Performing Arts

On Stage
The theatrical dimension of video imaged
In On Stage, Mathilde Roman explores the resonances that fields of theatre – stage, décor, space, gaze and more – have in the practice of video arts. Using these notions of theatre both as points of reference and as a prism through which video installation can be approached, Roman concentrates on questions often overlooked by art historians, theorists and critics. These include questions of exhibition architecture, display, viewer experience, temporality and the importance of the gaze. Each chapter is articulated around analyses of video installations created by artists, from Michael Snow to Maïder Fortuné, and Dan Graham to Laurent Grasso. With a preface by Mieke Bal, On Stage is an important contribution to the fields of art, history and film studies.

Locating the Audience
How People Found Value in National Theatre Wales

Magnet Theatre
Three Decades of Making Space
Cape Town’s Magnet Theatre has been a force in South African theatre for three decades, a crucial space for theatre, education, performance and community throughout a turbulent period in South African history. Offering a dialogue between internal and external perspectives, as well as perspectives from performers, artists and scholars, this book analyses Magnet’s many productions and presents a rich compendium of the work of one of the most vital physical theatre companies in Africa.

Creative Communities
Regional Inclusion and the Arts
This is the first major collection to reimagine and analyse the role of the creative arts in building resilient and inclusive regional communities. Bringing together Australia’s leading theorists in the creative industries, as well as case studies from practitioners working in the creative and performing arts and new material from targeted research projects, the book reconceptualizes the very meaning of regionalism and the position – and potential – of creative spaces in non-metropolitan centres.

The Only Way Home is Through the Show
Performance Work of Lois Weaver
Lois Weaver is one of the world's leading figures in feminist and lesbian performance, a true pioneer in the growing field. This book offers the first book-length assessment of her career and work, tracing its history, aesthetics, principles, inspirations, innovations and more. Contributors include Weaver's most important collaborators from throughout her career, as well as many of the leading feminist theorists, journalists, and performers of the past forty years. The book also includes interviews not just with Weaver, but also with her partner, in life and performance, Peggy Shaw, and groundbreaking theatre maker Muriel Miguel. The result is a book that is truly unprecedented, a lavishly illustrated and expertly curated celebration of an incredible career.

Theatre for Youth Third Space
Performance, Democracy, and Community Cultural Development

Meyerhold and the Cubists
Perspectives on Painting and Performance
This book offers a rich analysis of collage practices in the theatre of Vsevolod Meyerhold. Focusing on the philosophical and formal tenets of the form, and supporting her analysis with wide-ranging examples from both theatre and fine art, Amy Skinner develops collage as a framework for reading the whole of the theatrical experience, from scenography and mise-en-scène to text and spectatorship. An innovative exploration of the influence of collage on twentieth- and twenty-first-century theatre, Meyerhold and the Cubists will be essential reading for theatre scholars and practitioners alike.

Karaoke Idols
Popular Music and the Performance of Identity
Most ethnographers don’t achieve what Kevin Brown did while conducting their research: in his two years spent at a karaoke bar near Denver, Colorado, he went from barely able to carry a tune to someone whom other karaoke patrons requested to sing. Along the way, he learned everything you might ever want to know about karaoke and the people who enjoy it.
The result is Karaoke Idols, a close ethnography of life at a karaoke bar that reveals just what we are doing when we take up the mic – and how we shape our identities, especially in terms of gender, ethnicity, and class, through performances in everyday life. Marrying a comprehensive introduction to the history of public singing and karaoke with a rich analysis of karaoke performers and the community that their shared performances generate, Karaoke Idols is a book for both the casual reader and the scholar: a fascinating exploration of our urge to perform and the intersection of technology and culture that makes it so seductively easy to do so.

A Journey of Art and Conflict
Weaving Indra's Net
A Journey of Art and Conflict is a deeply personal exploration of David Oddie’s attempts to uncover the potential of the arts as a resource for reconciliation in the wake of conflict and for the creative transformation of conflict itself. It began when Oddie, seeing the fractured world around him, asked himself what he could do to help; that question set him off on travels around the world, including to Palestine, Kosovo, South Africa, India, Northern Ireland, Brazil, and other places. In each location, he met with local people who had suffered from conflict and worked with them to forge artistic networks that have the potential to transform their situation.

Utopia
Three Plays for a Postdramatic Theatre

Shakespeare Valued
Education Policy and Pedagogy 1989-2009
Taking a comprehensive, critical, and theoretical approach to the role of Shakespeare in educational policy and pedagogy from 1989 (the year compulsory Shakespeare was introduced under the National Curriculum for English in the United Kingdom), to the present, Shakespeare Valued explores the esteem afforded Shakespeare in the British educational system and its evolution in the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. Sarah Olive offers an unparalleled analysis of the ways in which Shakespeare is valued in a range of educational domains in England, and will be essential reading for students and teachers of English and Shakespeare.

