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This beautifully illustrated book conveys the centrality of costume to live performance. Finding associations between contemporary practices and historical manifestations, costume is explored in six thematic chapters, examining the transformative ritual of costuming; choruses as reflective of society; the grotesque, transgressive costume; the female sublime as emancipation; costume as sculptural art in motion; and the here-and-now as history. Viewing the material costume as a crucial aspect in the preparation, presentation, and reception of live performance, the book brings together costumed performances through history. These range from ancient Greece to modern experimental productions, from medieval theatre to modernist dance, from the “fashion plays” to contemporary Shakespeare, marking developments in both culture and performance. Revealing the relationship between dress, the body, and human existence, and acknowledging a global as well as an Anglo and Eurocentric perspective, this book shows costume’s ability to cross both geographical and disciplinary borders. Through it, we come to question the extent to which the material costume actually co-authors the performance itself, speaking of embodied histories, states of being, and never-before imagined futures, which come to life in the temporary space of the performance. With a contribution by Melissa Trimingham, University of Kent, UK.

Performances in hospices and on beaches; cross-cultural myth making in Wales, New Zealand and the US; communal poetry among mental health system survivors: this book, now in paperback, presents a senior practitioner/critic's exploration of arts-based research processes sustained over more than a decade - a subtle engagement with disability culture.

Applied Practice: Evidence and Impact in Theatre, Music and Art engages with a diversity of contexts, locations and arts forms - including theatre, music and fine art - and brings together theoretical, political and practice-based perspectives on the question of 'evidence' in relation to participatory arts practice in social contexts. This collection is a unique contribution to the field, focusing on one of the vital concerns for a growing and developing set of arts and research practices. It asks us to consider evidence not only in terms of methodology but also in the light of the ideological, political and pragmatic implications of that methodology. In Part One, Matthew Reason and Nick Rowe reflect on evidence and impact in the participatory arts in relation to recurring conceptual and methodological motifs. These include issues of purpose and obliquity; the relationship between evidence and knowledge; intrinsic and instrumental impacts, and the value of participatory research. Part Two explores the diversity of perspectives, contexts and methodologies in examining what it is possible to know, say and evidence about the often complex and intimate impact of participatory arts. Part Three brings together case studies in which practitioners and practice-based researchers consider the frustrations, opportunities and successes they face in addressing the challenge to produce evidence for the impact of their practice.

A substantial contribution to current discourses in dance, choreography and performance, especially in the area of Practice-as-Research. Reflects the perspective of the author as scholar, choreographer, performer, and arts practitioner, with an extensive background in both the professional world of dance and the intellectual academy. 49 b&w illlus. Click here to view the free chapter: 'An Epilogue: Fitting [Out-fitting] In'.

The main aim of this book is to present the theory and purpose underpinning the approaches to dance literacy as explored by the Language of Dance® community in the USA and UK. Through their teacher training programs, they are changing the face of dance-based dance literacy using motif notation. Through their teacher training programs, they are changing the face of dance-based dance literacy using motif notation. This book reveals how dance notation literacy has changed due to practices being focused on constructivist and constructionist pedagogy. Based on work by dance educator Ann Hutchinson Guest and expanded upon by her protégés, this is the first book of its kind to bring together theory, praxis, original research outcomes, taxonomies, model lesson plans, learning domain taxonomies of dance, and voices of dance teachers who have explored using dance notation literacy. We are in a new era for educating with dance notation, focusing on learners' engagement by making connections between the learning domains using constructivist and constructionist learning approaches. Arts-literate dancers can deepen their dance craft and transfer their arts knowledge, capacities, and skills to lifelong learning. Dance-based dance literacy practices using notation enhance learners' flexibility, adaptability, self-direction, initiative, productivity, responsibility, leadership, and cross-cultural skills.  The book will appeal to dance educators focusing on cognitive and metacognitive learning in dance using communication, problem-solving, and critical thinking. Useful for preschool and primary teachers aiming to integrate dance into classroom experiences and for secondary teachers teaching dance and looking to upgrade their approach to dance literacy so students are able to achieve higher level cognitive learning, problem solving, and social skills in dance classrooms. Choreographers and dance teachers will find new approaches to dance making and to expressing their craft using a system that is well codified and now augmented with examples to guide them with making their own projects and processes. Anyone with an interest in the idea of dance literacy will find concrete examples of how to put their knowledge into practice to advance their teaching and dance making.

Ron Athey is one of the most important, prolific and influential performance artists of the past four decades. A singular example of lived creativity, his radical performances are at odds with the art worlds and art marketplaces that have increasingly dominated contemporary art and performance art over the period of his career. Queer Communion, an exploration of Athey's career, refuses the linear narratives of art discourse and instead pays homage to the intensities of each mode of Athey's performative practice and each community he engages. Emphasizing the ephemeral and largely uncollectible nature of his work, the book places Athey's own writing at its centre, turning to memoir, memory recall and other modes of retrieval and narration to archive his performances. In addition to documenting Athey's art, ephemera, notes and drawings, the volume features commissioned essays, concise 'object lessons' on individual objects in the Athey archive, and short testimonials by friends and collaborators including Dominic Johnson, Amber Musser, Julie Tolentino, Ming Ma, David Getsy, Alpesh Patel and Zackary Drucker, among others. Together they form Queer Communion, a counter history of contemporary art.

The APPLIED THEATRE series is a major innovation in applied theatre scholarship: each book presents new ways of seeing and critically reflecting on this dynamic and vibrant field. Volumes offer a theoretical framework and introductory survey of the field addressed, combined with a range of case studies illustrating and critically engaging with practice. Series Editors: Sheila Preston and Michael Balfour Applied Theatre: Economies addresses a notoriously problematic area: applied theatre’s relationship to the economy and the ways in which socially committed theatre makers fund, finance or otherwise resource their work. Part One addresses longstanding concerns in the field about the effects of economic conditions and funding relationships on applied theatre practice. It considers how applied theatre’s relationship with local and global economies can be understood from different theoretical and philosophical perspectives. It also examines a range of ways in which applied theatre can be resourced, identifying key issues and seeking possibilities for theatre makers to sustain their work without undermining their social and artistic values. The international case studies in Part Two give vivid insights into the day-;to-;day challenges of resourcing applied theatre work in Chile, Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Hong Kong and the US. The authors examine critical issues or points of tension that have arisen in a particular funding relationship or from specific economic activities. Each study also illuminates ways in which applied theatre makers can bring artistic and social justice principles to bear on financial and organizational processes.

This book explores the fascinating phenomenon of cross-casting and related gender issues in different theatrical genres and different performance contexts during the heyday of French theatre.

Choreographer Jacky Lansley has been practicing and performing for more than four decades. In Choreographies, she offers unique insight into the processes behind independent choreography and paints a vivid portrait of a rigorous practice that combines dance, performance art, visuals and a close attention to space and site. Choreographies is both autobiography and archive - documenting production through rehearsal and performance photographs, illustrations, scores, process notes, reviews, audience feedback and interviews with both dancers and choreographers. Covering the author's practice from 1975 to 2017, the book delves into an important period of change in contemporary British dance - exploring British New Dance, postmodern dance and experimental dance outside of a canonical US context. A critically engaged reflection that focuses on artistic process over finished product, Choreographies is a much-needed resource in the fields of dance and choreographic art making.

Sikes traces the shifting role of performance in the fashioning of subjectivity from the Modern to the Postmodern eras. The book joins history and historiography and is grounded in a body of research about varied performance subjects from court dance, ballet, opera, festivals, celebrations, propaganda films, Hollywood movies to reality TV.