This article explores modern conceptions in theatre by examining the theoretical foundations and contemporary practices that have reshaped performance in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Drawing on the ideas of influential practitioners such as Bertolt Brecht, Antonin Artaud, Jerzy Grotowski, and Augusto Boal, the study analyzes the transition of theatre from text-centered realism toward participatory, postdramatic, and multimedia-oriented forms. Through qualitative analysis and comparative historical review, supported by selected examples of experimental and immersive theatre companies, the research identifies four dominant contemporary conceptions: theatre as political practice; theatre as a postdramatic and multimedial event; embodied minimalist performance; and expanded performance ecology. The findings indicate a redefinition of spectatorship, a decentralization of authorial authority, and an increasing integration of digital technologies. The discussion highlights ongoing tensions between experimentation and accessibility, technological mediation and live presence, as well as radical political engagement and commercialization (Kershaw, 1992). Ultimately, modern theatre emerges as a dynamic and adaptive cultural laboratory that reflects and interrogates contemporary social realities while preserving the essential actor–audience encounter.
This article analyzes circus life as a model of adaptation to the tensions of contemporary life, characterized by the increasing dissolution of the boundaries between the work and personal spheres. Through the knowledge passed down from generation to generation in the circus tradition, we examine how this space configures practical tools to face uncertainty. Likewise, the art of circus, through its everyday patterns of communication and comprehension of the environment, is positioned as a critical questioning of traditional narratives about work, community and belonging, and at the same time it is proposed as a representative example of emerging ways of life.
Dans cet article, nous décrivons et analysons nos expériences de la fluidité à partir de et avec deux paysages fluviaux : Puerto Nariño en Colombie et l’île d’Anticosti au Québec. Nous remarquons que si la fluidité d’une géographie éveille la pluralité de notre identité comme de notre corps en écoute, son inscription dans un rapport au temps en fait un terrain fructueux pour des dramaticités performatives. Puis nous interrogeons comment ces écritures in situ de la fluidité peuvent se maintenir sur scène et constituer les premières pistes d’une écodramaturgie non pas documentaire mais équivoque, indécidée et poétique.
This article is about how we developed and delivered a full-day applied theatre workshop about decolonization for judges. The workshop first provided a framework for judges to take into account Canada’s colonial history and the ongoing colonial ideas that manifest within us at the individual level. Next, the workshop offered judges an opportunity to step outside of their usual professional roles and consider how the needs of an Indigenous youth are addressed in court from the perspective of the young person and their grandmother. The purpose of our workshop was to collectively consider what it means to decolonize ourselves and our justice system. This case study demonstrates that “rules of engagement” are flexible, yet must be supported with cultural knowledge, respect for cultural protocol, reflection, respect for lived experience, and an openness to learning by all.
Antonio Gandusio is among the last Brillante to tread the Italian scenes. Not a son of art, he becomes one of the most important exponents of Italian comedy of early twentieth century. In his career he acts with actors such as Ermete Novelli, Flavio Andò and Lyda Borelli. In addition to being a theater, radio and cinema’s performer, he is a refined book collector and passionate reader.
A lo largo de la década del 60, asistimos en Buenos Aires a una progresiva desaparición de las representaciones en ídish en el país que llevan a la declinación del circuito teatral judío, cuyo gran auge se había producido entre los años 30 y los 50. Las razones de esta crisis son múltiples y responden tanto a factores internos como externos. Durante los años 50 comienzan a aparecer una serie de problemas que ni los artistas, ni los empresarios logran resolver. El primero es la ausencia de juventud en el público y sobre el escenario, que se debía a la falta de recambio generacional en los elencos teatrales judíos. El segundo es la ausencia de obras nuevas en el repertorio del teatro ídish que lleva a que se representen siempre los mismos autores y las mismas temáticas, que cada vez tienen menor relación con la realidad judeo-argentina e interpelan cada vez menos al público local, y especialmente a las nuevas generaciones de judíos argentinos. En este trabajo indagaremos en dichos factores centrándonos en los procesos que inciden en su profundización a lo largo de la década del 60 y que finalmente llevan a la desaparición del circuito teatral en ídish de Buenos Aires.
