Programme de la journée
Approaches to Cross-Historiographies of Theatre & Performance Art
An event co-directed by Georgina Guy (RHUL, Theatre Studies), Laure Fernandez (Paris, Theatre Studies) and Bénédicte Boisson (Université Rennes 2, Theatre Studies)
Supported by Royal Holloway’s Engaged Humanities Lab – Research Partnership Programme // Department of Drama, Theatre and Dance, Royal Holloway, University of London
As part of a larger project on Performance Theatre: Reconnecting Practices, Discourses and Histories of Theatre and Performance Art – 1950-2020 (“RELIRE”), this study day will engage with existing historiographical texts in the theatre and performance field to establish the particular challenges and research questions that might guide an investigation of cross- historiographies.
The event will be dedicated to the analysis of historiographies, surveys, and genealogies in order to examine how histories of performance have been written, where they acknowledge reciprocal links and influences between theatre and performance art, and where long- standing anti-theatrical biases are maintained. The approach will be international and comparative, including short presentations on foundational, as well as more recent; historicizing texts, as well as overviews of historiographic patterns (UK, Europe, North America). The event will also give attention to revisions and complexities across editions, translations, and terminologies to promote reflection on how the influence of theatre on the performative turn of the arts has been written into or out of history.
This study day runs in parallel with two further days of investigation linked with the “RELIRE” project, devoted to case studies evidencing the influence of theatre on performance art, held at Université Rennes 2, France.
- General introduction of the day and of the research project, Bénédicte Boisson, Laure Fernandez, Georgina Guy (France, UK, Theatre Studies), face-to-face/online
- Histories of performance art, introductory notes
- UK -> Dominic Johnson (QMUL, Performance & Visual Culture)
- France -> Janig Begoc (Université de Strasbourg, Art History)
- Discussion
- Writing histories of contemporary performance art: questions & methodologies
- France -> Bénédicte Boisson (Rennes 2, Theatre Studies), on La mise en scène théâtrale de 1800 à nos jours, 2015
- UK -> Stephen Greer (Glasgow, Theatre Studies), on the research project Live Art in Scotland
- UK -> Sarah Gorman (London, Theatre Studies), on Women in Performance: Repurposing Failure, 2020
- Discussion
- Crossing histories: a “book club”
- Nicolas Fourgeaud (Haute école des arts du Rhin, Strasbourg, Art History), on Michael Kirby, Happenings. An Illustrated Anthology, 1965
- Samuel Lhuillery (Paris, Theatre Studies), on Richard Schechner, Performance Theory [Essays on Performance Theory], 1977
- Clare Finburgh (Goldsmiths, University of London, Theatre Studies), on David Bradby, Le théâtre en France de 1968 à 2000, 2007
- Laure Fernandez (Paris, Theatre Studies), on RoseLee Goldberg, La Performance du futurisme à nos jours, 1979-2001
- Discussion
- Ophélie Landrin (Resident Director, Boston College in Paris, Theatre Studies), on Performance: A Critical Introduction by Marvin Carlson, 3 editions between 1996 and 2018
- Georgina Guy (RHUL, Theatre Studies), on Catherine Wood, Performance in Contemporary Art, 2018
- Vanessa Macaulay (Anglia Ruskin, Theatre Studies), on Valerie Cassel Oliver (ed.), Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art, 2013
- Joe Kelleher (Theatre Studies), on Guy Brett, Abstract Vaudeville: The Work of Rose English, 2014
- Discussion