Performance Studies in Motion offers multiple perspectives on the current field of performance studies and suggests its future directions. Featuring new essays by pioneers Richard Schechner and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, and by international scholars and practitioners, it shows how performance can offer a new way of seeing the world, and testifies to the dynamism of this discipline.
Beginning with an overview of the development of performance studies, the essays offer new insights into: contemporary experimental and postdramatic theatre; participatory performance and museum exhibitions; the performance of politicians, political institutions and grassroots protest movements; theatricality at war and in contemporary religious rituals, and performative practices in therapy, education and life sciences.
Employing original reflexive approaches to concrete case studies and situations, contributors introduce a variety of applications of performance studies methodologies to contemporary culture, art and society, creating new interdisciplinary links between the arts, humanities, and social and natural sciences. With studies from and about places as diverse as Austria, Belgium, China, France, Germany, Israel, Korea, Palestine, the Philippines, Poland, Rwanda and the USA,
Performance Studies in Motion showcases the vitality and breadth of the field today.
Aronson-Lehavi, Sharon: - Sharon Aronson-Lehavi (PhD) is a tenured Senior Lecturer of theatre and performance studies at the Department of Comparative Literature, Bar-Ilan University. In 2012 she was appointed as a member of the Israel Young Academy, established by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. She is the author of Gender and Feminism in Modern Theatre (Open University Press, 2013, Hebrew), Street Scenes: Late Medieval Acting and Performance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), and editor of Wanderers and Other Israeli Plays (Seagull Books, In Performance Series, 2009). She holds a PhD in Theatre Studies from the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY). Her awards include a Fulbright grant for doctoral studies, a Dan David post-doctoral research award, a membership in a German Israeli Foundation (GIF) research team, and the 2012 award for Excellence in Teaching, Bar-Ilan University. In 2013-14, she is a Lisa and Douglas Goldman Visiting Israeli Professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Citron, Atay: - Atay Citron is associate professor at the University of Haifa's Theatre Department and head of its Medical Clowning Academic Training Program, which he founded in 2006. He was department chair (2004-2009), artistic director of the Bat-Yam International Street Theatre Festival (2007-2010), the Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre (2001-2004), and the School of Visual Theatre, Jerusalem (1993-2000). His stage work was seen in the U.S., Canada, France and Israel. He is the recipient of several awards, among them the Rosenblum Award for Excellence in the Performing Arts and two Fulbright fellowships. He was the initiator and organizer of the 2010 international conference RS & PS: Richard Schechner and Performance Studies at the University of Haifa. He holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Performance Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, and his main academic interests are avant-garde performance, ritual, especially healing rites and shamanism, ritual clowning and medical clowning.
Zerbib, David: - David Zerbib teaches Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and at the Geneva University of Art and Design. His research interests concern the theory of performance and the aesthetics of performance art. He develops his activity through different academic, artistic and cultural contexts. Among his recent publications: 'The Four Parameters of the Ontology of Performance (and their doubles)' in Performance: life of the archive and topicality, AICA/Presses du réel (forthcoming); 'The myth of the active subject: An interview with Claire Bishop, ' in The Work of Art as Dispositif: Setting the Stage for Audience Participation, France: CNRS (forthcoming); 'Is performance performative?' Art press 2, n°18, august-october 2010; 'The performantial regime of the work of art, ' (Art Press 2, nov 2007- janv 2008). He curated Ce qui perd forme, an exhibition devoted to the history of performance art, in Toulouse, France (2010) and is the editor of In Octavo. Des formats de l'art, (France: Presses du réel, 2014).
