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Making a Performance

Devising Histories and Contemporary Practices

Helen Nicholson author Emma Govan author Katie Normington author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd

Published:16th May '07

Should be back in stock very soon

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Making a Performance cover

Making a Performance traces innovations in devised performance from early theatrical experiments in the twentieth-century to the radical performances of the twenty-first century.

This introduction to the theory, history and practice of devised performance explores how performance-makers have built on the experimental aesthetic traditions of the past. It looks to companies as diverse as Australia's Legs on the Wall, Britain's Forced Entertainment and the USA-based Goat Island to show how contemporary practitioners challenge orthodoxies to develop new theatrical languages.

Designed to be accessible to both scholars and practitioners, this study offers clear, practical examples of concepts and ideas that have shaped some of the most vibrant and experimental practices in contemporary performance.

'Making a performance...herald[s] a renewed, more urgent critical interest in the arena of contemporary devising practices...and makes a strong, substantial and much needed contribution to the field of devised performance theory and I hope it will inspire others...'Joanna Bucknell, University of Winchester

"The emphasis on contemporary companies provides a welcome introduction to works that have received scant scholarly attention. Summing Up: Recommended." --CHOICE, January 2008


'Making a Performance ... herald[s] a renewed, more urgent critical interest in the arena of contemporary devising practices ... and makes a strong, substantial and much needed contribution to the field of devised performance theory and I hope it will inspire others.'Joanna Bucknell, University of Winchester, UK

ISBN: 9780415286534

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 284g

224 pages