Prefigurative interventions and occupations comprise a form of activism comparable to theatrical ... more Prefigurative interventions and occupations comprise a form of activism comparable to theatrical performance—embodying, situating, and performing hypothetical scenarios. These open-ended, horizontal performance practices employ site-sensitive interventions, tactical media, applied theatre, and cognate modes of interactivity.
The dissertation explores interpretive conditions of contemporary performance art and interdiscip... more The dissertation explores interpretive conditions of contemporary performance art and interdisciplinary studies. It sets out with a discussion of Richard Foreman's I've Got the Shakes (1995), which is perceived as a paradigmatic example of postmoderm performance. The event exposes two contradictory practices: one pertaining to a postmodernist mode of performance and the other to a culture-historic practice of ritual. This conflict leads to the interpretive challenge of writing about cultural practices that are only partially semantic. Theatre has always depended on practical modes of knowledge and action, and yet performance studies have traditionally focused on conceptual qualities of theatre. As long as scholars saw performance and language as mirrors of the world, a preconceived mimetic correspondence justified their analyses. This conformity has been disputed by philosophers such as Wittgenstein, Austin, Goodman, and Butler who rather consider communication in terms of a...
‘Beyond Vice’ is the working title of a production at Uppsala stadsteater in Sweden. The producti... more ‘Beyond Vice’ is the working title of a production at Uppsala stadsteater in Sweden. The production is based on a performance-based research project led by Johansson (at the time Guest Professor at Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts) and Gay Morris, University of Cape Town. The research project was supported by The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Education (STINT) and the production is sponsored by The Swedish Arts Council. The performance-based research project explored the themes of male privilege, moral codes and gender abuse in 19th century Sweden and 21st century South Africa respectively. At these points in time South Africa and Sweden battled similar levels of poverty, epidemics (AIDS and syphilis respectively) driven by cognate social causes, and gender predicaments in terms of arranged marriages, domestic violence and prostitution. The underpinning research question concerned the comparability of gender problems between the countries given similar levels of poverty and cognate kinds of civil and epidemic predicaments. To test this we worked with one material (a 19th century Swedish debate and topical public opinion in South Africa) and applied it to one devising team in each country, one playwright from each country, apart from interdisciplinary participants in each country. This crystallised several scenes with diachronical mirroring effects between the countries which will be developed in the coming production
This is a chapter (in Swedish) in a book, published by the Swedish Research Council. The chapter ... more This is a chapter (in Swedish) in a book, published by the Swedish Research Council. The chapter sheds light on topical performance examples that meet certain criteria of artistic research, such as innovative method, new knowledge perspectives, timeliness, reiterability and public scrutiny. But the text is interrupted by an academic who casts doubt on the notion of research, in view of the performance examples given, thus reviving the somewhat tedious debate on possible definitions of art + research. The discussion ends up, as usual, in a dead heat with no reconciliation or cooperation in sight. The chapter then resumes a more pragmatic mode of reasoning by exemplifying a few innovative breakthroughs in the modern history of theatre, placing them in a dual historical perspective. One line of descent dates from the breakthrough of modernism in the late 1800s, while the other goes back to the post-1950s performative focus of humanities and social sciences. Given this historical impetu...
Is it then possible, or even meaningful, to imply estimates such as "more or less democratic" per... more Is it then possible, or even meaningful, to imply estimates such as "more or less democratic" performance practices? I would say that it depends on the means and objective of the estimation. The purpose of this article is to, in light of the current crisis of liberal democracy, assess qualitative indications of democratic practices and, by means of a few examples of activist performances, inculcate the added values of performances that not only apply to precarious situations with deficient democratic regimes but also adapt to the performative practices that most appropriately serve an enhanced democratic situation. Towards the end of this article the combination of performativity and adaptability will be justified in terms of 'democrativity'. The twenty-fifth anniversary issue of The Journal of Democracy (issued in January 2015) was entitled "Is Democracy in Decline?" and addressed a gradual corrosion of electoral procedures, freedom of the press and the rule of law as well as a widespread doubt about democratic governance in various countries in the past decade. 1 The rationale behind the decade-long trend is primarily motivated in economic terms: the financial crises of advanced democracies and the seeming vitality of authoritarian countries is leading to a shift in geopolitical relations between the democracies and their rivals. So how is democratic declined appraised? It is commonly measured in reference to indexes based average responses to questions about various political and electoral functions and variables in specific countries. Studying quantitative indexes of national democracies almost makes one forget about the very issue at stake, namely the definition and significance of democracy, which is governance by people. This is seldom considered in qualitative terms by political institutes such as Freedom House or Polity, who mainly rely on quantified indications in categories such as electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of governments, political participation and political culture. Whilst political elections, liberties and functions are appraised as brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk
The essay compares responses to HIV and AIDS in the USA and sub-Saharan Africa in reference to pe... more The essay compares responses to HIV and AIDS in the USA and sub-Saharan Africa in reference to performance practices, activism and documentary films. In both geopolitical spheres the epidemic onslaught was so acute whilst no effective antiretroviral treatment was accessible that performers created prefigurative actions, which not only impelled and expedited policy, cultural and medical responses to AIDS but also activist tactics used in future social and political crises. Groups like ACT UP in New York, the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa and community-based theatre groups in East Africa provided previously uncharted contact zones between governments and communities, which have, in effect, contributed to an intensified civil society and democratisation in these parts of the world today.
