Theatre Ecology: Environments and Performance Events (review)

Modern Drama ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-249
Author(s):  
Theresa J. May
2021 ◽  
pp. 11-22
Author(s):  
Stephen Barber

Film and performance have always been closely interconnected, from the origins of cinematic projection in 1895. This essay, with a theoretical focus, explores how film and moving-image forms work to transform performance when they intersect with it, and vice versa. It examines how film serves to mediate and ‘reframe’ the experience and the time of live performance events, notably through the incorporation of moving-image elements into the space of performance, and through particular forms of projection and audience perception. It also probes how conceptions of intermediality can be traced specifically through the intersection of film and performance. The essay spans the entirety of moving image culture, beginning with an account of the connections between film and performance in the work of the German innovators of moving-image projection, the Skladanowsky Brothers, and ending with an examination of the work of the contemporary Lebanese filmmaker and performance artist, Rabih Mroué, whose work resonates with early cinema’s performative strategies but focuses also on current digital media events such as the dangerous ‘performative’ public filming with iPhones of government snipers in the streets of Syria.


Author(s):  
Aaron Cassidy

Wolfgang Mitterer (1958--) is an Austrian composer and organist noted for his work with live electronics and improvisation. Born on 6 June, 1958 in Lienz, East Tyrol, Mitterer studied organ and composition at the University of Music and the Performing Arts Vienna, followed by a year-long residency at the studio for electroacoustic music (EMS) in Stockholm. An exceptionally prolific composer, Mitterer’s output spans a staggeringly broad range of approaches to music making, including works for tape, chamber music of various formations, experimental pop songs (Sopop), works for large orchestra, music for theatre and opera, music for film, and sprawling site-specific installations and performance events (turmbau zu babel, for example, is scored for 4,200 singers, 22 drums, 48 brass players, and 8-channel tape). His works list includes over 200 entries and demonstrates a particularly catholic, pluralistic, non-dogmatic approach to instrumentation, duration, venue, scale, and function. Despite this diversity, Mitterer’s work maintains several important central tendencies: stylistically, the music is often characterized by layers of crackles, twitches, clicks, and pops (both electronic and acoustic), with a rustling, flickering, chirping, gestural energy. These more fragmented, granular layers are quite often combined with gradual, elongated, atmospheric, and lyrical material, though generally a sense of instability and unpredictability remains.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 350-393
Author(s):  
Pieter J.J. Botha

Abstract Orality/aurality is recognised by a growing number of scholars as a significant aspect of the context of New Testament texts. As part of the exploration of the oral features of New Testament texts some are turning to Greco-Roman storytelling and oratory, informed by performance studies. A selection of these explorations are discussed to introduce scholarship that attempts to identify various elements of performance events in the early church as a basis for re-thinking our ways of studying and our interpretations of the New Testament writings in their original context. The obstacles to such efforts are considerable, but some significant gains have been made. Focusing on research on the Gospel of Mark, this discussion shows how performance critical studies allow new insights into the origins of the Gospels, leading to interesting new and meaningful perspectives on the history of the early Jesus movement with specific attention to the role telling and presenting the Markan story played.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (s4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikitta Dede Adjirakor

Abstract From its encouraged and sustained use during colonial times, through to the creation of the Tanzanian state, the Swahili language has been consistently constructed as one of the key facets of Tanzanian identity. After the emergence of hip-hop in Tanzania, the shift from English to Swahili was instrumental to its widespread adoption, with English gaining a symbolic meaning as a status marker as well as a language for international positioning. This article argues that recently, a rising number of hip-hop artists style themselves as purely English-speaking artists to construct a Tanzanian identity that challenges the dominant positioning of Swahili. To this end, I explore through selected texts how English is used to construct a cosmopolitan niche and urban identity that serves as a counternarrative to the dominance of Swahili in the popular imagination. Through hip-hop songs, groups and performance events, I show how English is used to evoke experiences of belonging that are positioned as authentic narratives that juxtapose rather than contradict a Tanzanian identity.


