The archival research has been historically delayed in Romania which means contemporary researchers have a greater responsibility compared to their peers in other countries to recuperate relevant ...facts from the past. A consistent body of literature regards archives as structures of power, but they are also meant to be looked at with a personal investment, as books by Jaimie Baron and Arlette Farge argue. Based on their arguments as well as on my personal research experience, I am laying the ground in this article for a proactive attitude meant to bring archival research in the frontline of theatre studies in Romania. I chose the “how to” format, with questions and answers for this article, in order to encourage readers to undertake their own research as this is the most appropriate way to draw theoretical conclusions about this process and compare them to the ones already acknowledged in this field.
The history of theatre has often been written as a history of great writers, actors, or directors. This book takes a different approach: The contributors examine the history of performance from the ...perspective of theatre spaces and stage technologies. Art, literature, religion, law, urbanism, architecture, technology - this interdisciplinary book discusses how these fields relate to theatre and performance. Geographically, it covers a significant portion of the globe; chronologically, it ranges from ancient times to the present. This book provides a timely attempt to combine cultural and global history.
Cultural Convergence Pilný, Ondřej; van den Beuken, Ruud; Walsh, Ian R
2021, 2020, 2020-11-03
eBook
Open access
Based on extensive archival research, this open access book examines the poetics and politics of the Dublin Gate Theatre (est. 1928) over the first three decades of its existence, discussing some of ...its remarkable productions in the comparative contexts of avant-garde theatre, Hollywood cinema, popular culture, and the development of Irish-language theatre, respectively. The overarching objective is to consider the output of the Gate in terms of cultural convergence – the dynamics of exchange, interaction, and acculturation that reveal the workings of transnational infrastructures.
The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance Historiography sets the agenda for inclusive and wide-ranging approaches to writing history, embracing the diverse perspectives of the twenty-first ...century and Critical Media History.
Written by an international team of authors whose expertise spans a multitude of historical periods and cultures, this collection of fascinating essays poses the central question: “what is specific to the historiography of the performative?” The study of theatre, in conjunction with the wider sphere of performance, involves an array of multi-faceted methods for collecting evidence, interpreting sources, and creating meaning. Reflecting on issues of recording — from early-modern musical scores, through VHS technology to latest digital procedures — and on what is missing from records or oblique in practices, the contributors convey how theatre and performance history is integral to social and cultural relations.
This expertly curated collection repositions theatre and performance history and is essential reading for Theatre and Performance Studies students or those interested in social and cultural history more generally.
Jana Sanskriti Centre for the Theatre of the Oppressed, based in West Bengal, is probably the largest and longest lasting Forum Theatre operation in the world. It was considered by Augusto Boal to be ...the chief exponent of his methodology outside of its native Brazil.
This book is a unique first-hand account - by the group's artistic director Sanjoy Ganguly - of Jana Sanskriti's growth and development since its founding in 1985, which has resulted in a national Forum Theatre network throughout India. Ganguly describes the plays, people and places that have formed this unique operation and discusses its contribution to the wider themes espoused by Forum Theatre.
Ganguly charts and reflects on the practice of theatre as politics, developing an intriguing and persuasive case for Forum Theatre and its role in provoking responsible action. His combination of anecdotal insight and lucid discussion of Boal’s practice offers a vision of far-reaching transformation in politics and civil society.
While Ibsen's plays were seldom performed in Romania in the first half of the 20th century, historical sources highlight his strong impact on the national theatre practice. To address this ...contradiction, Gianina Druta approaches the reception of Ibsen in the Romanian theatre in the period 1894-1947, combining Digital Humanities and theatre historiography. This investigation of the European theatre culture and the way in which the foreign acting and staging traditions influenced the Romanian Ibsenites provides new insights into mechanisms of aesthetic transmission. Thus, this study presents a European theatre landscape whose unpredictability and uniqueness cannot be confined to essentialist interpretations.
As the first examination of women's foremost contributions to Jerzy Grotowski's cross-cultural investigation of performance, this book complements and broadens existing literature by offering a more ...diverse and inclusive re-assessment of Grotowski's legacy, thereby probing its significance for contemporary performance practice and research. Although the particularly strenuous physical training emblematic of Grotowski's approach is not gender specific, it has historically been associated with a masculine conception of the performer incarnated by Ryszard Cieslak in The Constant Prince, thus overlooking the work of Rena Mirecka, Maja Komorowska, and Elizabeth Albahaca, to name only the leading women performers identified with the period of theatre productions. This book therefore redresses this imbalance by focusing on key women from different cultures and generations who share a direct connection to Grotowski's legacy while clearly asserting their artistic independence. These women actively participated in all phases of the Polish director's practical research, and continue to play a vital role in today's transnational community of artists whose work reflects Grotowski's enduring influence. Grounding her inquiry in her embodied research and on-going collaboration with these artists, Magnat explores the interrelation of creativity, embodiment, agency, and spirituality within their performing and teaching. Building on current debates in performance studies, experimental ethnography, Indigenous research, global gender studies, and ecocriticism, the author maps out interconnections between these women's distinct artistic practices across the boundaries that once delineated Grotowski's theatrical and post-theatrical experiments.
Aesthetic Features and the Potential of Theatre in the Context of the Great Union In the context of the Great Union (1918), the Romanian political and social landscape created a series of new ...challenges to which the theater could not remain indifferent. One of these was to overcome the discrepancies and cultural contrasts generated in, and from the newly joined territories in order to form a single national identity, strong enough to be noticed on the European stage. - Theater, whose direct relationship with society was becoming stronger and more obvious, responded to this challenge with enthusiasm. With an outstanding dynamic, the theatre of the first half of the 20th century, substantially contributed, in social and cultural terms, to the cohesion and homogenization of Romanian society as a whole. For the ”Generation of the Great Union”, the strengthening of the national identity was the main theme of interest in this period in which they seek to give the Romanian people a new direction and a new ideal. In addition to the (re) theatricalization offensive and to the processes of Europeanization, decentralization and deprovinalization, we are witnessing also a kind of metamorphosis of the theater in this period, to the extent that, from the instrument of cohesion and homogenization of the masses, it (re) becomes a means of spiritual enrichment thus fulfilling one of its functions.