In response to the challenge of validating the efficacy of applied theatre, the article argues th... more In response to the challenge of validating the efficacy of applied theatre, the article argues that the assessment of external social impact and internal personal change should be complemented with the consideration of an integral efficacy of the very application of participatory performance projects. With examples of African community theatre and Palestinian political theatre, a case is made for prefigurative and democratising effects as validating factors in performance practices that stage and enact the very aims of its interventions.
In the conclusion of Chapter 2 it was argued that CBT has the capacity to reveal conflicts that l... more In the conclusion of Chapter 2 it was argued that CBT has the capacity to reveal conflicts that loom in the backstage world of ritual. The performative merits of CBT as HIV prevention has primarily to do with its task of bringing domestic or furtive behaviours into the broad daylight of public accountability. In order to investigate the correspondences and discrepancies between HIV prevention schemes, community performances, and potential outcomes, it is valuable to direct attention to discourses and practices between private and public events. In this chapter I will consider different kinds of discourses (group interviews, focus group discussions, and informal talks), which will eventually reach a point of an inverted theatrical and performative reality where confidential backstage talks allow for comparisons with official accounts of the epidemic and performances about the epidemic in the public sphere. As in the other chapters, this chapter is inductively piloted by an example of a community performance, which generates questions about the modal relation between the public and the private. A community group in north-western Tanzania, which could epitomize any manual with examples of best practices with regard to theatre as HIV prevention, turns out to be quite steered by the religious organization that backs their activities.
The romantic notion of a pre-colonial Africa, where rites and ceremonies guided communities into ... more The romantic notion of a pre-colonial Africa, where rites and ceremonies guided communities into harmonious lifestyles and infused a democratic spirit before democracy existed, needs to be put into slightly more realistic perspectives through an examination of the conditions and functions of ritual-like performances today. Along with further empirical case studies, there is a concept which advances the discussion of efficacy in Chapter 1 but also offers a means of typological comparison between theatre and ritual regimes, namely performativity. Performativity indicates (the study of) possibilities to instantiate notions and rules through intersubjective actions. Even if the concept of performativity is not always used in anthropological studies on ritual, the latter set of cultural practices is regularly ascribed functions and meanings that meet the criteria of performative acts. The dichotomy that will be thrashed out in this chapter cuts between ritual and theatre like a diachronic fault line between practices that may have conflated in function but always exemplified different meanings and values, at least for the ones assessing their roles in various cultures. Concisely, the dichotomy can be spelled out as a postulation: ritual does things with social relations while theatre merely comments on them (cf. Rappaport’s stance below).
arbitra como un mecanismo de supresión de estas ante su posible incumplimiento, y asimismo cómo s... more arbitra como un mecanismo de supresión de estas ante su posible incumplimiento, y asimismo cómo se analizan las dificultades existentes Palabras clave: entidad local menor, junta vecinal, entidad con ámbito territorial inferior al municipio, contabilidad, consejo de cuentas, Castilla y León.
Absorção foliar de amônia e produtividade do milho em função da época de aplicação de ureia em co... more Absorção foliar de amônia e produtividade do milho em função da época de aplicação de ureia em cobertura versão revisada de acordo com a resolução CoPGr 6018 de 2011 Piracicaba 2014 1 EVANDRO LUIZ SCHONINGER Absorção foliar de amônia e produtividade do milho em função da época de aplicação de ureia em cobertura versão revisada de acordo com a resolução CoPGr 6018 de 2011
Full bibliographic details must be given when referring to, or quoting from full items including ... more Full bibliographic details must be given when referring to, or quoting from full items including the author's name, the title of the work, publication details where relevant (place, publisher, date), pagination, and for theses or dissertations the awarding institution, the degree type awarded, and the date of the award.