Author(s):  
Barry Stephenson

Cross-culturally, ritual typically includes elements commonly associated with performance events: music or rhythmic accompaniment; dance or other stylized bodily movements; and masking, costuming, and makeup. ‘Ritual as performance’ considers performance theory and performance studies and some of the work of significant theorists in these fields: J. L. Austin and Richard Schechner. By looking at the kōan tradition of Zen Buddhism, Schechner's approach to ritual can be better understood. Schechner places performance on a continuum that runs from efficacy to entertainment. The notions of embodiment and inscription in ritual studies are also considered along with the noetic implications of ritual action, such as pilgrimage.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Merry J. Sleigh ◽  
Donna Webster Nelson ◽  
Alyssa M. Nelson ◽  
Darren R. Ritzer

We conducted two studies to investigate predictors of coaching motivation. In Study One, we focused on variables linked to coaching motivation and burnout in adult sports coaches. We examined high school extracurricular experiences, and coaching engagement. Positive interpersonal events experienced during high school predicted coaching motivation and a motivation. Positive interpersonal and performance events in high school predicted feelings of reduced accomplishment, while negative interpersonal and performance events in high school predicted physical exhaustion. Two aspects of coaching engagement, vigor and absorption predicted coaching motivation. Thus, coaches’ motivation was predicted by both high school and current coaching events. In Study Two, we examined whether the same high school events predicted a desire to coach in recent high school graduates. Participants retrospectively reported participation in high school sports or heavy investment in alternate activities (e.g., marching band). For both groups, identification with the activity and dedication to the activity predicted a desire to coach. A desire to coach was not predicted by high school extracurricular events. Our findings indicate that high school experiences exerted differential effects on recent graduates versus adult coaches in terms of attitudes toward coaching.


Author(s):  
Deana L. Molinari ◽  
Alice E. Dupler ◽  
Naomi Lungstrom

Stress is recognized today as impacting both quality and length of life (Kiecolt-Glaser, McGuire, Robles, & Glaser, 2002). Stress was defined by Hans Seyle (1936) as the unspecified physiological response to aversive stimuli. The stress of learning is not yet understood. If stress impacts physical and emotional well-being, and lifelong learning is needed to survive in the information age, then a study of the stress of learning may impact both nursing and educational practice. Learning stress can create a number of long-term physiological and performance complications. Stress reduces immune function, making people vulnerable to disease. Studies indicate stress hormone levels can be predictive of relationship problems and chronic disease. Reducing stress could avoid colds, flu, and mild depressive symptoms, which complicate student relationships and achievements, thus increasing stress (Glaser, Robles, Malarkey, Sheridan & Kiecolt-Glaser, 2004). Stress also blocks learning by limiting perceptions, thinking, and memory capabilities during performance, triggering higher levels of stress during later performance events (Sapolsky, 1998). The inability to think or remember concepts, procedures, and methods during patient encounters can threaten lives.


Public ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (59) ◽  
pp. 46-55
Author(s):  
Jennifer Willet

This article presents the research philosophies, artworks, and practices of INCUBATOR Lab, a bioart research and teaching facility at the School of Creative Arts, University of Windsor, Canada. Research/creation projects produced range from microbial artworks, interspecies performances, social practice projects, and textual analysis, to artworks that can only be seen with a microscope. The facility provides innovations in public engagement through (1) making daily bioart laboratory activities visible to online and local audiences; (2) serving as a gallery where artworks that are unable to leave the BSL2 laboratory setting can be safely displayed for audiences; and (3) providing a multimedia performing arts venue where seated audiences can view theatre and performance events that integrate BSL2 biotechnologies into multimedia storytelling and performance genres. INCUBATOR Lab is an institutional space, an artwork, an ecology, and a biosphere where human and non-human organisms collaboratively and co-dependently produce bioart research and creation.


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