Physical Theatres: A Critical Reader is an invaluable resource for students of physically orientated theatre and performance. This book aims to trace the roots and development of physicality in theatre by combining practical experience of the field with a strong historical and theoretical underpinning. In exploring the histories, cross-overs and intersections of physical theatres, this critical Reader provides: six new, specially commissioned essays, covering each of the book’s main themes, from technical traditions to contemporary practises discussion of issues such as the foregrounding of the body, training and performance processes, and the origins of theatre in both play and human cognition a focus on the relationship and tensions between the verbal and the physical in theatre contributions from Augusto Boal, Stephen Berkoff, Étienne Decroux, Bertolt Brecht, David George, J-J. Rousseau, Ana Sanchez Colberg, Michael Chekhov, Jeff Nuttall, Jacques Lecoq, Yoshi Oida, Mike Pearson, and Aristotle.

This new edition of Physical Theatres: A Critical Introduction continues to provide an unparalleled overview of non-text-based theatre, from experimental dance to traditional mime. It synthesizes the history, theory and practice of physical theatres for students and performers in what is both a core area of study and a dynamic and innovative aspect of theatrical practice. This comprehensive book: traces the roots of physical performance in classical and popular theatrical traditions looks at the Dance Theatre of DV8, Pina Bausch, Liz Aggiss and Jérôme Bel examines the contemporary practice of companies such as Théatre du Soleil, Complicite and Goat Island focuses on principles and practices in actor training, with reference to figures such as Jacques Lecoq, Lev Dodin, Philippe Gaulier, Monika Pagneux, Etienne Decroux, Anne Bogart and Joan Littlewood. Extensive cross references ensure that Physical Theatres: A Critical Introduction can be used as a standalone text or together with its companion volume, Physical Theatres: A Critical Reader, to provide an invaluable introduction to the physical in theatre and performance. New to this edition: a chapter on The Body and Technology, exploring the impact of digital technologies on the portrayal, perception and reading of the theatre body, spanning from onstage technology to virtual realities and motion capture; additional profiles of Jerzy Grotowski, Wrights and Sites, Punchdrunk and Mike Pearson; focus on circus and aerial performance, new training practices, immersive and site-specific theatres, and the latest developments in neuroscience, especially as these impact on the place and role of the spectator.

Physical Theatres: A Critical Reader is an invaluable resource for students of physically orientated theatre and performance. This book aims to trace the roots and development of physicality in theatre by combining practical experience of the field with a strong historical and theoretical underpinning. In exploring the histories, cross-overs and intersections of physical theatres, this critical Reader provides: six new, specially commissioned essays, covering each of the book’s main themes, from technical traditions to contemporary practises discussion of issues such as the foregrounding of the body, training and performance processes, and the origins of theatre in both play and human cognition a focus on the relationship and tensions between the verbal and the physical in theatre contributions from Augusto Boal, Stephen Berkoff, Étienne Decroux, Bertolt Brecht, David George, J-J. Rousseau, Ana Sanchez Colberg, Michael Chekhov, Jeff Nuttall, Jacques Lecoq, Yoshi Oida, Mike Pearson, and Aristotle.

This new edition of Physical Theatres: A Critical Introduction continues to provide an unparalleled overview of non-text-based theatre, from experimental dance to traditional mime. It synthesizes the history, theory and practice of physical theatres for students and performers in what is both a core area of study and a dynamic and innovative aspect of theatrical practice. This comprehensive book: traces the roots of physical performance in classical and popular theatrical traditions looks at the Dance Theatre of DV8, Pina Bausch, Liz Aggiss and Jérôme Bel examines the contemporary practice of companies such as Théatre du Soleil, Complicite and Goat Island focuses on principles and practices in actor training, with reference to figures such as Jacques Lecoq, Lev Dodin, Philippe Gaulier, Monika Pagneux, Etienne Decroux, Anne Bogart and Joan Littlewood. Extensive cross references ensure that Physical Theatres: A Critical Introduction can be used as a standalone text or together with its companion volume, Physical Theatres: A Critical Reader, to provide an invaluable introduction to the physical in theatre and performance. New to this edition: a chapter on The Body and Technology, exploring the impact of digital technologies on the portrayal, perception and reading of the theatre body, spanning from onstage technology to virtual realities and motion capture; additional profiles of Jerzy Grotowski, Wrights and Sites, Punchdrunk and Mike Pearson; focus on circus and aerial performance, new training practices, immersive and site-specific theatres, and the latest developments in neuroscience, especially as these impact on the place and role of the spectator.