... Stephen grew up in Kagera and is an artistic as well as academic expert on the region&#x2... more ... Stephen grew up in Kagera and is an artistic as well as academic expert on the region's performance traditions. ... 18 In the districts of Masasi and Mangaka of Mtwara region, Apart from Margaret Malenga (2003), I have worked with Andrew Hamisi (2003 and 2004), and Delphine ...
"Description: Applying Performance offers new ways of thinking about contemporary performanc... more "Description: Applying Performance offers new ways of thinking about contemporary performance, live art and applied theatre. The book features a range of examples of socially engaged and participatory practices, considering key questions and debates about how we value this kind of work, who it is for, what purposes it serves and its status as art. Challenging divisions between subject and object, process and performance, artist and spectator, theory and practice, mind and body, the book participates in the various theoretical turns to affect, ethics and cognition to consider how and why we are moved as partakers in performance, the importance of empathy and embodiment to critical and creative engagement and the role of play and pleasure in affective practice. Case studies include work in a range of institutional settings to include education, health care, museums and prisons as well as projects using performance in developing communities and cultures. The examples are considered in the context of contemporary performance with sections on auto/biography, space, site and place, digital cultures and participatory performance. Contents: List of Figures Acknowledgements Preface: Applying Performance PART I: HISTORIES & CONTEXTS Setting the Scene: Critical and Theoretical Contexts Pasts, Pioneers, Politics Principles of Applying Performance PART II: PRACTICES Performing Lives Placing Performance Digital Transportations PART III: PARTICIPATION Unhappy Relations: Critiques of Collaboration Theme Park Hells: Incarcerations Participant Centred Pedagogy and the Affective Learning Environment: LIFT 2011 A Taste of Heaven: (Syn)aesthetics and Participatory Visceral Performance Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index"
The seventh issue of African Theatre deals with 'the financial realities under which drama co... more The seventh issue of African Theatre deals with 'the financial realities under which drama companies operate', as editor James Gibbs puts it in the Introduction. Everyone who takes a direct interest in African performance culture probably has a favourite company. To join a ...
Prefigurative interventions and occupations comprise a form of activism comparable to theatrical ... more Prefigurative interventions and occupations comprise a form of activism comparable to theatrical performance—embodying, situating, and performing hypothetical scenarios. These open-ended, horizontal performance practices employ site-sensitive interventions, tactical media, applied theatre, and cognate modes of interactivity.
The dissertation explores interpretive conditions of contemporary performance art and interdiscip... more The dissertation explores interpretive conditions of contemporary performance art and interdisciplinary studies. It sets out with a discussion of Richard Foreman's I've Got the Shakes (1995), which is perceived as a paradigmatic example of postmoderm performance. The event exposes two contradictory practices: one pertaining to a postmodernist mode of performance and the other to a culture-historic practice of ritual. This conflict leads to the interpretive challenge of writing about cultural practices that are only partially semantic. Theatre has always depended on practical modes of knowledge and action, and yet performance studies have traditionally focused on conceptual qualities of theatre. As long as scholars saw performance and language as mirrors of the world, a preconceived mimetic correspondence justified their analyses. This conformity has been disputed by philosophers such as Wittgenstein, Austin, Goodman, and Butler who rather consider communication in terms of a...
‘Beyond Vice’ is the working title of a production at Uppsala stadsteater in Sweden. The producti... more ‘Beyond Vice’ is the working title of a production at Uppsala stadsteater in Sweden. The production is based on a performance-based research project led by Johansson (at the time Guest Professor at Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts) and Gay Morris, University of Cape Town. The research project was supported by The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Education (STINT) and the production is sponsored by The Swedish Arts Council. The performance-based research project explored the themes of male privilege, moral codes and gender abuse in 19th century Sweden and 21st century South Africa respectively. At these points in time South Africa and Sweden battled similar levels of poverty, epidemics (AIDS and syphilis respectively) driven by cognate social causes, and gender predicaments in terms of arranged marriages, domestic violence and prostitution. The underpinning research question concerned the comparability of gender problems between the countries given similar levels of poverty and cognate kinds of civil and epidemic predicaments. To test this we worked with one material (a 19th century Swedish debate and topical public opinion in South Africa) and applied it to one devising team in each country, one playwright from each country, apart from interdisciplinary participants in each country. This crystallised several scenes with diachronical mirroring effects between the countries which will be developed in the coming production
This is a chapter (in Swedish) in a book, published by the Swedish Research Council. The chapter ... more This is a chapter (in Swedish) in a book, published by the Swedish Research Council. The chapter sheds light on topical performance examples that meet certain criteria of artistic research, such as innovative method, new knowledge perspectives, timeliness, reiterability and public scrutiny. But the text is interrupted by an academic who casts doubt on the notion of research, in view of the performance examples given, thus reviving the somewhat tedious debate on possible definitions of art + research. The discussion ends up, as usual, in a dead heat with no reconciliation or cooperation in sight. The chapter then resumes a more pragmatic mode of reasoning by exemplifying a few innovative breakthroughs in the modern history of theatre, placing them in a dual historical perspective. One line of descent dates from the breakthrough of modernism in the late 1800s, while the other goes back to the post-1950s performative focus of humanities and social sciences. Given this historical impetu...
