Dance and Activism: A Century of Radical Dance Across the World, Dana Mills (2021)

Review of: Dance and Activism: A Century of Radical Dance Across the World, Dana Mills (2021)London: Bloomsbury, 216 pp.,ISBN 978-1-35013-701-1, h/bk, £76.50ISBN 978-1-35013-702-8, e-PDF, £61.20ISBN 978-1-35013-703-5, e-Pub, £61.20

A Companion to British-Jewish Theatre since the 1950s, Jeanette R. Malkin, Eckart Voigts and Sarah Jane Ablett (Eds) (2021)

Review of: A Companion to British-Jewish Theatre since the 1950s, Jeanette R. Malkin, Eckart Voigts and Sarah Jane Ablett (Eds) (2021)London: Bloomsbury, 272 pp.,ISBN 978-1-35013-597-0, e-book, £76.50ISBN 978-1-35013-596-3, h/bk, £85.00

Dialectical Collaborative Theatre: Practising equality by facilitating non-material ideology in the production process

This article discusses the relationship between ethics and ideology and how this relationship forms the basis of the practice of BloodWater Theatre, a collective I formed to explore equality in collaborative theatre-making. I highlight the prevalence of inequality, even in oppositional theatre, and argue for Dialectical Collaborative Theatre (DCT), a research/production/performance methodology I developed to interrupt hegemonic collaborative theatre practice. I discuss the development of DCT, derived from Marx’s theory of ‘capital’ and ‘cooperation’, analysing BloodWater Theatre’s practical exploration of the tensions between performance as product and as process. I propose a rethinking of the enduring association of ‘utility’ with capitalist objectives of productivity and profit, proposing instead Bentham’s ethical formulations of utility. I argue that the relationship between material and non-material ideology should be explored, to facilitate utopian ideals and reposition ethics in collaborative theatre practice today.

The answerability of false hope: Examining the unexpected outcomes of the Finnexia® public art intervention

This article examines the unexpected ethical issues that emerged from Finnexia®, a performance art intervention. Finnexia consisted of an advertisement campaign for a fictitious medication that helps people learn the Finnish language. Presented in the Helsinki Central Railway Station, the Finnexia performance aimed to generate a space for public dialogue about the experience of immigrants in Finland and the process of learning the Finnish language. On a secondary level, Finnexia presented a satirical critique towards the excess of medicalization in society. Through a detailed description of the Finnexia performance and its outcomes, the author examines the complexity of ethical issues that emerged from the Finnexia performance. The responsibility of the artist is discussed in the context of public performance in art practice and in artistic research. The author proposes that artists approach ethical considerations during the creative process through self-reflection, dialogue with fellow performers and in consultation with experts in the field.

Boltanski’s dilemma: Mimetics, distance and spectating suffering

Working from the Crucifixion episode or pageant from the York Corpus Christi Play, two questions were asked of the spectator: <list list-type="simple"> <list-item><label>1.</label>How do they look at such a theatre (scene) from their own time and culture and experiences?</list-item> <list-item><label>2.</label>How do we look at such a theatre (scene) from our own time and culture and experiences?</list-item></list>A third question may now be asked by following what we may call ‘Boltanski’s dilemma’: what sort of pity can we really feel for an imaginary scene on the stage? This article will revisit the earlier piece (2010) as archive material to develop key themes now encapsulated by Boltanski’s question and challenge. The article will draw on current neuro-cognitive research that challenges and re-grounds our understanding of empathy and projection of self in the embodied mind. This informs the spectatorial experience, the spectator’s ability to see and accept the ‘double reality’ of the theatre and other visual (mimetic) experience, and the issues of ‘moral distance’ represented by Boltanski, Bandura and others. Boltanski’s dilemma confronts us as knowing spectators with the inherent ethical paradox of any and all representations of suffering in any given cultural and social context. The article will draw on case studies from theatre(s), film and art to illustrate and exemplify the position of the spectator: in the spirit of ethos, a series of musings, of questions and signposts as well as arguments.

Ecodramaturgies: Theatre, Performance and Climate Change, Lisa Woynarski (2020)

Review of: Ecodramaturgies: Theatre, Performance and Climate Change, Lisa Woynarski (2020)Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 239 pp.,ISBN 978-3-03055-852-9, h/bk, £79.99ISBN 978-3-03055-853-6, e-PDF/e-Pub, £63.99

The risks of wearing Mr Punch and other costumed performances

When identifying risk and ethical issues in live performance the focus is predominantly framed around the audience, and even more so with the popularity of immersive theatre. However, with the unpredictability of audience behaviour in immersive work, the safety of performers is starting to rise to the surface. For example, concerns of performer safety in the immersive work of Punchdrunk were raised in 2018, including allegations of sexual assault against performers by audience members who were veiled behind the anonymity of white masks. This visual article will refocus the discussion of risk onto the performer, as well as on the often overlooked theatrical element of costume and its potential impact on performer behaviour and embodiment, in addition to the impact it can have on the audience. The live performance case study Six O’clock Swill (2009), a piece based on Mr Punch, will be used to interrogate perspectives on these performative risks.

‘You can’t just take bits of my story and put them into some play’: Ethical dramaturgy in the contemporary Australian performance climate

In Australia a vibrant tradition of participatory and often politically motivated performance work developed under the term ‘community arts and cultural development’ across the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. In this body of practice, considerations of ethics are articulated through process, practices and representation rather than content. Though effective, community arts as it developed in Australia is often time, resource and emotionally intensive for artists, community participants and audiences. In recent years, retraction of funding, as well as shifts in practice towards live art, performance art and relational aesthetics have reduced the resources available for these once prominent practices. Practitioners are confronting challenges and needing to develop new ways of working in an operating environment where long-term consultation is not necessarily possible or preferred by stakeholders. In this article, we reflect on the current state of play for practitioners seeking to develop ethical dramaturgy in performance works that collaborate with communities to tell life stories or represent participants’ lived experiences in Australia. Through examples from our own practice, as practice-led researchers, we consider how work in this sector is under strain and experiencing scarcity, precarity and an increasing lack of access to institutional resources that have historically enabled ethically rigorous dramaturgical practices. We aim, through this process, to rediscover and rearticulate an ethical dramaturgy for deployment in the Australian environment as it exists today.

The ethos of the periphery

In the scholarly world where disembodied language and intellectualism reign, Kaustavi Sarkar, a dancing archive, performs embodied epistemologies. Even in her native Odissi dance discipline, Sarkar works from the margin as a questioner and an experimenter in a codified practice that values obedience and tradition. It is from this periphery that Sarkar develops a unique ethos of traditional dance that turns the conservatism of classical forms to open-layered intracultural and intercultural dance dialogues through dance.

Ethical Exchanges in Translation, Adaptation and Dramaturgy, Emer O’Toole, Andrea Pelegrí Kristić and Stuart Young (eds) (2017)

Review of: Ethical Exchanges in Translation, Adaptation and Dramaturgy, Emer O’Toole, Andrea Pelegrí Kristić and Stuart Young (eds) (2017) Leiden: Brill Rodopi, 230 pp., ISBN 978-9-00434-637-6, e-book, €100.00 ISBN 978-9-00434-633-8, h/bk, €100.00