Dramas of the Performative Society: Theatre at the End of its Tether

2001 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baz Kershaw
Keyword(s):  
Performance Studies ◽  
Extensive Experience ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Radical Theatre ◽  
University Of Bristol ◽  
The University ◽  
Drury Lane

The emergence of new performance paradigms in the second half of the twentieth century is only now being recognized as a fresh phase in human history. The creation of the new discipline, or, as some would call it, the anti-discipline of performance studies in universities is just a small chapter in a ubiquitous story. Everywhere performance is becoming a key quality of endeavour, whether in science and technology, commerce and industry, government and civics, or humanities and the arts. We are experiencing the creation of what Baz Kershaw here calls the ‘performative society’ – a society in which the human is crucially constituted through performance. But in such a society, what happens to the traditional notions and practices of drama and theatre? In this inaugural lecture, Kershaw looks for signs and portents of the future of drama and theatre in the performative society, finds mostly dissolution and deep panic, and tentatively suggests the need for a radical turn that will embrace the promiscuity of performance. Baz Kershaw, currently Professor of Drama at the University of Bristol, trained and worked as a design engineer before reading English and Philosophy at Manchester University. He has had extensive experience as a director and writer in radical theatre, including productions at the Drury Lane Arts Lab and with the Devon-based group Medium Fair, where he founded the first reminiscence theatre company Fair Old Times. His latest book is The Radical in Performance (Routledge, 1999). More recently he wrote about the ecologies of performance in NTQ 62.

The Theatrical Biosphere and Ecologies of Performance

2000 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baz Kershaw
Keyword(s):  
Extensive Experience ◽  
Cultural Intervention ◽  
Contemporary Theatre ◽  
Unilateral Declaration ◽  
Arizona Desert ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
Cultural Construct ◽  
Radical Theatre ◽  
University Of Bristol ◽  
The University

In what would a postmodern theatrum mundi, or ‘theatre of the world’, consist? In an ironic inversion of the very concept, with the microcosm issuing a unilateral declaration of independence – or of incorporation? Or in a neo-neoplatonic recognition that it is but a cultural construct of an outer world that is itself culturally constructed? In the following article, Baz Kershaw makes connections between the high-imperial Victorian love of glasshouses, which at once created and constrained their ‘theatre of nature’, and the massive 'nineties ecological experiment of ‘Biosphere II’ – ‘a gigantic glass ark the size of an aircraft hangar situated in the Southern Arizona desert’, which embraces all the main types of terrain in the global eco-system. In the Biosphere's ambiguous position between deeply serious scientific experiment and commodified theme park, Kershaw sees an hermetically-sealed system analogous to much contemporary theatre – whose intrinsic opacity is often further blurred by a theorizing no less reductive than that of the obsessive Victorian taxonomists. He offers not answers, but ‘meditations’ on the problem of creating an ecologically meaningful theatre. Baz Kershaw, currently Professor of Drama at the University of Bristol, originally trained and worked as a design engineer. He has had extensive experience as a director and writer in radical theatre, including productions at the Drury Lane Arts Lab and as co-director of Medium Fair, the first mobile rural community arts group, and of the reminiscence theatre company Fair Old Times. He is the author of The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre as Cultural Intervention (Routledge, 1992) and The Radical in Performance: Between Brecht and Baudrillard (Routledge, 1999), and co-author of Engineers of the Imagination: the Welfare State Handbook (Methuen, 1990).

The Basis and the Quality of Relationships between the Police and the Public

1976 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 285-289
Author(s):  
A. O. Higgins
Keyword(s):  
International Competition ◽  
The Public ◽  
Chief Officer ◽  
Quality Of Relationships ◽  
University Of Bristol ◽  
The University

The International Police Association recently conducted an international competition for essays on the theme of “THE POLICE AND THE COMMUNITY”. The panel of judges consisted of Professor Michael Banton of the Department of Sociology at the University of Bristol; General Dr. Francesco Andreotti, the chief Officer of the Police of Rome, and Dr. Emanuel Yedidda of Israel. Mr. Higgins' essay was adjudged the winner of the competition and other prizes went to Jean-Pierre Rebeyrol of France and Fabrizio Lecher of Italy.