Is it then possible, or even meaningful, to imply estimates such as "more or less democratic" per... more Is it then possible, or even meaningful, to imply estimates such as "more or less democratic" performance practices? I would say that it depends on the means and objective of the estimation. The purpose of this article is to, in light of the current crisis of liberal democracy, assess qualitative indications of democratic practices and, by means of a few examples of activist performances, inculcate the added values of performances that not only apply to precarious situations with deficient democratic regimes but also adapt to the performative practices that most appropriately serve an enhanced democratic situation. Towards the end of this article the combination of performativity and adaptability will be justified in terms of 'democrativity'. The twenty-fifth anniversary issue of The Journal of Democracy (issued in January 2015) was entitled "Is Democracy in Decline?" and addressed a gradual corrosion of electoral procedures, freedom of the press and the rule of law as well as a widespread doubt about democratic governance in various countries in the past decade. 1 The rationale behind the decade-long trend is primarily motivated in economic terms: the financial crises of advanced democracies and the seeming vitality of authoritarian countries is leading to a shift in geopolitical relations between the democracies and their rivals. So how is democratic declined appraised? It is commonly measured in reference to indexes based average responses to questions about various political and electoral functions and variables in specific countries. Studying quantitative indexes of national democracies almost makes one forget about the very issue at stake, namely the definition and significance of democracy, which is governance by people. This is seldom considered in qualitative terms by political institutes such as Freedom House or Polity, who mainly rely on quantified indications in categories such as electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of governments, political participation and political culture. Whilst political elections, liberties and functions are appraised as brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk
The essay compares responses to HIV and AIDS in the USA and sub-Saharan Africa in reference to pe... more The essay compares responses to HIV and AIDS in the USA and sub-Saharan Africa in reference to performance practices, activism and documentary films. In both geopolitical spheres the epidemic onslaught was so acute whilst no effective antiretroviral treatment was accessible that performers created prefigurative actions, which not only impelled and expedited policy, cultural and medical responses to AIDS but also activist tactics used in future social and political crises. Groups like ACT UP in New York, the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa and community-based theatre groups in East Africa provided previously uncharted contact zones between governments and communities, which have, in effect, contributed to an intensified civil society and democratisation in these parts of the world today.
In response to the challenge of validating the efficacy of applied theatre, the article argues th... more In response to the challenge of validating the efficacy of applied theatre, the article argues that the assessment of external social impact and internal personal change should be complemented with the consideration of an integral efficacy of the very application of participatory performance projects. With examples of African community theatre and Palestinian political theatre, a case is made for prefigurative and democratising effects as validating factors in performance practices that stage and enact the very aims of its interventions.
In the conclusion of Chapter 2 it was argued that CBT has the capacity to reveal conflicts that l... more In the conclusion of Chapter 2 it was argued that CBT has the capacity to reveal conflicts that loom in the backstage world of ritual. The performative merits of CBT as HIV prevention has primarily to do with its task of bringing domestic or furtive behaviours into the broad daylight of public accountability. In order to investigate the correspondences and discrepancies between HIV prevention schemes, community performances, and potential outcomes, it is valuable to direct attention to discourses and practices between private and public events. In this chapter I will consider different kinds of discourses (group interviews, focus group discussions, and informal talks), which will eventually reach a point of an inverted theatrical and performative reality where confidential backstage talks allow for comparisons with official accounts of the epidemic and performances about the epidemic in the public sphere. As in the other chapters, this chapter is inductively piloted by an example of a community performance, which generates questions about the modal relation between the public and the private. A community group in north-western Tanzania, which could epitomize any manual with examples of best practices with regard to theatre as HIV prevention, turns out to be quite steered by the religious organization that backs their activities.
