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Report on the Young Critics Seminar in Cluj, Romania for the International Association of Theatre Critics
No full textTrajal Harrell: Hoochie Koochie
No full textReview: A deliberate toying with dance concepts and histories: Diana Damian Martin discusses the Barbican’s Trajal Harrell performance exhibition
Introduction: Performance and the Tragic Politics of the Agon
No full textThe introduction to the book provides a rationale for the collection by sketching out a ‘tragic conception’ of the political. It is in relation to this conception—understanding the tragic in terms of the finitude and precarity of the political—that the various approaches taken by the authors in the collection might be said to be responding. Core to this approach is the theme of ‘antagonism’ as theorised in the work of Carl Schmitt and later Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau. The introduction offers a comprehensive account of the ‘agonistic’ dimension that defines the political as such, beginning by tracing the ‘agon’—meaning ‘struggle’—back to its origins in ancient Greek society and culture. That the ancient Greeks understood the insuperable nature of the agon provides the starting point for a discussion of the limits of the political, grasped as the permanent interplay of contesting forces and thus the impossibility of reaching a final consensus on social and democratic life. How theatre and performance respond to this tragic conception, or deploy it, is then discussed in the final section of the chapter, through a brief analysis of the emergence of ‘post-Brechtian’ aesthetics—central to debates that animate the essays that follow
Concert
No full textIn this new solo work, Irish dance artist Colin Dunne confronts the music of virtuoso traditional Irish fiddle player, Tommie Potts (1912-1988). A singular and complex figure in the history of Irish traditional music, Potts rarely played in public, and his 1972 album, The Liffey Banks, was the only recording of his music released commercially before his death. This iconic solo fiddle album reflects the complex contradictions in Potts’s musical career: his deep appreciation of traditional music alongside a desire to break it apart. Although renowned for its delicate, melancholic and playful qualities, the album’s rhythmical irregularity renders it practically impossible to dance to
Making and Breaking: Electronic Waste Recycling as Methodology
No full textThis chapter proposes a practice-based methodology to investigate the materiality of electronic waste (e-waste), which formed the basis of the art-science research project ‘Bodies of Planned Obsolescence: digital performance and the global politics of electronic waste’. Building on anthropologist Tim Ingold’s concept of ‘making’, a widened understanding of the term ‘digital performance’ informed shared practical activities of a group of scientists, cultural theorists, and artists. During two field-research workshops in Hong Kong and Lagos, Nigeria, researchers participated in e-waste recycling in a factory and on a dump site. Thus, in this approach to practice-based research, the practical aspect of the research process does not concern the production of artworks, but instead involves shared participation in labour with materials. A process of shared reflection on this practical work may lead to outcomes in the form of new research avenues within the various disciplines of the participating researchers
Review: Ravnedans
No full textDance in the age of climate change: Diana Damian Martin discusses this year’s Ravnedans festival in Norway
Situating Cultural Studies Within the Praxis of Whiteness Theory
No full textThe paper uses discourses on ‘whiteness’ as a framework to interrogate the contexts and evolution of the Cultural Studies discipline. Drawing on the ideas and life of Stuart Hall, the paper attempts to define a position for the discipline within the praxis of social and critical theories, and asks whether Cultural Studies original ideologies have become lost to the very cultural hegemony it once exposed? Or does the discipline still hold its original potential for challenging racialised cultural discourses