DAH Theatre: A Sourcebook

(Hardback)

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Description

DAH Theatre: A Sourcebook is a collection of essays about the work of one of the most successful and innovative performance groups in contemporary history. With a direct line of descent from Jerzy Grotowski and Eugenio Barba, DAH Theatre, founded during the worst of times in the former Yugoslavia, amidst a highly patriarchal society, predominantly run by women, has thrived now for twenty-five years. The chapters in this book, for the most part, have been written by both theatre scholars and practitioners, all of whom have either seen, studied with or worked with this groundbreaking troupe. What makes DAH so exceptional The levels of innovation and passion for them extend far beyond the world of mere performance. They have been politically and socially driven by the tragedies and injustices that they have witnessed within their country and have worked hard to be a force of reconciliation, equity and peace within the world. And those efforts, which began on the dangerous streets of Belgrade in 1991, today, have reached throughout the world. Though they still make their home in Serbia, audiences from as far afield as New Zealand, Mongolia, Brazil and the U.S. have discovered their power both in purely aesthetic terms and as passionate activists.

Reviews

This is an excellent, easy to comprehend book that fills a gap in studies on resistance performance groups dedicated to alternatives to the dominant narrative of denial and is an invaluable sourcebook for those who choose to investigate how theatre as a space for collective mourning has been and can be staged. As such, it is a valuable contribution to the recently enfranchised discipline concerned with creative transformation of conflict.... [I]t is a pioneer in books on theatre that are written with the conviction that theatre can change the world. * Plays International & Europe *
This international collection of theoretically and historically grounded analyses and illuminating testimonials by scholars and practitioners comprises the impressive dramaturgical archive of one of the most enduring (East) European alternative theatres today. For more than twenty-five years, the Belgrade-based DAH Theatre has resonated with Eastern as well as Western audiences by highlighting 'postcolonial' conditions fiercely agitated in some post-totalitarian countries, yet obscured in egalitarian societies, such as ethnic and gender inequities, (multi)cultural expressions, and reconciliation with traumatic and divisive histories. DAH's journey outlines a global artistic trade that begins with adopting postmodern practices originating in the West, in particular Eugenio Barba's 'theatre anthropology', creatively advancing them in the volatile post-communist context of former Yugoslavia, and exporting them internationally as a model of new performance aesthetics and socially engaged theatre. -- Vessela Warner, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Dennis Barnett has assembled a most informed and engaging sourcebook on DAH Theatre, one of the worlds definitive companies working in social conflict contexts. A work of great breadth that offers a meaningful and enjoying read to the historian, the scholar and the practitioner, while ultimately managing to paint the rich portrait of a living theater and of the people and societal circumstances that breathe life into it. This is a necessary and revelatory book. -- Roberto Gutirrez Varea, University of San Francisco

Author Bio

Dennis Barnett is professor of theatre at Coe College.