Over the past three decades, theater studies has undergone a radical worldwide development and renewal. This happened through two different yet complementary paths: the first (North American in origin
From 1974 to 1994, Ron Vawter was a staple of New York’s downtown theater scene, first with the Performance Group and later as a founding member of the Wooster Group. Ron Vawter’s Life in Performance
Odissi holds iconic status as one of the eight classical dance forms recognized and promoted by the Indian government. This book traces the dance’s transformation from its historical role as a r
This unique book is a graphic novel and performance poem, a mixed-media musical cartoon, an animated feature film come to life. Lee Breuer’s La Divina Caricatura is in the pataphysical tradition
In her landmark study Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theatre, Jill Dolan departed from historical writings on utopia, which suggest social reorganization and the redistribution of wealth a
Clowns are not just the stuff of backyard children’s parties anymore. These days, clown doctors see patients—especially children—to introduce humor and imagination into an anxiety-filled and painful e
One of Polish theater’s great innovators is Jerzy Grotowski, well known for his lifelong research on the work of the self with and through the other. Taking various forms and undergoing multiple trans
Auschwitz. Hiroshima. Cambodia’s killing fields. The World Trade Center. The mass graves of Rwanda. These places of violent death have become part of the recreational landscape of tourism, an indust
A dance begins beneath the outstretched branches of the giant umunyinya tree in Rwanda. First there is drumming and clapping, then the lead dancers step into the center of the gathering. The danci
Crucible Bodies: Postwar Japanese Performance from Brecht to the New Millennium is a collection of essays covering a wide range of historical and theoretical topics, from Brecht in Japan to 'children'
After Independence, in 1947, in their efforts to create an "Indian" theatre that was different from the Westernized, colonial theatre, Indian theatre practitioners began returning to their &
The devil is an inhumanly mobile, defiant and nefarious figure, the emblem of evil, harbinger of the damned. However, the festive devil—the devil that dances—turns the most hideous acts into playful t
From cannibalism to light-calligraphy, from self-harming to animal sacrifice, from meat entwined with sex toys to a commodity-embedded ice wall, the idiosyncratic output of Chinese time-based art o
