Performance Theory II

Performance Theory

Richard Schechner, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, USA

'Reading Performance Theory by Richard Schechner again, three decades after its first edition, is like meeting an old friend and finding out how much of him/her has been with you all along this way.' - Augusto Boal

'Performance Theory is Richard Schechner's classic contribution to the performing arts and critical theory. This is a work of erudite elegance which blazes across disciplines, cultures, and histories, illuminating some of the most fundamental symbols and rituals through which we make sense of the world in which we live.' - Homi K. Bhabha, Harvard University

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.

August 2003: 216x138: 432pp: illus. 37 line drawings & 28 photographs
Pb: 0-415-31455-0:

Virtual Theatres

An Introduction

Gabriella Giannachi, University of Lancaster, UK

Virtual Theatres presents the theatre of the twenty-first century in which everything - even the viewer - can be simulated. In this fascinating volume, Gabriella Giannachi analyses the aesthetic concerns of current computer-arts practices through discussion of a variety of artists and performers including:

Blast Theory, Merce Cunningham, Eduardo Kac, Forced Entertainment, Lynn Hershman, Jodi Orlan, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Marcel-If Anttinez Roca, Jeffrey Shaw, Stelarc.

This is the first full-length book of its kind to offer an investigation of the interface between theatre, performance and digital arts. Virtual Theatres not only allows for a reinterpretation of what is possible in the world of performance practice, but also demonstrates how 'virtuality' has come to represent a major parameter for our understanding and experience of contemporary art and life.

March 2004: 234x156: 192pp: illus. 18 b+w photographs Hb: 0-415-28378-7: Pb: 0-415-28379-5:

Loving Big Brother

Surveillance Culture and Performance Space

John McGrath

Constant scrutiny by surveillance cameras is usually seen as - at best - an invasion of privacy, and at worst an infringement of human rights. But in this radical new account of the uses of surveillance in art, performance and popular culture, John E. McGrath sets out a surprising alternative: a world where we have
much to gain from the experience of being watched. In Loving Big Brother the author tackles head on the overstated claims of the crime prevention and anti-terrorism lobbies. But he also argues that we desire and enjoy surveillance, and that, if we can understand why this is, we may transform the effect it has on our lives. This book looks at a wide range of performance and visual artists, at popular TV shows and movies, and at our day-to-day encounters with surveillance, rooting its arguments in an accessible reading of cultural theory. McGrath develops a notion of surveillance space - somewhere beyond the public and the private, somewhere we will all soon live. It's a place we're just beginning to understand.

January 2004: 216x138: 256pp Hb: 0-415-27537-7: Pb: 0-415-27538-5:

Disability and Performance

Bodies on the Edge

Petra Kuppers, Bryant College, USA

'Timely and much needed. As a dancer, choreographer, community workshop artist, and top-notch scholar, Kuppers is uniquely qualified to address the myriad issues that arise when putting disability studies and performance studies into dialogue with one another.' - Carrie Sandahl, Florida State University

Disability and Contemporary Performance presents a remarkable challenge to existing assumptions about disability and artistic practice. In particular, it explores where cultural knowledge about disability leaves off, and the lived experience of difference begins. Petra Kuppers, herself an award-winning artist and theorist, investigates the ways in which disabled performers challenge, change and work with current stereotypes through their work. She explores freak show fantasies and 'medical theatre' as well as live art, webwork, theatre, dance, photography and installations, to cast an entirely new light on contemporary identity politics and aesthetics. This is an outstanding exploration of some of the most pressing issues in performance, cultural and disability studies today, written by a leading practitioner and critic.

November 2003: 234x156: 192pp: illus. 10 b+w photographs Hb: 0-415-30238-2: Pb: 0-415-30239-0:

Captive Audience

Prison and Captivity in Contemporary Theater

Edited by Thomas Fahy, California Polytechnic State University, USA and Kimball King, University of North
Carolina, USA

Beginning with a brief essay by internationally renowned playwright Harold Pinter, Captive Audience examines the social, gendered, ethnic, and cultural problems of incarceration as explored through contemporary theatre. The original essays discuss a wide range of topics related to the intersection of theatre and prison, including Harold Pinter's screenplays for The Handmaid's Tale and The Trial, Theatrical Prison Projects, Marat/Sade, and themes of imprisonment in US Latino drama. This is the first collection on this increasingly popular and important topic.

Contributors include: Kimball King, Thomas Fahy, Rena Fraden, Tiffany Ana Lopez, Fiona Mills, Harold Pinter, Ann C. Hall, Christopher C. Hudgins, Pamela Cooper, Robert F. Gross, Claudia Barnett, Lois Gordon.

October 2003: 234x156: 240pp Hb: 0-415-96580-2:

Actors and Activists

Performance, Politics, and Exchange Among Social Worlds

David Schlossman

Schlossman looks at the issue of politics and performance in America today with particular attention paid to performances produced by activists, the NEA Four, and 'Miss Saigon'.