The romantic notion of a pre-colonial Africa, where rites and ceremonies guided communities into ... more The romantic notion of a pre-colonial Africa, where rites and ceremonies guided communities into harmonious lifestyles and infused a democratic spirit before democracy existed, needs to be put into slightly more realistic perspectives through an examination of the conditions and functions of ritual-like performances today. Along with further empirical case studies, there is a concept which advances the discussion of efficacy in Chapter 1 but also offers a means of typological comparison between theatre and ritual regimes, namely performativity. Performativity indicates (the study of) possibilities to instantiate notions and rules through intersubjective actions. Even if the concept of performativity is not always used in anthropological studies on ritual, the latter set of cultural practices is regularly ascribed functions and meanings that meet the criteria of performative acts. The dichotomy that will be thrashed out in this chapter cuts between ritual and theatre like a diachronic fault line between practices that may have conflated in function but always exemplified different meanings and values, at least for the ones assessing their roles in various cultures. Concisely, the dichotomy can be spelled out as a postulation: ritual does things with social relations while theatre merely comments on them (cf. Rappaport’s stance below).
arbitra como un mecanismo de supresión de estas ante su posible incumplimiento, y asimismo cómo s... more arbitra como un mecanismo de supresión de estas ante su posible incumplimiento, y asimismo cómo se analizan las dificultades existentes Palabras clave: entidad local menor, junta vecinal, entidad con ámbito territorial inferior al municipio, contabilidad, consejo de cuentas, Castilla y León.
Absorção foliar de amônia e produtividade do milho em função da época de aplicação de ureia em co... more Absorção foliar de amônia e produtividade do milho em função da época de aplicação de ureia em cobertura versão revisada de acordo com a resolução CoPGr 6018 de 2011 Piracicaba 2014 1 EVANDRO LUIZ SCHONINGER Absorção foliar de amônia e produtividade do milho em função da época de aplicação de ureia em cobertura versão revisada de acordo com a resolução CoPGr 6018 de 2011
Full bibliographic details must be given when referring to, or quoting from full items including ... more Full bibliographic details must be given when referring to, or quoting from full items including the author's name, the title of the work, publication details where relevant (place, publisher, date), pagination, and for theses or dissertations the awarding institution, the degree type awarded, and the date of the award.
... Stephen grew up in Kagera and is an artistic as well as academic expert on the region&#x2... more ... Stephen grew up in Kagera and is an artistic as well as academic expert on the region's performance traditions. ... 18 In the districts of Masasi and Mangaka of Mtwara region, Apart from Margaret Malenga (2003), I have worked with Andrew Hamisi (2003 and 2004), and Delphine ...
"Description: Applying Performance offers new ways of thinking about contemporary performanc... more "Description: Applying Performance offers new ways of thinking about contemporary performance, live art and applied theatre. The book features a range of examples of socially engaged and participatory practices, considering key questions and debates about how we value this kind of work, who it is for, what purposes it serves and its status as art. Challenging divisions between subject and object, process and performance, artist and spectator, theory and practice, mind and body, the book participates in the various theoretical turns to affect, ethics and cognition to consider how and why we are moved as partakers in performance, the importance of empathy and embodiment to critical and creative engagement and the role of play and pleasure in affective practice. Case studies include work in a range of institutional settings to include education, health care, museums and prisons as well as projects using performance in developing communities and cultures. The examples are considered in the context of contemporary performance with sections on auto/biography, space, site and place, digital cultures and participatory performance. Contents: List of Figures Acknowledgements Preface: Applying Performance PART I: HISTORIES & CONTEXTS Setting the Scene: Critical and Theoretical Contexts Pasts, Pioneers, Politics Principles of Applying Performance PART II: PRACTICES Performing Lives Placing Performance Digital Transportations PART III: PARTICIPATION Unhappy Relations: Critiques of Collaboration Theme Park Hells: Incarcerations Participant Centred Pedagogy and the Affective Learning Environment: LIFT 2011 A Taste of Heaven: (Syn)aesthetics and Participatory Visceral Performance Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index"
The seventh issue of African Theatre deals with 'the financial realities under which drama co... more The seventh issue of African Theatre deals with 'the financial realities under which drama companies operate', as editor James Gibbs puts it in the Introduction. Everyone who takes a direct interest in African performance culture probably has a favourite company. To join a ...
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