Source Theatre Company and the Mandate of the NEA: a Case Study

1995 ◽  
Vol 11 (42) ◽  
pp. 128-134
Author(s):  
Mary C. Resing
Keyword(s):  
Public Funding ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Endowment ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
The Public ◽  
Chapel Hill ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
The University

The controversy in the United States surrounding the funding of ‘offensive‐ and ‘pornographic‐ works by the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) has centered on whether or not the organization should espouse a morally conservative outlook in regard to the public funding of artistic works. However, the NEA arguably already pursues conservative policies rooted in its vision of the form, function, and outlook of the arts it exists to serve. The appointment of the actress Jane Alexander as chair of the NEA may have indicated that the organization would become more liberal in its moral stance, but the question remains: can government-supported art be anything but conservative? The following is a case study of one theatre's relationship to the NEA in the context of the Washington, DC, theatre community. The author, Mary C. Resing, is a former business manager of New Playwrights' Theatre in Washington, DC, and a former grant writer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is currently working on her dissertation on the actress-manager Vera Kommissarzhevskaia.

scholarly journals PROPUESTA DE CREACION DE UN CENTRO DE ATENCION INTEGRAL AL ESTUDIANTE DE LA UNED (CEATIE). PROPOSAL TO CREATE AN INTEGRAL ATTENTION CENTER FOR THE STUDENT OF THE UNED (CEATIE)

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 205-222
Author(s):  
Ariana Gabriela Acón-Matamoros ◽  
Javier Cox-Alvarado
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Customer Service ◽  
Self Assessment ◽  
Quality Of Higher Education ◽  
Quality Feedback ◽  
Higher Education Quality ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The University ◽  
Sistemas De Informacion

Se detalla una propuesta para la creación de un centro de atención integral al estudiante de la Universidad Estatal a Distancia (UNED), que reúna los componentes administrativos y tecnológicos, enfocados en atención al cliente, para brindar una respuesta de calidad a los estudiantes.La importancia de la creación del centro de atención integral al estudiante se describe en el desarrollo de esta investigación, y los beneficios inmediatos para los estudiantes y la universidad.A su vez una mejora en el servicio que se presta al estudiantado, representa el mejoramiento continuo, repercute en la calidad de la educación superior que brinda la universidad a sus estudiantes, apoyado por los sistemas de información con los que se cuenta y los procesos de autoevaluación y acreditación de la UNED.Palabras clave: atención integral, servicio al estudiante, calidad en los servicios, calidad en la educación superior.AbstractA proposal for the creation of the student integral attention for the Universidad Estatal a Distancia (UNED), satisfying the administrative and technological components, focused on customer service to provide quality feedback to students is detailed.The importance of the creation of the student integral attention is described on this research and the immediate benefits for students and the university.At the same time an improvement in the service provided to students, represents the continuous improvement and makes an impact in the quality of higher education that the university provides to its students, supported by the information systems that already exists and the self-assessment and accreditation process of the UNEDKeywords: integral attention, student services, services quality, higher education quality.

Preparing Students to Engage the Arts in the 21st Century

2015 ◽  
pp. 188-204
Author(s):  
Jeffrey M. Morris
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
Interdisciplinary Collaboration ◽  
Stem Fields ◽  
Public Performance ◽  
Human Element ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
The Arts ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
The University

The Department of Performance Studies at Texas A&M University is building a culture of innovation through strategic facility development, a focus on students sharing work through public performance, and interdisciplinary collaboration. The department has embraced the celebrated strengths of our university in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) by developing interdisciplinary experiences and inspiring facilities (through technology and curriculum grants). These experiences contribute to the university at large by demonstrating how technology can connect with the human element and how technology impacts human expression. Students benefit by joining faculty in exploring the new and also rediscovering the traditional.

Recent Views on Tragedy Ancient and Modern

Traditio ◽  
1959 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 443-448
Author(s):  
Virginia Woods Callahan
Keyword(s):  
Focal Point ◽  
Greek Tragedy ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Classical Philology ◽  
The Arts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Tragic Drama ◽  
Contemporary Painting ◽  
University Of Bristol ◽  
The University