January 2002: 216x138: 240pp Hb: 0-8153-3268-8:

Gorilla Theatre

A Practical Guide to Performing the New Outdoor Theatre Anywhere, Anytime

Christopher Carter Sanderson, Yale University, USA

In this new book, Sanderson explains how theatre can be made to work in any free space. He provides specific and practical advice for any performer or director, and relates stories from his own Gorilla Rep experience that show what the most unorthodox of theatrical techniques can achieve - without a Theatre, without a stage, and without a ticket to be sold.

August 2003: 234x156: 192pp: illus. 20 b+w photographs Hb: 0-87830-170-4: Pb: 0-87830-171-2:

Art and the Performance of Memory

Sounds and Gestures of Recollection

Edited by Richard Candida Smith, University of California, USA

This book investigates the role that the visual and performing arts play in our experience and understanding of the past. Expanding upon longstanding concerns in cultural history about the relation of text and image, the book highlights the distinction between enactive and cognitive memory and the implications of this for artists and their publics.

June 2002: 234x156: 304pp: illus. 4 tables and 81 b+w photographs Hb: 0-415-27796-5: Eb: 0-203-22023-4:

From Acting to Performance

Essays in Modernism and Postmodernism

Philip Auslander

1997: 216x138: 192pp
Hb: 0-415-15786-2: £60.00 Pb: 0-415-15787-0: eB: 0-203-44426-4:

The Intercultural Performance Reader

Edited by Patrice Pavis

1996: 234x156: 280pp Hb: 0-415-08153-X: Pb: 0-415-08154-8:

Liveness

Performance in a Mediatized Culture

Philip Auslander

'Wide-ranging and deeply absorbing, a first point of reference for anyone interested in the meaning and prospects of performance in the contemporary world.' - Steven Connor, Birkbeck College

Liveness addresses what may be the single most important question facing all kinds of performance today: what is the status of live performance in a culture dominated by mass media?

1999: 216x138: 192pp Hb: 0-415-19689-2: Pb: 0-415-19690-6: eB: 0-203-00695-X:

Mourning Sex

Performing Public Memories

Peggy Phelan

1997: 234x156: 208pp: illus. 8 b+w photographs Hb: 0-415-14758-1: Pb: 0-415-14759-X:

Peering Behind the Curtain

Disability, Illness, and the Extraordinary Body in Contemporary Theater

Edited by Thomas Fahy and Kimball King, both at the University of North Carolina, USA

This volume addresses disability in theatre, and features all new work, including critical essays, interviews, personal essays, and an original play. It fills a gap in scholarship while promoting the profile of disability in theatre. Peering Behind the Curtain examines the issues surrounding disability in many well-known plays, including Children of a Lesser God, The Elephant Man, 'night Mother and Wit, as well as an original play by James McDonald.

March 2002: 234x156: 288pp: illus. 6 b+w photographs Hb: 0-415-92997-0:

Perform or Else

From Discipline to Performance

Jon McKenzie

'Wholly original, extremely valuable.' - Philip Auslander, Georgia Institute of Technology

'Performance' has become one of the key terms for the new century. But what do we mean by 'performance'? In today's world it can refer to experimental art; productivity in the workplace; and the functionality of technological systems. Do these disparate fields bear any relation to each other? In Perform or Else Jon McKenzie asserts that there is a relationship between cultural, organisational and technological performance. In this theoretical tour-de-force McKenzie demonstrates that all three operate together to create powerful and contradictory pressures to 'perform ... or else'.

2001: 216x138: 320pp Hb: 0-415-24768-3: Pb: 0-415-24769-1: Eb: 0-203-42005-5:

Performance Anxieties

Staging Psychoanalysis, Staging Race

Ann Pellegrini

1997: 234x156: 198pp Pb: 0-415-91686-0:

Performance and Cultural Politics

Edited by Elin Diamond

1996: 234x156: 304pp Hb: 0-415-12767-X: Pb: 0-415-12768-8:

Performance and Evolution in the Age of Darwin

Out of the Natural Order

Jane Goodall, University of Western Sydney, Australia

'Brilliantly rethinking the division between the arts and sciences, Goodall makes clear the mutant hybrids at the core of nineteenth century spectacles of performance and science. Performance and Evolution is an exhilarating revision of the histories of science and popular entertainment.' - Peggy Phelan, Stanford University

Performance and Evolution in the Age of Darwin reveals the ways in which the major themes of evolution were taken up in the performing arts during Darwin's adult lifetime and in the generation after his death. The period 1830 to 1900 was the formative period for evolutionary ideas. While scientists and theorists investigated the law and order of nature, show business was more concerned with what was out of the natural order. Focusing on popular theatre forms in London, New York and Paris, Jane Goodall shows how they were interwoven with the developing debate about human evolution. Goodall reveals that, far from creating widespread culture shock, Darwinian theory tapped into some of the long-standing theme: of popular performance and was a source for diverse and sometimes hilarious explorations.

