{"title":"Contemporary Catastrophes: 2010s British Climate Crisis Theatre and Performativity","authors":"A. Watson","doi":"10.1080/10486801.2022.2047035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2022.2047035","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract With an understanding of climate crisis as informed by performativity, this article offers an overview of 2010s British climate crisis theatre (or, ‘CCT’). While similar surveys of theatre that depict ecological issues have been written before, the approach this article takes is distinct in its application of performativity, as well as its specificity to theatre in 2010s Britain: a time and a place that saw a significant shift in its attitudes towards ecological concerns; not to mention Britain being a ‘first-world’ culture with high yearly carbon emissions and far-reaching historical legacies of effecting the Anthropocene. First, I demonstrate how performativity is relevant to both ecocritical concerns and theatre that involves itself with issues of climate crisis, illustratively exploring Ella Hickson’s Oil (2016) here. I then overview 2010s British CCT through several areas: namely, its depiction of anxieties around overpopulation and children; the use of ‘cli-fi’; ‘zoomed-out’ approaches to representing temporality; issues of Anthropocentrism and articulations of posthumanism; the racialisation of climate crisis concerns; and the tension in CCT between performative affect and material costs.","PeriodicalId":43835,"journal":{"name":"CONTEMPORARY THEATRE REVIEW","volume":"32 1","pages":"140 - 161"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45904606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Backpages 32.2","authors":"","doi":"10.1080/10486801.2022.2066352","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2022.2066352","url":null,"abstract":"Backpages is an opportunity for the academy to engage with theatre and performance practice with immediacy and insight, and for theatre workers and performance artists to engage critically and reflectively on their work and the work of their peers.","PeriodicalId":43835,"journal":{"name":"CONTEMPORARY THEATRE REVIEW","volume":"32 1","pages":"211 - 226"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46806105","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"auralia.space, digital platform for Aural/Oral Dramaturgies: Post-Verbatim, Amplified Storytelling and Gig Theatre in the Digital Age","authors":"A. Curtin","doi":"10.1080/10486801.2022.2063546","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2022.2063546","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43835,"journal":{"name":"CONTEMPORARY THEATRE REVIEW","volume":"32 1","pages":"209 - 210"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49211821","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Blackness and Self-Imaging: Lorraine O’Grady’s Performance as Mademoiselle Bourgeoise Noire","authors":"V. Macaulay","doi":"10.1080/10486801.2021.2007895","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2021.2007895","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The continued lack of visibility and representation of Black women in studies of historical and contemporary performance art not only forces their work to exist within the margins, but their exclusion also exposes broader questions around the terrain for decolonising performance histories. In order to begin to recover interventionist performances by Black women, this article focuses on the work of African American conceptual artist and theorist Lorraine O’Grady. It recuperates O’Grady’s performance work and expand Black feminist histography for performance art. In the 1980s, O’Grady created Mlle Bourgeoise Noire (1980–83), a series of performative invasions into mainstream art spaces in New York as the persona Mlle Bourgeoise Noire to enable her to become visible in exclusionary spaces. O’Grady’s performances sought to disturb the structures of race, gender and class that excluded her as a Black woman from the mainstream art world. In turn, I argue, her intrusion complicated the already existing and speculative modes of blackness.","PeriodicalId":43835,"journal":{"name":"CONTEMPORARY THEATRE REVIEW","volume":"32 1","pages":"4 - 20"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47835587","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Theatre of Anger: Radical Transnational Performance in Contemporary Berlin by Olivia Landry","authors":"Ann-Christine Simke","doi":"10.1080/10486801.2022.2009667","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2022.2009667","url":null,"abstract":"artists: Kaprow in the United States, Wolf Vostell in Europe, and Minujín in Argentina. A sociological survey produced by Minujín as part of this project captures the interests at the core of Spencer’s book: the experimentation with communication technologies and how technology-facilitated relations may enable individuals to disrupt their habits and introduce new connections. Drawing from cybernetics and system theory, the form of communication that the author and the studied artists are concerned with is holistic, integral, interrelated, and interconnected. Such an understanding of interrelation is especially beneficial since it problematises the geographical and corporeal boundaries that determine individual perspectives. Furthermore, through the analysis of Minujín, Schneemann, and Lublin, in particular, the author reflects on the challenges experienced especially by many women and artists of colour, acknowledging barriers for participation during the 1960s and 1970s and highlighting how these power imbalances persist more than fifty years later. Opportunities for further development include the author’s brief criticism of the trajectories of community engagement in art. The approaches to experimental open classrooms and radical pedagogy that Kaprow presented were well received and enjoyed by students, teachers, and parents. Yet, once the project was finished and the