Theatre and performance design: a reader in scenography

Abstract

This volume, the first of its kind in this field, brings together over fifty key texts and newly commissioned works that provide a critical and contextual framework for the analysis of theatre and performance design. The collection and analysis of material for the volume was undertaken with Andrew Nisbet, but Jane Collins was responsible for all of the additional writing, including the essays that frame each section. The volume was nominated for the TaPRA (Theatre and Performance Research Association) David Bradby Award for Research in International Theatre and Performance in 2011. Collins was invited to talk about the book at the opening of the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space in June 2011 and as guest speaker at the 15th Bharat Rang Mahotsav, International Theatre Festival in Delhi in January 2013. It has been reviewed in international journals including New Theatre Quarterly and Australasian Drama Studies. Theatre and Performance Design: A Reader in Scenography is an essential resource for those interested in the visual composition of performance and related scenographic practices. Theatre and performance studies, cultural theory, fine art, philosophy and the social sciences are brought together in one volume to examine the principle forces that inform understanding of theatre and performance design. The volume is organised thematically in five sections: Looking, the experience of seeing; Space and place; The designer: the scenographic; Bodies in space; and, Making meaning. This major collection of key writings provides a much needed critical and contextual framework for the analysis of theatre and performance design. By locating this study within the broader field of scenography - the term increasingly used to describe a more integrated reading of performance - this unique anthology recognises the role played by all the elements of production in the creation of meaning. Edited and with an introduction by Jane Collins and Andrew Nesbit, contributors include Josef Svoboda, Richard Foreman, Roland Barthes, Oscar Schlemmer, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Richard Schechner, Jonathan Crary, Elizabeth Wilson, Henri Lefebvre, Adolph Appia, and Herbert Blau.

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