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This book is situated at the intersection of queer/gender studies and theories of acting pedagogy and performance. It explores the social and cultural matrix in which matters of gender are negotiated, including that of post-secondary theatre and drama education. It identifies the predicament of gender dissident actors who must contend with the widespread enforcement of realist paradigms within the academy, and proposes a re-imagining of the way drama/theatre/performance are practised in order to serve more fairly and effectively the needs of queer actors in training. This is located within a larger project of critique in reference to the art form as a whole. The book stimulates discussion among practitioners and scholars on matters concerning various kinds of diversity: of gender expression, of approaches to the teaching of acting, and to the way the art form may be imagined and executed in the early years of the 21st Century, in particular in the face of the climate crisis. But it is also an aid to practitioners who are seeking new theoretical and practical approaches to dealing with gender diversity in acting pedagogy.
This book radically reimagines theatre/performance pedagogy and dramaturgy in response to the accelerating climate crisis. This text is founded upon the principle that the theatre is the most anthropocentric of all the arts: the means of its representation, the human figure, is identical with its conventional object, the human narrative, broadly considered. In order to respond ethically to the climate crisis, it must expand its range to include performing as/in response to the nonhuman. Conrad Alexandrowicz concisely explores theoretical approaches to the other-than-human, found in the work of, among others, Jane Bennett, Timothy Morton, Rosi Braidotti, and Cary Wolfe. The implications of th...
Chronicling the explosive career of a twentieth-century genius, Brilliant! is a story about the beginning of our technological age embodied in a man whose ideas, dreams and passions were too big for his own time. Visually stunning, the play has many comic, surreal and dramatic moments told in the inimitable style that has made the Electric Company a Canadian treasure. In February 1882, Tesla discovered the rotating magnetic field, a fundamental principle in physics and the basis of nearly all devices that use alternating current. His greatest achievement is the polyphase alternating current system, which today lights the entire globe. His alternating current induction motor is considered one...
This book is the first definitive publication to consider the intersections of applied theatre and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – a series of goals which have shaped development and social justice initiatives from 2015 to 2030. It brings together emerging and leading scholars and practitioners engaged in creative and community contexts globally. In so doing, the book offers critical insights to explore the convergences, complexities, and tensions of working within development frameworks, through theatre. Divided into three thematic areas, it maps out the ways in which applied theatre has related to the SDGs, examines issues with global collaborations, and, as 2030 approaches and the SDG era draws to a close, interrogates such practices, envisioning what the role of applied theatre might be in the post-SDG era. The book provokes reflection about this specific era of applied theatre and global development, as well as discussion regarding what comes next. This volume will be of importance to students, artists, scholars, practitioners, and policymakers working in applied theatre and the field of development.
The Routledge Companion to Absurdist Literature is the first authoritative and definitive edited collection on absurdist literature. As a field-defining volume, the editor and the contributors are world leaders in this ever-exciting genre that includes some of the most important and influential writers of the twentieth century, including Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, and Albert Camus. Ever puzzling and always refusing to be pinned down, this book does not attempt to define absurdist literature, but attempts to examine its major and minor players. As such, the field is indirectly defined by examining its constituent writers. Not only investigating the so-called “Theatre of the Absurd,” this volume wades deeply into absurdist fiction and absurdist poetry, expanding much of our previous sense of what constitutes absurdist literature. Furthermore, long overdue, approximately one-third of the book is devoted to marginalized writers: black, Latin/x, female, LGBTQ+, and non-Western voices.
This book is a groundbreaking exploration of black masculinity and sexual passing in American contemporary dance. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in New York City, the book features keen observations and in-depth interviews with acclaimed dancer-choreographers Desmond Richardson and Dwight Rhoden Co-Artistic Directors of Complexions Contemporary Ballet and Ronald K. Brown, Artistic Director of Evidence. Black Queer Dance examines one of the most visible crucibles for masculinity—the male dancer—and illuminates the contradictory and conditional acceptance of black gay men’s contributions to American modern dance. The book questions the politics of "coming out" and situates a new framewo...
This book demonstrates how humans can become sensitized to, and intervene in, environmental degradation by writing, reading, analyzing, and teaching poetry. It offers both theoretical and practice-based essays, providing a diversity of approaches and voices that will be useful in the classroom and beyond. The chapters in this edited collection explore how poetry can make readers climate-ready and climate-responsive through creativity, empathy, and empowerment. The book encompasses work from or about Oceania, Africa, Europe, North America, Asia, and Antarctica, integrating poetry into discussions of specific local and global issues, including the value of Indigenous responses to climate chang...
This volume explores whether theatre pedagogy can and should be transformed in response to the global climate crisis. Conrad Alexandrowicz and David Fancy present an innovative re-imagining of the ways in which the art of theatre, and the pedagogical apparatus that feeds and supports it, might contribute to global efforts in climate protest and action. Comprised of contributions from a broad range of scholars and practitioners, the volume explores whether an adherence to aesthetic values can be preserved when art is instrumentalized as protest and considers theatre as a tool to be employed by the School Strike for Climate movement. Considering perspectives from areas including performance, directing, production, design, theory and history, this book will prompt vital discussions which could transform curricular design and implementation in the light of the climate crisis. Theatre Pedagogy in the Era of Climate Crisis will be of great interest to students, scholars and practitioners of climate change and theatre and performance studies.
Stages of Reckoning is a crucial conversation about how racialized bodies and power intersect within actor training spaces. This book provokes embodied and intellectual discomfort for the reader to take risks with their ideologies, identities, and practices and to make new pedagogical choices for students with racialized identities. Centering the voices of actor trainers of color to acknowledge their personal experience and professional pedagogy as theory, this volume illuminates actionable ideas for text work, casting, voice, consent practices, and movement while offering decolonial approaches to current Eurocentric methods. These offerings invite the reader to create spaces where students can bring more of themselves, their communities, and their stories into their training and as fodder for performance making that will lead to a more just world. This book is for people in high/secondary schools, higher education, and private training studios who wish to teach and direct actors of color in ways that more fully honor their multiple identities.
Critical Acting Pedagogy: Intersectional Approaches invites readers to think about pedagogy in actor training as a research field in its own right: to sit with the complex challenges, risks, and rewards of the acting studio; to recognise the shared vulnerability, courage, and love that defines our field and underpins our practices. This collection of chapters, from a diverse group of acting teachers at different points in their careers, working in conservatoires and universities, illuminates current developments in decolonising studios to foreground multiple and intersecting identities in the pedagogic exchange. In acknowledging how their positionality affects their practices and materials, ...