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Working With the Tangible: Radiation, A Twenty-First Century Interpretation
No full textThe intangible means of expression was a topic of investigation across various disciplines when Michael Chekhov was developing his pedagogic practice. In the world of science, Harold Saxton Burr and Albert Szent-Gyorgi, were examining the body as a conductor of energy. Their research was relevant to Chekhov's approach regarding how the actor communicates with internal and external stimulus. This article begins with an analysis of Chekhov's theories on Radiation, it moves on to offer insights into science and energy work with reference to cell Biologist James Oschman and his concept of ‘the living matrix’ and Mae Wan Ho's critique of quantum cohesion. Examples of praxis demonstrate that contemporary science and body work can provide a greater understanding of how Radiation and the organisation of energy can enhance performance
Eastern European Hamlets
No full textThe panel discussion “Eastern European Hamlets” brought together academics from the UK who are working on the appropriation of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet in Eastern Europe. The event engaged with the question of how the staging of Shakespeare’s Hamlet develops a socio-political potential in different cultural contexts in Eastern Europe. Bearing in mind Jan Kott’s conception of Hamlet as an inherently political play expounded in his prominent essay collection Shakespeare our Contemporary (1965), the panel discussion considered dramaturgical strategies of staging Hamlet in Eastern Europe after 1989.
On the basis of an interdisciplinary discussion between literary criticism, translation studies and performance analysis the following questions shall be addressed during the discussion panel: What are the mechanisms of appropriation of Hamlet within different cultural contexts in Eastern Europe post-1989? How do such appropriation processes influence a self-understanding of Eastern Europe as the so-called ‘new’ Europe and how do they construct cultural identities? Does a phenomenon such as an Eastern European Hamlet exist?
With a closer look at Bulgarian, Polish, Romanian, Lithuanian, Hungarian and Yugoslav Hamlets the panel discussion offered a unique opportunity to analyse the changing dramaturgical strategies of staging Hamlet in the so-called ‘new’ Europe with reference to the socio-political circumstances after 1989
Castellucci's Theatre of the ‘Abject/Sublime’: or, The Theatre of Failed Transcendence
No full textIn this paper I look at Castellucci's On the Concept of the Face, Regarding the Son of God as a means to sketch out what I would like to call a theatre of the ‘abject/sublime’. In contrast to the Kantian notion of the sublime, which requires nothing less than the acknowledgment of the moral law by the subject, I will situate Castellucci's work within a reading of the ‘sublime’ that embraces the failure of the subject to achieve transcendence. By this I mean the subject fails to achieve the kind of ethical autonomy that Kant's radical sublime demands. Instead, I propose to interpret Castellucci's work in two ‘heteronymous’ ways: firstly, in light of Kristeva's dictum that the ‘abject is edged with the sublime’, and secondly, in terms of Levinas' claim that the face is nothing less than the ‘infinite which blinks’ (OB: 93). What results, I argue, is a theatre of ‘failed transcendence’, in which Castellucci's ‘face’ of God, returned to the abject condition of its own corporeality, marks the traumatic site of the ethical demand
Audience Participation in Theatre: Aesthetics of the Invitation
No full textThis book asks that we consider the practices that facilitate audience participation on equal terms with other elements of the theatre maker's art; it offers a theoretical basis for this new approach, illustrated by examples from diverse participatory performances
The Gender and Sexuality Issue
No full textFor this themed edition, we take gender and sexuality as our overarching concern. Gender and sexuality are in the category of 'always already', present in the contexts of applied performance and drama education. Although, in some respects, gender and sexuality are present in all the work that is done with communities, this issue focuses on work where the issues of gender and sexuality rise to the surface. In this edition, we are profiling work that is about gender and sexuality as forms of identity, as modes of living and, in some cases, as means of resisting gendered status quo where the issue is gender and sexuality
Pour/Ous Place
No full textProf. Sally Mackey speaks about Research Practice at a staff/student seminar at the University of Mancheste
Electric Shadows
No full textElectric Shadows aims to guide the emerging video designer through the many simple and difficult technical and aesthetic choices and decisions he or she has to make in taking their design from outline idea through to realisation. The main body of the book takes the reader through the process of deciding what content will be projected onto what screen or screens to make the best overall production design. The book will help you make electric shadows that capture the attention of your audience, to help you tell your stories in just the way you want
The Bhānd Mode in Pakistani Performance
No full textBhānds are wandering comedians, widely dispersed in Pakistan and North India. While their art constitutes a persistent mode of performed practice in Pakistan, it is not given recognition by dominant culture. The thesis explores the caste, class, ethnic and literary biases that motivate this ostracism, and in turn how bhānds play with these status distinctions in performance. This interaction creates a dynamic mode, which is able to expose, negotiate and subvert hegemonic power structures, and, in so doing, continually adapts itself to changing socio-cultural contexts.
Appreciation of these practices and their effects on the social norm has hitherto been lacking, precisely because of the cultural marginalisation which attempts to place the bhānd within a fixed definition of identity. In order to redress this imbalance, I explicate the bhānd’s aesthetics and socio-cultural mediation through multiple contemporary and historical manifestations. Contemporary reinventions range from stand-up comics in the nuptial rites, to carnivalesque comedians of the popular Punjabi theatre and socio-political commentators on satellite television. By extracting the bhānd from the prejudices of historiography, the thesis explores historical lineages between the bhānd and Sanskrit jesters and Sufi wise fools, arguing that this Indo-Muslim synchronism perpetuates the bhānd's presence in South Asia.
This re-reading aims conceptually to release the bhānd from contemporary and historical constraints as a shape-shifting mode, which may be seen to continue generating innovative forms and practices for theatre and performance in Pakistan today