society deals with nowadays, an overview of the dramatic and theatrical work of the playwrights and an analysis of the plays.Joshua Sobol's "Wanderers" is a reconstruction of the life story of an Israeli double agent who goes through an identity crisis; Hanoch Levin's "Walking in the Dark" is an existentialist play about the Walking Man who takes a late-night walk in the city, unable to decide whether to visit his sick mother or not (the city and the night turn into the endless space of the mind; and, Yossefa Even-Shoshan's "The Maiden of Ludmir" examines the place of women within orthodox texts and social structures.Taher Najib's "In Spitting Distance" tells the story of an actor who lives in the West Bank but holds an Israeli passport and tries to fly from Paris to Tel Aviv one year after 9/11; Tamir Greenberg's "Hebron" depicts the mythic scale of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; Ruth Kanner's "Disgust" is a documentary performance and search into the personal and social concept of 'disgust' and is based on interviews with passersby; and Tamar Raban and Guy Gutman's "Old Wives' Tales" is a performance piece that takes place in a real yet fictional patisserie. Hanoch Levin (d.1999) is one of Israel's most worldly renown and influential playwrights, Joshua Sobol is one of Israel's world-acclaimed and senior playwrights, Tamir Greenberg is a well-known poet, Yossefa Even-Shoshan is an innovative feminist playwright, Taher Najib is an actor and a playwright, Ruth Kanner is one of Israel's leading experimental stage directors, Tamar Raban is leading performance artist and theatre creator, and Guy Gutman is a director and sound and stage designer.

Performance Studies in Motion offers multiple perspectives on the current field of performance studies and suggests its future directions. Featuring new essays by pioneers Richard Schechner and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, and by international scholars and practitioners, it shows how performance can offer a new way of seeing the world, and testifies to the dynamism of this discipline. Beginning with an overview of the development of performance studies, the essays offer new insights into: contemporary experimental and postdramatic theatre; participatory performance and museum exhibitions; the performance of politicians, political institutions and grassroots protest movements; theatricality at war and in contemporary religious rituals, and performative practices in therapy, education and life sciences. Employing original reflexive approaches to concrete case studies and situations, contributors introduce a variety of applications of performance studies methodologies to contemporary culture, art and society, creating new interdisciplinary links between the arts, humanities, and social and natural sciences. With studies from and about places as diverse as Austria, Belgium, China, France, Germany, Israel, Korea, Palestine, the Philippines, Poland, Rwanda and the USA, Performance Studies in Motion showcases the vitality and breadth of the field today.