Reconstructing Performance Art

This book investigates the practices of reconstructing and representing performance art and their power to shape this art form and our understanding of it. Performance art emerged internationally between the 1960s and 1970s crossing disciplinary boundaries between performing arts and visual arts. Because of the challenge it posed to the ontologies and paradigms of these fields, performance art has since stimulated an ongoing debate on the most appropriate means to document, preserve and display it. Tancredi Gusman brings together international scholars from different disciplinary fields to examine methods, media, and approaches by which this art form has been represented and (re)activated over time and its transnational history reconstructed. Through contributions and case studies spanning various countries, regions and artistic fields, the authors outline an innovative theoretical-methodological framework for capturing the processes and strategies for transmitting the tangible and intangible heritage of performance art. This book will be of great appeal to students, researchers, and practitioners in the fields of Theatre and Performance Studies as well as Visual Arts and Art History, who have an interest in performance art, its history and presence in the contemporary artistic and cultural landscape.

This book investigates the practices of reconstructing and representing performance art and their power to shape this art form and our understanding of it. Performance art emerged internationally between the 1960s and 1970s crossing disciplinary boundaries between performing arts and visual arts. Because of the challenge it posed to the ontologies and paradigms of these fields, performance art has since stimulated an ongoing debate on the most appropriate means to document, preserve and display it. Tancredi Gusman brings together international scholars from different disciplinary fields to examine methods, media, and approaches by which this art form has been represented and (re)activated over time and its transnational history reconstructed. Through contributions and case studies spanning various countries, regions and artistic fields, the authors outline an innovative theoretical-methodological framework for capturing the processes and strategies for transmitting the tangible and intangible heritage of performance art. This book will be of great appeal to students, researchers, and practitioners in the fields of Theatre and Performance Studies as well as Visual Arts and Art History, who have an interest in performance art, its history and presence in the contemporary artistic and cultural landscape.

Performance Art in practice – pedagogical approaches opens up a variety of philosophies that explore, explain and challenge Performance art and introduces a range of practices used in higher level education. The book is a collection of nine independent essays. All the writers have several years of practice as artists, curators, teachers, professors, researchers and in establishing performance art education in Finland. The essays explain, challenge and deconstruct performance art from various angles: the body as a tool and a base of identity, self as material, pedagogic acts of dissidence, challenging societal questions without politicing art, building sustainable artwork based on emotions, intuition and research, using Fluxus scores in contemporary practices etc. are all topics dealt by the writers of Performance Art in practice – pedagogical approaches. The essays are written from a practical point of view: how do we concretely teach performance art, why have we chosen these ways and what are the outcomes. Teaching the experimental art form, that doesn’t wear a uniform and relies on ever changing time and space isn’t all evident. Deconstructing performance art and reconstructing pedagogy springs out ideas that are relevant also elsewhere in the contemporary society. The book challenges art school institutions: Individuality bound to collegiality, fruitful dialogue that bases on trust and sharing with a sociologically and politically challenging curricula come out in texts written by Aapo Korkeaoja, Eero Yli-Vakkuri, Jussi Matilainen, Pia Lindy and Tuomas Laitinen that refer to the remote countryside campus of SAMK Kankaanpää school of art. More urban perspective with philosophies, research interests and pedagogic practices at The University of Arts Helsinki are opened up by Tero Nauha, Annette Arlander, Pilvi Porkola and Leena Kela in their essays.

This volume reshapes a contemporary understanding of research in theatre and performance arts. Bringing together distinguished scholars from all over the world, the book serves as an arena for international scholars to introduce innovative research methodologies and disseminate their research findings regarding VLT, data archiving, and digital history and discusses the impacts of digital culture in art production, stage performance, film, and literature. The Ibsen focus in the book is illustrative of the power of digital database research that is generating new relations in spatial-historical dimensions that have otherwise gone unnoticed. It demonstrates how a new methodology can bring practical benefits to handling big data with the support of digital technologies. In line with the post-pandemic landscape, this book engages a reflection on how the digital revolution has brought about changes and challenges, and constraints and breakthroughs within the field of theatre and performance arts. It is of appeal to theatre artists and practitioners, scholars, critics, librarians, digital archive engineers, and postgraduate students interested in theatre, performance studies, digital media, information technology, library science, communication, education, sociology, as well as political science. “The book investigates the latest methodological development in digital cultures and performance arts, which significantly contributes to the ever-changing and increasingly advanced technological culture in this field.” - Jessica Tsui-yan Li, York University, Canada "In line with the post-pandemic landscape, this book engages the reader in reflecting on how the digital revolution has brought about chances and challenges, constraints and breakthroughs to the field of theatre and performance arts. An original, eye-opening and inspiring volume at multiple levels, this book brings together distinguished scholars from all over the world." - Dr Anna Tso, The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong

Reconstructing Exhibitions in Art Institutions spans exhibition histories as anti-apartheid activism within South African community arts; collectivities and trade unions in Argentina; Civil Rights movements and Black communities in Baltimore; institutional self-critique within the neoliberal museum; reframing feminisms in USA; and revisiting Cold War Modernisms in Eastern Europe among other themes. An interdisciplinary project with a global reach, this edited volume considers the theme of exhibitions as political resistance as well as cultural critique from global perspectives including South Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, USA and West Europe. The book includes contributions by ten authors from the fields of art history, social sciences, anthropology, museum studies, provenance research, curating and exhibition histories. The edited volume finally examines exhibition reconstructions both as a symptom of advanced capitalism, geopolitical dynamics and social uprisings, and as a critique of imperial and capitalist violence. Art historical areas covered in the book include conceptualism, minimalism, modern painting, global modernisms, archives and community arts. This volume will be of interest to a wide range of audiences including art historians, curators, gallery studies and museum professionals, and also to scholars and students from the fields of anthropology, ethnography, sociology, and history. It would also appeal to a general public with an interest in modern and contemporary art exhibitions.

The Routledge Dictionary of Contemporary Theatre and Performance provides the first authoritative alphabetical guide to the theatre and performance of the last 30 years. Conceived and written by one of the foremost scholars and critics of theatre in the world, it literally takes us from Activism to Zapping, analysing everything along the way from Body Art and the Flashmob to Multimedia and the Postdramatic. What we think of as 'performance' and 'drama' has undergone a transformation in recent decades. Similarly how these terms are defined, used and critiqued has also changed, thanks to interventions from a panoply of theorists from Derrida to Ranciere. Patrice Pavis's Dictionary provides an indispensible roadmap for this complex and fascinating terrain; a volume no theatre bookshelf can afford to be without.