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This book explores 'civic engagement' as a politically active encounter between institutions, individuals and art practices that addresses the public sphere on a civic level across physical and virtual spaces. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, it tracks across the overlapping discourses of politics, cultural geography and performance, investigating how and why physical and digital spaces can be analysed and utilised to develop new art forms that challenge traditional notions of how performance is political and how politics are performative. Across three sections - Politicising Communities, Applying Digital Agency and Performing Landscapes and Identities - the ten chapters and three interviews cover a wide variety of international perspectives, all informed by innovative ways of addressing the current crisis of social fragmentation through performance. Providing access to many debates on the theory and practice of new media, this book is of significance to readers from a broad set ofacademic disciplines, including politics, sociology, geography, and performance studies.
List of contents
General Introduction; Ananda Breed & Tim Prentki.- Introduction to Politicising Communities; Ananda Breed & Tim Prentki.- A Dog's Obeyed in Office; Tim Prentki.- Performing Difference: Diversity, representation and the nation; Dominic Hingorani.- At Home and Abroad: The Study Room in Exile; Gary Anderson & Lena Simic.- Interview with Roland Muldoon.- Introduction to Applying Digital Agency; Ananda Breed & Tim Prentki.- Nowhere without you; Misha Myers.- Sounding out the City; Hannah Nicklin.- The Dead are Coming: Political Performance Art, Activist Remembrance and Dig(ital) Protests; Samuel Merrill.- Internet, Theatre and the Public Voice; Christina Papagiannouli.- Interview with Christian Cherene.- Introduction to Performing Landscapes; Ananda Breed & Tim Prentki.- Performance, Place and Culture for Civic Engagement in Kyrgyzstan; Ananda Breed.- 'Mr President, open the door please, I want to be free': participatory walking as aesthetic strategy for transforming a hostage space; Luis Sotelo.- Artistic Diplomacy: On civic engagement and transnational theatre; Jonas Tinius.- Interview with Nurlan Asanbekov.
About the author
Ananda Breed is Reader in Performing Arts at the University of East London, UK. She is author of Performing the Nation: Genocide, Justice, Reconciliation (2014) in addition to several publications that address transitional systems of governance and the arts. She has worked as a consultant for IREX and UNICEF in Indonesia and Central Asia on issues concerning conflict negotiation and conducted applied arts workshops internationally. She is Co-Director of the Centre for Performing Arts Development (CPAD) at UEL and former Research Fellow at the International Research Centre Interweaving Performance Cultures at Freie University (2013-2014).
Tim Prentki is Professor of Theatre for Development at the University of Winchester, UK. He is the author of The Fool in European Theatre and Applied Theatre Development, co-author of Popular Theatre in Political Culture and co-editor of The Applied Theatre Reader. He also writes regularly for Research in Drama Education and Applied Theatre Research.
Summary
This book explores 'civic engagement' as a politically active encounter between institutions, individuals and art practices that addresses the public sphere on a civic level across physical and virtual spaces. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, it tracks across the overlapping discourses of politics, cultural geography and performance, investigating how and why physical and digital spaces can be analysed and utilised to develop new art forms that challenge traditional notions of how performance is political and how politics are performative. Across three sections - Politicising Communities, Applying Digital Agency and Performing Landscapes and Identities - the ten chapters and three interviews cover a wide variety of international perspectives, all informed by innovative ways of addressing the current crisis of social fragmentation through performance. Providing access to many debates on the theory and practice of new media, this book is of significance to readers from a broad set of academic disciplines, including politics, sociology, geography, and performance studies.