Across two volumes, Mike Vanden Heuvel and a strong roster of contributors present the history, processes, and achievements of American theatre companies renowned for their use of collective and/or ensemble-based techniques to generate new work. This first study considers theatre companies that were working between 1970 and 1995: it traces the rise and eventual diversification of activist-based companies that emerged to serve particular constituencies from the countercultural politics of the 1960s, and examines the shift in the 1980s that gave rise to the next generation of company-based work, rooted in a new interest in form and the more mediated and dispersed forms of politics. Ensembles examined are Mabou Mines, Theatre X, Goat Island, Lookingglass, Elevator Repair Service, and SITI Company. Preliminary chapters provide a sweeping overview of ensemble-based creation within the general historical and cultural contexts of the period, followed by a detailed study of the evolution of ensemble-based work. The case studies consider factors such as influence, funding, production, and legacies, as well as the forms of collective devising and creation, while surveying the continuing work of significant long-running companies. Contributors provide detailed case studies of the 6 companies from the period and cover: * A chronicle of development and methods * Key productions and projects * Critical reception and legacy * A chronological overview of significant productions From the long history of collective theatre creation, with its sources in social crises, urgent aesthetic experimentation and utopian dreaming, American ensemble-based theatre has emerged at several key points in history to challenge the primacy of author-based and director-produced theatre. As the volume demonstrates, US ensemble companies have collectively revolutionized the form and content of contemporary performance, influencing experimental, as well as mainstream practice.

What is theatre? What is performance? What connects them and how are they different? What events, people, practices and ideas have shaped theatre and performance in the twentieth and twenty-first century? The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance offers some answers to these big questions. It provides an analytical, informative and engaging introduction to important people, companies, events, concepts and practices that have defined the complementary fields of theatre and performance studies. This fully updated second edition contains three easy to use alphabetized sections including over 120 revised entries on topics and people ranging from performance artist Ron Athey, to directors Vsevold Meyerhold and Robert Wilson, megamusicals , postdramatic theatre and documentation. Each entry includes crucial historical and contextual information, extensive cross-referencing, detailed analysis and an annotated bibliography. The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance is a perfect reference guide for the keen student.

This volume offers a concise guide to the teaching and philosophy of one of the most significant figures in twentieth century actor training. Jacques Lecoq's influence on the theatre of the latter half of the twentieth century cannot be overestimated. Now reissued Jacques Lecoq is the first book to combine: an historical introduction to his life and the context in which he worked an analysis of his teaching methods and principles of body work, movement, creativity, and contemporary theatre detailed studies of the work of Theatre de Complicite and Mummenschanz practical exercises demonstrating Lecoq's distinctive approach to actor training.

The culmination of an innovative practice research project, Michael Chekhov in the Twenty-First Century: New Pathways draws on historical writings and archival materials to investigate how Chekhov's technique can be used across the disciplines of contemporary performance and applied practice. In contrast to the narrow, actor training-only analysis that dominated 20th-century explorations of the technique, authors Cass Fleming and Tom Cornford, along with contributors Caoimhe McAvinchey, Roanna Mitchell, Daron Oram and Sinéad Rushe, focus on devising, directing and collective creation, dramaturgy and collaborative playwriting, scenography, voice, movement and dance, as well as socially-engaged and therapeutic practices, all of which are at the forefront of international theatre-making. The book collectively offers a thorough and fascinating investigation into new uses of Michael Chekhov's technique, providing practical strategies and principles alongside theoretical discussion.

In Staging and Re- cycling , John Keefe and Knut Ove Arntzen re-visit and reappraise a selection of their work to explore how the retrieval, re-approaching and re-framing of material can offer pathways for new work and new thinking. The book includes a collection of reprinted and first-published (although previously presented) textual material interspersed with editorial material – reflective essays from John and Knut on these pieces from the archives and original essays from invited scholars that explore the theme of repetition and re-cycling. The project has a number of aims: to suggest how the status of ‘new’ with regard to academic and staged dramaturgical materials may be reframed; to re-examine these through certain lenses and concepts (re-cycling; re-working; the spectator; landscape, post- and other dramaturgies); to explore the possibilities of critique offered by particular modes of juxtaposition, dialogue and dialectic; to offer further provocations to received ideas; and to retrieve and re-approach material, once published or presented, that becomes ‘lost’ in archives or on library shelves. As shown here, the role of the hyphen acts as an indicator to the status of ‘re-’ in relation to the ‘new’. Written for scholars and academics, researchers, undergraduate and postgraduate students, and practitioners working in all forms for theatre and performance, Staging and Re-cycling suggests a new form of dialogue between work, authors and readers, and draws out threads that extend back into the past and potentially forward into the future.