In 1958 the American Council of Learned Societies devoted its thirty-ninth annual meeting to a consideration of ‘the present-day vitality of the classical tradition.’ The focal point in the two-day program was the persistent influence of certain aspects of Greek tragedy upon the arts in our time: two versions of the Antigone (Sophocles’ and Jean Anouilh's) were presented on the same evening; there were lectures on ‘the tragic sense’ in Picasso's Guernica and in contemporary painting and music; but the most striking affirmation of the theme was a lecture on ‘The Vitality of Sophocles’ by Professor H. D. F. Kitto of the University of Bristol. One of the most distinguished of modern classical scholars, Mr. Kitto is well known among American students for his book, Greek Tragedy, published in 1939. In addition to his work on tragic drama here considered there appeared in print last year a small volume by him on Sophocles as dramatist and philosopher. In 1957 Harvard University published a long-awaited, monumental study of Aristotle's Poetics by Professor Gerald F. Else of the University of Michigan, and in 1958 The Johns Hopkins Press published in book form six lectures delivered in Baltimore by Professor Richmond Lattimore on The Poetry of Greek Tragedy. That these classical scholars should have, during recent years, made such varied contributions to an understanding of Greek tragedy — a field to which each of them has devoted a major portion of his academic life — is noteworthy but scarcely surprising, since the Greek theatre and the Greek tragedians have been a perennial subject in the history of classical philology.

‘Gratuitous Assistance’? The West End Theatre Industry, Late Victorian Charity, and Patterns of Theatrical Fundraising

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Hindson
Keyword(s):  
Performance Studies ◽  
Economic Potential ◽  
The West ◽  
Senior Lecturer ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
And Performance ◽  
End Stage ◽  
University Of Bristol ◽  
The University

London's theatre industry and charity culture have been closely connected since the mid-nineteenth century. In this article Catherine Hindson explores the nature of this relationship in the later years of the century. Focusing on a charity bazaar held at the Royal Albert Hall in June 1899 to raise funds for the Charing Cross Hospital, she argues that extra-theatrical occasions staged for charity organizations were firmly located within the stage culture of the day. Rather than peripheral occasions, high-profile, public charity events functioned as significant forces in the reputation and success of the West End theatre industry and its personnel. They held cultural, social, and economic potential for theatrical performers and represent a key factor in the improvement in the moral and social status of the stage in this period. Catherine Hindson is Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Bristol. She has published widely on popular performance between 1820 and 1930 and is currently completing a monograph on the actress, the West End stage, and charity between 1880 and 1930.

scholarly journals The 'go digital' Bristol experience

2021 ◽  
pp. 57-62
Author(s):  
Gloria Visintini
Keyword(s):  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Assessment Practices ◽  
Digital Education ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Difficult Conversations ◽  
Education Agenda ◽  
University Of Bristol ◽  
The University ◽  
Work Done ◽  
Academic Year

This article describes the move to digital teaching and learning for the language team in the School of Modern Languages (SML) at the University of Bristol as a consequence of COVID-19 in March 2020. Topics discussed here include the educational guidelines the university put in place; how these were followed and implemented by colleagues in Modern Languages; the new digital teaching and assessment practices; how decisions were reached across languages; technologies that people used and the support available; challenges in delivering teaching; and, lastly, the opportunities created for staff and students. In describing our practice during the pandemic, I will also offer my personal take and observations as the person responsible for digital education in the Arts Faculty who assisted the language team in this transition. I will reflect on how this pandemic has accelerated our digital education agenda and how having a background in language teaching has helped and informed some of the – sometimes difficult – conversations I had with my language colleagues during these fast-moving and uncertain times. The article will end with a brief description of some of our remaining challenges and lessons learnt while the university has announced that next academic year will be delivered largely digitally. The work done so far will inform our planning.

Public Works: NEH, Congress, and the State Humanities Councils

2013 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamil Zainaldin
Keyword(s):  
American History ◽  
The State ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Public Works ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
The Arts ◽  
National Foundation ◽  
The Creation

The National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965 is the most ambitious piece of cultural legislation in American history. The story of its creation and evolution is a tangled one that continues to the present day. This essay looks at NEH and NEA in their early years, their relations with Congress, and the process by which NEH fostered the invention of humanities-based “State Committees,” significantly different in concept from NEA’s innovation of “State Arts Agencies.” The circumstances that led to the creation of these grassroots programs ultimately changed NEH itself while popularizing the novel terminology and concept of “public” humanities work. The essay concludes with reflections about the time-bound quality of NEH and the State Humanities Councils and considers their sustainability in a new century.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document