An Introduction To Feminism And Theatre

At last an accessible and intelligent introduction to the energising and challenging relationship between feminism and theatre. In this clear and enlightening book, Aston discusses wide-ranging theoretical topics and provides case studies including: * Feminism and theatre history * `M/Othering the self': French feminist theory and theatre * Black women: shaping feminist theatre * Performing gender: a materialist practice * Colonial landscapes Feminist thought is changing the way theatre is taught and practised. An Introduction to Feminism and Theatre is compulsory reading for anyone who requires a precise, insightful and up-to-date guide to this dynamic field of study.

At last an accessible and intelligent introduction to the energising and challenging relationship between feminism and theatre. In this clear and enlightening book, Aston discusses wide-ranging theoretical topics and provides case studies including: * Feminism and theatre history * `M/Othering the self': French feminist theory and theatre * Black women: shaping feminist theatre * Performing gender: a materialist practice * Colonial landscapes Feminist thought is changing the way theatre is taught and practised. An Introduction to Feminism and Theatre is compulsory reading for anyone who requires a precise, insightful and up-to-date guide to this dynamic field of study.

This classic study is both an introduction to, and an overview of, the relationship between feminism and theatre.

A valuable, provoking, important addition to any theatre scholar or practitioner's library, especially since feminist theory is a relative newcomer to the world of theatre.

Feminist Theatre Practice: A Handbook is a helpful, practical guide to theatre-making which explores the different ways of representing gender. Best-selling author, Elaine Aston, takes the reader through the various stages of making feminist theatre- from warming up, through workshopped exploration, to performance - this volume is organised into three clear and instructive parts: * Women in the Workshop * Dramatic Texts, Feminist Contexts * Gender and Devising Projects. Orientated around the classroom/workshop, Handbook of Feminist Theatre Practice encompasses the main elements of feminist theatre, both practical or theoretical.

This book offers a matrixial, feminist-centered analysis of trauma and performance, through examining the work of three artists: Ann Hamilton, Renée Green, and Cecilia Vicuña. Each artist engages in a multi-media, or “combination” performance practice; this includes the use of site, embodied performance, material elements, film, and writing. Each case study involves traumatic content, including the legacy of slavery, child sexual abuse and environmental degradation; each artist constructs an aesthetic milieu that invites rather than immerses—this allows an audience to have agency, as well as multiple pathways into their engagement with the art. The author Niki Tulk suggests that these works facilitate an audience-performance relationship based on the concept of ethical witnessing/wit(h)nessing, in which viewers are not positioned as voyeurs, nor made to risk re-traumatization by being forced to view traumatic events re-played on stage. This approach also allows agency to the art itself, in that an ethical space is created where the art is not objectified or looked at—but joined with. Foundational to this investigation are the writings of Bracha L. Ettinger, Jill Bennett and Diana Taylor—particularly Ettinger’s concepts of the matrixial, carriance and border-linking. These artists and scholars present a capacity to expand and articulate answers to questions regarding how to make performance that remains compelling and truthful to the trauma experience, but not re-traumatizing. This study will be of great interest to students and scholars of performance studies, art history, visual arts, feminist studies, theatre, film, performance art, postcolonialism, rhetoric and writing.

Focuses on the works of Pam Gems, Michalene Wandor, Caryl Churchill, Megan Terry, and Ntozake Shange.

In Unmaking Mimesis Elin Diamond interrogates the concept of mimesis in relation to feminism, theatre and performance. She combines psychoanalytic, semiotic and materialist strategies with readings of selected plays by writers as diverse as Ibsen, Brecht, Aphra Behn, Caryl Churchill and Peggy Shaw. Through a series of provocative readings of theatre, theory and feminist performance she demonstrates the continuing force of feminism and mimesis in critical thinking today. Unmaking Mimesis will interest theatre scholars and performance and cultural theorists, for all of whom issues of text, representation and embodiment are of compelling concern.