series Six Ordinary Happenings had been completed, the artist concluded his engagement with the community that had provided him with material and enthusiasm. As Spencer recognises, instances such as these invite further reflection on the circulation of knowledge and its vectors. Beyond the Happening is an insightful and enjoyable contribution to the study of art and communication with a fresh international approach. The book’s outstanding illustrations make it a valuable archive piece for thought-provoking yet often overlooked artwork. One of its triumphs is how it introduces an array of international works that, incorporating models developed during Happenings, contributed to the study of verbal and non-verbal interrelations in an array of contexts. These methods underline the interconnectivity proposed by the book’s main themes. In the conclusion, Spencer studies re-performances, an ever-thought-provoking issue in the study of performance art. She examines Otobong Nkanga’s Baggage, a 2007 reinvention of Kaprow’s 1972 iconic work of the same name, which exposes questions that were absent in the first deployment of the piece. Spencer emphasises that Nkanga’s re-performance makes evident the unavoidability of supervisory conditions that apply to communicational exchanges and the policing they entail for racialised and gendered bodies. Beyond the Happening: Performance Art and the Politics of Communication prompts the reader to evaluate one’s ‘imbrication’ in the structures that surround and police communication and interconnectedness (234). These structures and the constraints of m","PeriodicalId":43835,"journal":{"name":"CONTEMPORARY THEATRE REVIEW","volume":"32 1","pages":"103 - 104"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48926347","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Multilingualism on the Berlin Stage: The Influence of Language Choice, Linguistic Access and Opacity on Cultural Diversity and Access in Contemporary Theatre","authors":"U. Garde","doi":"10.1080/10486801.2021.2007899","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2021.2007899","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article analyses how language choice, linguistic access and opacity in multilingual productions influence theatre institutions’ (inter)cultural and socio-political engagement as well as audiences’ access to and encounters with linguistic and cultural diversity. It uses multilingualism, and the associated use of unfamiliar languages, as a prism for revealing how language use is deeply embedded in historical contexts as well as linked to ethical considerations and the cultural politics in linguistically diverse metropolitan societies. The analysis of recent, pre-COVID productions in Berlin shows how institutions approach the emergent technical and economic strategies and their socio-political implications when staging multilingual theatre, how the choice of performing and supertitling language(s) interrelates with existing language hierarchies and associated privileges of access and how complex dramaturgical approaches to potentially unfamiliar languages can raise broader questions about the ethics of intercultural encounter. Selected case studies illustrate how theatres that embrace the use of unfamiliar languages negotiate the ethical objective of facilitating access and smooth communication in (inter)cultural encounter versus appreciating and embracing linguistic and the associated cultural diversity.","PeriodicalId":43835,"journal":{"name":"CONTEMPORARY THEATRE REVIEW","volume":"32 1","pages":"61 - 80"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46715449","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Critical Anachronisms: Wael Shawky’s The Song of Roland: The Arabic Version","authors":"Katia Arfara","doi":"10.1080/10486801.2021.2007896","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2021.2007896","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article considers Wael Shawky’s The Song of Roland: The Arabic Version as a key work in the artist’s ongoing investigation of the mechanisms of stereotypical racial and cultural othering from a historical perspective and an Arab point of view. Shawky translates La Chanson de Roland, one of the earliest major works of French literature, into Classical Arabic and stages it as an hour-long performance with a fidjeri ensemble singing pearl diving music from the Gulf. Drawing on Brechtian methods of de-dramatization and alienation, this article approaches Shawky’s musical performance as an alien and alienating form of storytelling that questions current debates on nationalism, imperialism, labour, and cultural heritage. At the same time, it develops the concept of anachronism as a key dramaturgical principle that unmakes canonical views of history and colonial interpretations of the relationship between Christianity and Islam. Through a detailed analysis of this musical performance, as well as of the cultural traditions, myths, and historical accounts that shape its dramaturgy, this article explores prevailing concepts of historical representation and collective memory in contexts within and beyond the art world.","PeriodicalId":43835,"journal":{"name":"CONTEMPORARY THEATRE REVIEW","volume":"32 1","pages":"46 - 60"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42476722","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Backpages 32.1","authors":"X. X","doi":"10.1080/10486801.2022.2009659","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2022.2009659","url":null,"abstract":"Backpages is an opportunity for the academy to engage with theatre and performance practice with immediacy and insight, and for theatre workers and performance artists to engage critically and reflectively on their work and the work of their peers.","PeriodicalId":43835,"journal":{"name":"CONTEMPORARY THEATRE REVIEW","volume":"32 1","pages":"105 - 120"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46395806","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}