A Reflective Practitioner's Guide to (Mis)Adventures in Drama Education - or - What Was I Thinking?

Theater of War
For five years, Meredith Davenport photographed and interviewed men who play live-action games based on contemporary conflicts, such as a recreation of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden that took place thousands of miles from the conflict zone on a campground in Northern Virginia. Her images speak about the way that trauma and conflict penetrate a culture sheltered from the horrors of war. Bringing together a series of two dozen photographs with essays discussing and analysing the influence of the media, particularly photographs and video, on the culture at large and how conflict is 'discussed' in the visual realm, Theater of War is a unique look at the influence of contemporary conflicts, and their omnipresence in the media, on popular culture. Written by an experienced photojournalist who has covered a variety of human rights issues worldwide, this book is an essential addition to the library of anyone interested in the confluence of war and media.

Theatre in Passing 2
Searching for New Amsterdam
This book discusses spaces of performance from formal opera houses to parks and graffiti around the world and is a companion to Theatre in Passing: A Moscow Photo-Diary. Drawing once again on Michel de Certeau’s notion of a 'second poetic geography', this new volume examines prominent theatrical destinations – New York, London, and Paris – along with others that are often overlooked, including Canada, Mexico and Turkey. In addition to indoor theatres, the book covers a variety of outdoor theatrical spaces, as well as street theatre. Like its predecessor, Theatre in Passing 2 is richly illustrated with photographs by the author and provides fascinating insights on the intersection of performing arts, visual culture and photography.

Performance Art in Ireland
A History
This book, the first devoted to the history and contemporary forms of Irish performance art in the north and south of Ireland, brings together contributions by prominent Irish artists and major academics. It features rigorous critical and theoretical analysis as well as historical commentaries that provide an absorbing sense of the rich histories of performance art in Ireland. Presenting diverse visual documentation of performance art practices, this collection shows how performance art in Ireland engaged with – and in turn influenced and led – contemporary performance and Live Art internationally.
Co-published with Live Art Development Agency.

Dramaturging Personal Narratives
Who am I and Where is Here?
How do people identify, locate, or express home? Displaced, exiled, colonized and disenfranchised people the world over grapple with this question. Dramaturging Personal Narratives explores the relationship between personal and cultural identity by investigating how people perceive and creatively express self, home and homeland through showcasing a variety of innovative artistic processes and resulting projects. Written in clear and accessible language, this book will appeal to professional and community based artists who work in a wide variety of genres, scholars from creative fields and both students and teachers at all levels of education who are interested in learning more about generating, developing and disseminating artistic work inspired by personal narratives.

Pleading in the Blood
The Art and Performances of Ron Athey
Ron Athey is an iconic figure in contemporary art and performance. In his frequently bloody portrayals of life, death, crisis and fortitude in the time of AIDS, Athey calls into question the limits of artistic practice. These limits enable Athey to explore key themes including gender, sexuality, radical sex, queer activism, post-punk and industrial culture, tattooing and body modification, ritual and religion. This landmark publication includes Athey’s own writings, commissioned essays by maverick artists and leading academics and full-colour images of Athey’s art and performances since the early 1980s. The diverse range of artistic and critical contributors to the book reflects Athey’s creative and cultural impact, among them musician Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons who contributed a foreword.

Anthem Quality
National Songs: A Theoretical Survey
Thought of most often in the context of the Olympics or other sporting events, national anthems are a significant way for a nation and its citizens to express their identity and unity. Despite their prevalence, anthems as an expression of national self-image and culture have rarely been examined—until now. Anthem Quality analyzes the lyrics of many anthems in order to explore their historical and contemporary context. Christopher Kelen’s research reveals how many of the world’s most famous and best-known national anthems, including “The Marseillaise,” “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and “God Save the Queen” deal with such topics as authority, religion, and political devotion.

Ivar Kreuger and Jeanne de la Motte
Two Plays by Jerzy W. Tepa

Dance, Somatics and Spiritualities
Contemporary Sacred Narratives
This anthology negotiates the influential, yet silent educational presence of spiritualities within the field of somatic movement dance education internationally. The expressive and integral nature of spiritual experience remains academically undefined and peripheral to our understanding of creative practice. Lack of theoretical rigour, as well as a lack of a substantive definitional and methodological competency, has resulted in spirituality being marginalised. To date, important questions about how diverse spiritualities shape professional practice in the somatic movement and dance arts remain unanswered. This cutting-edge collection fills that void, providing greater creative and discursive clarity.