The essay analyses the close relationship established by the three major photographic studios active in Genoa between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century with the intellectual and artistic environment, in particular with the theatrical world, both locally and nationally. Starting from a systematic analysis of the cultural and society chronicles published in the newspapers, and comparing the information found with the photographs preserved in the main city and national photographic collections and with the photomechanical reproductions in contemporary publications, an attempt was made to recompose and date the images relating to the opera and dramaturgy produced by the Genoese studios. Despite the sharing of the communication strategy based on the systematic presence in the media and on the often instrumental alliance with the entertainment world, the photographers considered here express themselves with different styles. Among them, the Sciutto photographic studio comes out for quality and awareness, especially with the portraits of Eleonora Duse, memorable for the author and the actress. Finally, light is shed on the influence exerted by the theatrical performances on the taste of the bourgeoisie and on the contamination with the photographic portrait.
Este artigo examina a cena da Cia. Livre, que problematiza a constituição da identidade brasileira, relacionando o indivíduo no contexto urbano e o pensamento ameríndio. Desde o espetáculo Vem Vai, o caminho dos mortos (2007), identifica-se um trânsito entre o mato e o asfalto, instituído nas traduções cênicas da antropofagia, segundo Andrade (1928), Campos (1992) e Nunes (1979), e da cosmologia amazônica, a partir das teorias do perspectivismo, em especial, Descola (1992), Carneiro da Cunha (1998), Kopenawa e Albert (2015) e Viveiros de Castro (1996; 2002; 2015). Conclui-se destacando a estratégia decolonial da companhia no recurso à antropologia, para imaginar outras humanidades.
This article analyses Tania Bruguera’s Tatlin’s Whisper #6 (2009), which creatively rewrites the widely distributed image of Fidel Castro’s victory speech in Havana (1959). By drawing on Xinghua Li, Brandon LaBelle and John Mowitt, the article discusses how the performance connects the whisper and frustrated revolutionary hopes, whilst contesting Western epistemologies. The article demonstrates how the whisper as a speaking from and to the margins is crucial for rethinking the politics of performance, and how to be in common otherwise.
Built as a cartographic report, this article aims to give insight to the practical and conceptual procedures carried out during the research process that culminated in the scenic and musical creation of the show Uji – O Bom da Roda. Based on the cartographic method, we focus on encounters and contaminations produced between the theatrical universe and the roda de samba (samba circle) in its multiple expressive dimensions. Within a territory of creative frictions, Corporeal Mimesis presented itself as a fundamental element of articulation between music, body, scene and dramaturgy.
Michael Gove, one of the main faces of the Vote Leave campaign, recently said that "people in this country have had enough of pundits". According to journalist Henry Mance, in an article for the Financial Times, Gove's inability to demonstrate, economically, his argument that the UK was sending £350 million to the EU every week was proof that the politics of "post-truth" had already penetrated the UK. The term 'post-truth politics' is grounded in a contemporary era in which fraud is a transparent and powerful currency of exchange, both fiscally and politically; it exposes the precarity of meaning, in which the structures that legitimise and sometimes legislate facts and their circulation have become fluid. Post-truth" policies also show a paradox: on the one hand, the growing need to resort to experts, to intellectual supports, to critical and political involvement that allow differentiation to occur for and with the public; on the other hand, skepticism towards the singularity and autonomy of these experts, fearing their corruption, tied to forms of subjectivity in which the boundaries between public and private, between fact and fiction, become difficult to discern.
