Analysing Performance: Issues and Interpretations

Analysing Performance is a wide-ranging collection of essays by contributors of international standing about key aspects of the performing arts. Each essay tackles the theory and practice of contemporary performance work, and enables students and teachers to see what is at stake in analyzing dance, drama, music and videos. The commitment to cross-disciplinary approaches mirrors the breakdown of boundaries between these art forms in today's multi-media world. How do postmodernist, feminist or psychoanalytic readings construct performance worlds? What is the impact of multiculturalism on the language of theatre? What are the dynamics between AIDS, representation and live art? How does one talk about the bod in contemporary dance forms? Contributors include: Elizabeth Wright on psychoanalysis, Baz Kershaw on the politics of performance, Jatinda Verma on multiculturalism, E. Ann Kaplan on MTV and video, Lizbeth Goodman on feminism and AIDS, and Stephen Connor on postmodernism.