The Cambridge Introduction to Performance Theory

This engaging account explains the meaning and origins of performance theory and why it has become so important.

Simon Shepherd (Author)

9781107039322, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 March 2016

256 pages
23.7 x 15.1 x 1.8 cm, 0.51 kg

What does 'performance theory' really mean and why has it become so important across such a large number of disciplines, from art history to religious studies and architecture to geography? In this introduction Simon Shepherd explains the origins of performance theory, defines the terms and practices within the field and provides new insights into performance's wide range of definitions and uses. Offering an overview of the key figures, their theories and their impact, Shepherd provides a fresh approach to figures including Erving Goffman and Richard Schechner and ideas such as radical art practice, performance studies, radical scenarism and performativity. Essential reading for students, scholars and enthusiasts, this engaging account travels from universities into the streets and back again to examine performance in the context of political activists and teachers, countercultural experiments and feminist challenges, and ceremonies and demonstrations.

Preface
Part I. Definitions of Performance: 1. Sociology and the rituals of interaction
2. Theatre, ceremony and everyday life
3. Ethnography, folklore and communicative events
4. Cultural performance, social drama and liminality
5. Performance as a new sort of knowledge
Part II. The Emergence of Performance as Sensuous Practice: 6. Situationism, games and subversion
7. Hippies and expressive play
8. Performance as a new pedagogy
9. Architecture and the performed city
10. New forms of activism
11. Happenings and everyday performance
12. Body art and feminism
13. The arrival of performance art and live art
14. Dance party politics
Part III. Theorising Performance: 15. Performance, postmodernism and critical theory
16. What performance studies is: version 1: New York and Northwestern
17. What performance studies is: version 2: oral interpretation
18. How performance studies emerged
19. Gender performativity
20. Performance and performativity
21. The relations between performance, theatre and text
22. The magic of performance
Afterword.

Subject Areas: Other performing arts [ASZ], Performance art [AFKP]