August 2002: 216x138: 288pp: illus. 14 b+w photographs Hb: 0-415-24377-7: Pb: 0-415-24378-5:Eb: 0-203-47149-0:

Performing Blackness

(Winner of The American Society of Theatre Research's Errol Hill Award 2001)

Enactments of African-American Modernism

Kimberley W. Benston

'An important work ... that will contribute mightily to our understanding of performance, of race, and the confluence of these experiences.' - Joni L. Jones, University of Texas

2000: 234x156: 400pp: illus. 2 b+w photographs Hb: 0-415-00948-0: Pb: 0-415-00949-9:

The Politics of Performance

Radical Theatre as Cultural Intervention

Baz Kershaw

1992: 216x138: 296pp Pb: 0-415-05763-9: Eb: 0-203-41228-1:

Psychoanalysis and Performance

Edited by Patrick Campbell and Adrian Kear, University of Surrey at Roehampton, UK

In this volume some of the most distinguished thinkers in the field make an exciting new connection between psychoanalysis and performance and offer original perspectives on a wide variety of topics, including hypnotism and hysteria; ventriloquism and the body; dance and sublimation; the unconscious and the rehearsal process; melancholia and the uncanny; cloning and theatrical mimesis; censorship and activist performance; theatre and social memory.

Contributors: Lisa Baraitser, Simon Bayly, Herbert Blau, Steven Connor, Elfin Diamond, Ernst Fischer, Adrian Kear, be Kelleher, Anthony Kubiak, Timothy Murray, Ann Pellegrini, Alan Read, Rebecca Schneider, Diana Taylor, Gregory L. Ulmer.

2001: 234x156: 256pp Hb: 0-415-21204-9: Pb: 0-415-21205-7: Eb: 0-203-46087-1:

The Radical in Performance

Between Brecht and Baudrillard

Baz Kershaw, University of Bristol, UK

1999: 216x138: 272pp Hb: 0-415-18667-6: £65.00 Pb: 0-415-18668-4: £21.99

Radical Street Performance

An International Anthology

Edited by Jan Cohen-Cruz

1998: 216x138: 328pp: illus. 19 b+w photographs Hb: 0-415-15230-5: Pb: 0-415-15231-3:

The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama - 2nd Edition

Keir Elam, University of Florence, Italy

June 2002: 198x129: 272pp Hb: 0-415-28017-6: Pb: 0-415-28018-4: Eb: 0-203-42607-X:

Site-Specific Art

Performance, Place and Documentation

Nick Kaye, Manchester University, UK

Site-Specific Art charts the development of an experimental art form in an experimental way. Nick Kaye traces the fascinating historical antecedents of today's installation and performance art, while also assembling an unique documentation of contemporary practice around the world.

2000: 246x174: 256pp: illus. 89 b+w photographs Hb: 0-415-18558-0: Pb: 0-415-18559-9: eB: 0-203-13829-5:

Theatre/Archaeology

Mike Pearson, University of Wales, UK and Michael Shanks, Stanford University, USA

2001: 246x174: 240pp Hb: 0-415-19457-1: Pb: 0-415-19458-X:

Theatre Audiences

Susan Bennett

1997: 216x1 38: 264pp Hb: 0-415-15722-6: Pb: 0-415-15723-4:

Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture

Patrice Pavis

Translated by Loren Kruger, University of Chicago, USA

1991: 216x138: 228pp Pb: 0-415-06038-9: Eb: 0-203-35933-X:

Theatre and Everyday Life

An Ethics of Performance

Alan Read

1995: 234x156: 272pp Pb: 0-415-06941-6: Eb: 0-203-35946-1:

Theatre as Sign System

A Semiotics of Text and Performance

Elaine Aston and George Savona

1991: 216x138: 224pp Pb: 0-415-04932-6:

Theatre and the World

Performance and the Politics of Culture

Rustom Bharucha

1993: 234x156: 272pp Hb: 0-415-09215-9: Pb: 0-415-09216-7: Eb: 0-203-16817-8:

Unmarked

The Politics of Performance

Peggy Phelan

1993: 234x156: 224pp Pb: 0-415-06822-3: Eb: 0-203-35943-7:

Unmaking Mimesis

Essays on Feminism and Theatre

Elfin Diamond

1997: 234x156: 256pp
Hb: 0-415-01228-7: Pb: 0-415-01229-5: Eb: 0-203-35890-2:

The Visual Culture Reader

Edited by Nicholas Mirzoeff, SUNY at Stonybrook, USA

'The book's greatest contribution seems to be the understanding that builds, essay after essay, that our very identity is shaped by the things we see.' - Design Book Review

December 2002: 246x174: 776pp: illus. 40 b+w photographs Hb: 0-415-25221-0: Pb: 0-415-25222-9:

Zen and the Art of the Monologue

Jay Sankey

2000: 234x156: 160pp: illus. 30 line drawings Pb: 0-87830-094-5: eB: 0-203-90230-0: