Performance Studies in Motion: International Perspectives and Practices in the Twenty-First Century

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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.

Reviews

Stimulated by the pioneering work of Richard Schechner, this book does, as the saying goes, exactly what it says on the tin ... [It] should appeal to a wide audience of under -graduate and postgraduate readers, particularly researchers and teachers of performance studies, whose academic palate savours the varied taste of international research cuisine, captured in a stimulating menu of real world case studies. The power of the book is to be found in the creative and contemporary insights captured in the versatility of these case studies and the attention to detail paid to the dynamic relations between topics in both the social and pure sciences as well as the humanities. -- Deborah Newton * New Theatre Quarterly *
As well as providing a platform for practitioners and scholars working at the bleeding edge of performance, adapting theory to real world contexts and reflecting on issues raised by practice, the editors have collated truly international perspectives. * Platform *
Performance Studies in Motion offers a heterogeneous ensemble of case studies of performances in their concrete contexts ... The question of the normative, dark, even dangerous dimensions of performance that the anthology raises are certainly a challenge for the generally rather optimistic stance of Schechnerian PS. It is from here that exciting impulses for the next moves of Performance Studies promise to come. -- Vivien Aehlig, Freie Universitat, Berlin * Theater Forschung *
Performance Studies in Motion marks an increasing diversification of cultural representation and frameworks for analysis in publications about performance studies. This makes it an invaluable resource. * TDR: The Drama Review *

Author Bio

Atay Citron is Associate Professor, Department of Theatre, University of Haifa, Israel. Sharon Aronson-Lehavi is Senior Lecturer of theatre and performance studies, Department of Comparative Literature, Bar-Ilan University, Israel. David Zerbib is Professor in the Philosophy of Art, Geneva University of Art and Design, Switzerland; Lecturer, University of Paris 1 Panthon-Sorbonne, France.