Readings in Performance and Ecology

by Wendy Arons, Theresa J. May

Overview

This ground-breaking collection focuses on how theatre, dance, and other forms of performance are helping to transform our ecological values. Top scholars explore how familiar and new works of performance can help us recognize our reciprocal relationship with the natural world and how it helps us understand the way we are connected to the land.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781137467003
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	01/07/2015
Series:	What is Theatre?
Edition description:	2012
Pages:	243
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Robert Baker-White, Williams College, USA Derek Lee Barton, independent scholar Una Chaudhuri, New York University, USA Downing Cless, Tufts University, USA Anne Justine D'Zmura, California State University, Long Beach, USA Sara Freeman, University of Puget Sound, USA Ian Garrett, York University, Canada Kathleen M. Gough, University of Glasgow, UK Nelson Gray, University of Victoria, Canada Wallace Heim, independent scholar Cornelia Hoogland, University of Western Ontario, Canada Baz Kershaw, Warwick University, UK Bruce McConachie, University of Pittsburgh, USA Justin A. Miller, Texas A and M University, USA Meg O'Shea, independent scholar Sarah Ann Standing, New York City College of Technology, CUNY, USA Arden Thomas, California Institute of Technology, USA Barry Witham, University of Washington, USA

Table of Contents

Introduction - Wendy Arons and Theresa J. May Part I: Ecocriticism and Dramatic Literature Theatre, Environment, and the Thirties - Barry Witham Bringing Blood to Ghosts: English Canadian Drama and the Ecopolitics of Place - Nelson Gray Other Others: Dramatis Animalia in Some Alternative American Drama - Robert Baker-White Part II: Animals and/in Performance The Silence of the Polar Bears: Performing (Climate) Change in the Theatre of Species - Una Chaudhuri Dancing with Monkeys? On Performance Commons and Scientific Experiments - Baz Kershaw Everything à la Giraffe : Science, Performance, and a Spectacular Body in Nineteenth-Century Vienna - Derek Lee Barton Part III: Theorizing Ecoperformance Ethics, Evolution, Ecology, and Performance - Bruce McConachie Natural Disaster, Cultural Memory: Montserrat Adrift in the Black and Green Atlantic - Kathleen M. Gough Stillness in Nature: Eeo Stubblefield's Still Dance with Anna Halprin - Arden Thomas Part IV: Ecoactivism and Performance British Alternative Companies and Antinuclear Plays: Eco-Conscious Theatre in Thatcher's Britain - Sara Freeman Bikes, Choices, Action! Embodied Performances of Sustainability by a Traveling Theatre Group - Meg O'Shea Earth First!'s 'Crack the Dam' and the Aesthetics of Ecoactivist Performance - Sarah Ann Standing Part V: Case Studies in Green Theatre Ecodirecting Canonical Plays - Downing Cless Devising 'Green Piece': A Holistic Pedagogy for Artists and Educators - Anne Justine D'Zmura Sound Ecology in the Woods: Red Riding Hood Takes an Audio Walk - Cornelia Hoogland The Labor of Greening Love's Labour's Lost - Justin A. Miller Theatrical Production's Carbon Footprint - Ian Garrett Epilogue: Thinking Forward . . . - Wallace Heim

Editorial Reviews

"Readings in Performance and Ecology assembles a broad range of essays that take as their respective foci ecological debates, animals in performance, ecoactivism, landscapes and bodies, ecocriticism in dramatic literature, and the practicalities of theatremaking . . . Whereas ecocriticism has emerged from the discipline of literary criticism as a rich subfield, terms such as 'ecodramaturgy' and 'ecodirecting' have not yet carved out a place in the vernacular of theatre and performance studies. This anthology seeks to do this." - The Drama Review

"The book features a very strong collection of essays, which reshape theatre in a field of diverse practices . . . Although theatre is conventionally assumed to be human-centred, the book has perfectly represented the power of the 'other-than-human' world and the outer landscape in the history of drama . . . fascinating and thought-provoking." - Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism

"The real strength of this edited collection is Arons and May's guiding vision of 'the fierce, inexorable interconnectivity between nature and human culture' . . . these essays successfully interweave performance and story to show us why and how our telling matters." - ISLE

From the Publisher