Theater in Quarantine

Abstract

as a missed opportunity to address a radical and complex question about the manner in which the emergence of new subjectivities shaped by technologies could enable us to decolonise performer training how performer training could not only be heterogeneous and inclusive of different matter, but also be heterogeneous in its inclusion of diverse human and nonhuman perspectives. Performer Training and Technology. Preparing Our Selves is likely to appeal to theatre and performancepostgraduate students, scholars andpractitioners, such as directors, performers, lighting and sound designers, and technicians, with research interests in the philosophy and history of performance training. It could also benefit visual art students, artists, and scholars who are interested in transdisciplinarypraxis intersecting technology, performance, art and training, particularly the sections pertaining to a ‘polyfocal vision’ that promulgates an ability to ‘spot the artefact when it is present as well as appreciate the artefact’s impact when it is absent’ (184). The strongest aspects of the book are Kapsali’s detailed and in-depth analysis, where she explores the manner in which different philosophical approaches to technology have affected and co-shaped discussions about performer praxis in the context of specific case studies ranging from historical practitioners, such as Diderot, Craig, Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Chaikin and the American avant-garde from 1960s, Lecoq and Zarrilli, to more recent examples, such as Zanotti, Kozel, Keinanen, Rouhiainen, and The Mocap Summit. The most valuable point driving the overall argument is a contention that ‘performer training is technological in and of itself’ (6), which introduces a significant shift in thinking about past and present praxis, underscoring the importance of new ways of approaching preparation for performance. The idea of preparation is discussed as a central aspect of training a process through which the expectations of training are articulated, and ‘as a sense of individual and collective responsibility towards developing appropriate forms of response to a series of interlinked and mounting crises’ (1). The instrument is another significant term addressed with profound rigour; the text unfolds a detailed account of technological instruments in training (such as: handheld objects, electric light circuits and digital devices like mobile phones, motion capture), while simultaneously exploring training as a process of instrumentalization, explicating that an understanding of technology and the performer-as-instrument are inexorably akin. In summation, Kapsali’s new perspective on contemporary performer training is not only timely, but also initiates an important and much-needed debate within the field of performing arts to reconsider, negotiate and reformulate ‘doing-thinking’ that intersects technology and performer training. Hopefully, it will inspire the designers of curriculums, trainers, and trainees, who wish ‘to develop new ways of being in the world’ (7).