The US Medical Licensing Examination requires future doctors to examine actors in simulated, improvisational scenarios to test students’ ability to empathetically collect medical histories, perform basic examinations and diagnose an illness. To better prepare for this clinical testing and improve upon patient complaints related to doctors’ insensitivity, medical schools increasingly turn to university theatre programs to help develop interpersonal aspects of doctor/patient interactions. Based on four years of devising and delivering successful theatre-based programs at two Philadelphia area medical schools, this essay details benefits, challenges and curricular implementation of empathy-building programs that emphasize the embodied nature of theatre and medicine.
A review of the Polish–English catalogue of Professor Degler’s postcards collection. In the Henryk Tomaszewski Museum of Theatre that opened in Wrocław on 26–27 March 2017, among other exhibitions devoted to outstanding individuals, there is also The Study of Professor Janusz Degler, which houses the library donated to the Museum by the professor who is a theatre and Witkacy scholar of international renown. And it is here that Professor Degler’s collection of postcards—or more precisely, a carefully selected part of it, a few hundred of several thousand items—has been displayed. This part of the collection is also presented in the wonderfully edited Polish–English catalogue with colour reproductions of the exhibits. There are exactly 597 of them, and additional two in the introductory part. The book takes us on a marvellous journey to the most distant theatrical corners of Europe. We travel from Paris to Petersburg in a blink of an eye. The images change in quick succession, as if in a kaleidoscope: theater houses great and small, of brick and of wood, historically significant and completely forgotten. The authors of the catalogue rightly boast that it is the first publication in the world to present a unique collection of old postcards displaying theatre architecture.
Dramatic representation. The theater, The performing arts. Show business
Esta investigação tenta testar as noções de "pretexto de arquivo" e "obra em movimento" (Féral) num estudo de caso da ópera King Priam do compositor, libretista e pacifista britânico Michael Kemp Tippett (1908-1998). Inspirada em A Ilíada de Homero, esta ópera de temática quente trata de assuntos de todas as épocas, tais como conflito e escolha, e tem sido executada há mais de cinquenta anos. Para atingir este objectivo, um "momento escolhido" (Feral) é analisado em três reescritas (1962, 1985 e 2014) desta obra, resolutamente teatral desde a sua concepção. A perspectiva comparativa leva, por um lado, a iniciar o retraçado da história genética do Rei Priam e, por outro, a levantar questões sobre a articulação entre as noções acima mencionadas, espaço e tempo. Este método permitirá identificar soluções cénicas que, embora distintas do seu tempo, conservam no entanto características de reescritos anteriores, contribuindo assim para lançar luz sobre o significado dos conceitos estudados. O estudo conclui levantando a seguinte questão: "Em que termos podem as noções "pretexto de arquivo" e "trabalho em movimento" ser entendidas no contexto de uma ópera itinerante como a última cenografia do Rei Priam?
O presente trabalho aborda as possibilidades do texto teatral que se constrói a partir do drama moderno até a obra considerada pós-dramática, quando o teatro contemporâneo se vê diante da crise e da possibilidade do fim do drama como elemento norteador das criações de encenação ou de dramaturgia. Logo, os diversos elementos que convergiam na construção deste norte se encontraram em suspensão. Ao refletir sobre uma série de obras cênicas contemporâneas, uma das saídas apontadas e analisadas por este estudo será o uso e o conceito da “Ironia” principalmente no texto Insulto ao público, de Peter Handke. É a ironia que atua no imperfeito, no contraditório e no vazio – que são partes constantes da dramaturgia de nosso tempo.
Sylvie Roques (Centre Edgar Morin – Paris, France, Université d’Evry – Évry, France)
This article presents a research for decade making cross the look on the expanding dramatic text of physical representations and the examination of current scenic forms where the presence of the body is undeniable. If it is impossible to limit the theater to the text, our position is that it is also impossible to escape it. The first part puts in perspective a textual analysis of a corpus of revealing contemporary texts a number of physical representations. The second part questions the flesh of the words because the word is a tangible materiality, a carrier of a particular originality. The third part is dedicated to the forms emerging performances on the European stages where the body acquires all its density and its strength.