Staging and Re-​cycling: Retrieving, Reflecting and Re-​framing the Archive

Description

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. Cover Half Title Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Table of contents Figures Contributors Acknowledgements and permissions Chapter 1 Editorial introduction A question of aims A question of styles A question of themes and perspectives A question of structure A question of innovation (perhaps) References Chapter 2 Play Beckett: Beckett’s performance dramaturgy as total theatre The misguided paths of R(r)omanticism The false premise The total or whole object So not ‘total theatre’ but total theatres Beckett’s total theatre The image sequence References Notes References Chapter 3 The PG and FPG: Stage action or stage metaphysics? A humanistic spirituality Afterwords References Chapter 4 Essay 1: Archival foundations and first reflections Stumbling towards the ‘new’ The presence of self and others A broader and deeper archive References Chapter 5 A letter on recycling Sam References Chapter 6 Dramaturgical dissolution in the ambient When visual dramaturgy disintegrates hierarchy Gravitation and free flow of energies: Recto Verso Clubbing, experiencing culture and voyeurism ‘Stimmen des Norden’ – an ambient theatre References Chapter 7 The resurrected theatre machine: A postdramatic paradox Marginal theatre towards the resurrection of the theatre machine Artistic theatre vs. theatre machine: physical attraction and staging ‘Physical’ attraction and re-theatricalisation The experiential theatre and marginal positions From re-presentation to the presentation and performance art In the ruins of the theatre machine: the ‘soft’ staging A neo-narrative staging and the recycled theatre machine References Chapter 8 Essay 1: Theatre studies, self-reflection and creativity: Understanding theory through metaphors References Chapter 9 Berkoff’s ‘Londons’: Staging psycho-geographies of the feared and the ecstatic Introduction The literary; compare and contrast The bodies of ‘Londons’ not London Word and body and spectator Of fear and ecstasy The dangerous seductions of theatre Towards conclusions (of a kind) Afterwords References Chapter 10 Recycling sources and experiencing physical theatre in educating professionals Our beginning Re-cycling is genetic and material A virtuous re-cycling, perhaps My play is A Midsummer Night’s Dream Afterwords References Chapter 11 Essay 2: Circling around: Looking(s) and empathies What may challenge The barn in the courtyard Playing the surface Of puppets and toys From Dirty Work 1 to Dirty Work 2 Anna Fierling’s billboards Body, others and empathy References Chapter 12 Retaining and reframing: Notes on processes of remembering in Rosemary Butcher’s choreography-making re- remain Notes References Chapter 13 On telling the world and ‘recycling’ in the new theatre Chapter 14 Essay 2: Researching, re-making, re-cycling Synchronic vs. diachronic aspects of theatre history From the Renaissance and the Baroque to a visual form of theatre Conditions for recycling The director and the choreographer in postmodernism Acting figure, visual picture effect and tableau effect Postmodernism versus illusion References Chapter 15 Recycling, situationism and postspectacular theatre Recycling … … situationism … … and postspectacular theatre References Chapter 16 Play(ing) it again: Recycling as theatres, histories, memories A prologue An introduction The knowing spectator (of theatres and histories) The necessity of re-cycling Some conclusions (in the form of evocations and images) A coda After-words and acknowledgements References Chapter 17 Essay 3: Spectatorial ghosts Theatre as a series of ‘disappearances and remains’ Processions, lookings and loops Forms of repetition Returning and re-visiting: Lookings Stories will always haunt us Snapshots: playing it again (or not) References Chapter 18 Re-cycle/up-cycle: A conversation References Chapter 19 Producing marginality and post-mainstream in independent theatre The idea of North: A basis in the local Towards a geo-cultural dimension and the recycling in theatre Post-mainstream as ‘critical pop-culture’ Confrontation turns into intermediation and production Copenhagen International Theatre (KIT) Bergen International Theatre (BIT Teatergarasjen) From ‘l’ex jeune théâtre’ to Théâtre à Risque References Chapter 20 Essay 3: Nordic inter-action: Avant-garde to visual performance – the ritualistic and mechanical About visual performance tending towards ritualistic and mechanical performance Visual performance and the inter-artistic Verdensteatret: A theatre of mechanical performance and landscapes Theatre is recycling avant-garde performance References Chapter 21 Impossible Theatres and the possible; some dramaturgical provocations and responses to the opening statement, ... Project opening statement On the new and the active On buildings and spaces On realisations of ‘the impossible’ Analogue and digital technologies The digital and ‘impossible spaces’? The spectator is always present References Chapter 22 Essay 4: Further paths, returning threads Notions of spectacle All kinds of immersions Another universal The role of necessary prejudice References Chapter 23 Drama in landscapes Nature as creative force, landscapes as a metaphorical concept Spiritual landscapes in symbolist drama Dramaturgic dissolution physically and in landscapes Landscapes, interiors and scenographic approaches From cabaret dramaturgy to landscape plays Spiritual landscapes, the dream of the Arctic Cabaret culture as a vitalistic theatre machine Landscape dialogue in stage receptions The scenic landscape viewed by the gaze References Chapter 24 Essay 4: Directing and choreographing as a free and open mise-en-scène: From risky auteurship to re-cycling theatre The director and choreographer from postmodernism towards the risky A move from the aesthetical to the personal and post-spectacular Towards a conclusion Three theses on recycling and risky forms of experiential theatre References Chapter 25 Dancing with your cycle – theatre and performance research as archivist practice The nomadic dramaturg Performing archives Note References Index