AustLit
Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'As I read these articles over, I am struck yet again at how many connections I find among them. I have come to think of this issue of Theatre Research International as the unintended special issue. But special issue on what? Overall, I think that taken together the articles are a primer on the challenges, possibilities and imperatives of representing globalization in live performance. But there are other connections as well. The economics and geopolitics of neoliberalism undergird all four explorations, especially as they provoke human migration and upend traditional arts-funding paradigms. What exactly constitutes ‘local’ is also very much an open question for all the authors. Whether it is because the performances are perceived as ‘from here’ or ‘from away’, or because the audiences and the artists do not share a common nation, local is revealed as a very unstable concept.' (Canning, Charlotte; Editorial introduction)
Notes
-
Contents indexed selectively.
Contents
-
The Politics and Poetics of Listening: Attending Headphone Verbatim Theatre in Post-Cronulla Australia,
single work
(p. 82-100)'This article analyses Stories of Love & Hate, a headphone verbatim play produced in the aftermath of the Cronulla Riots in Sydney, Australia. While verbatim theatre typically invites audiences to listen therapeutically, Stories of Love & Hate enacts and enables two alternative forms of listening. First, it enacts the paradoxical mode of ‘ethical eavesdropping’; second, it enables the metatheatrical mode of ‘mediatized listening’. In doing so, the play asks spectators to reconsider whom they listen to and how. It also asks scholars to reconsider claims that verbatim theatre gives voice to those who go unheard by the media. Instead, the article argues that in the case of Stories of Love & Hate, headphone verbatim theatre enables the audience to listen to how the media listen.' (Publication abstract)
-
Reimagining the Wheel : The Implications of Cultural Diversity for Mainstream Theatre Programming in Australia,
single work
criticism
(p. 133-148)'Profound demographic shifts in Australia's population are raising fundamental questions about how we reimagine the practices of our mainstream cultural institutions. The ability and the willingness of these institutions to reconceptualize their work in ways that encompass a diversity of traditions and tastes are critical. The paper draws on Pierre Bourdieu's notions of distinctions and taste to examine the influence of cultural identification on the choices that young people make about attending live theatre. The paper includes findings from a large Australian study, TheatreSpace, which examined why young people chose to engage or not to engage with theatre. In New South Wales nearly 40 per cent of the 726 young participants spoke a language other than English at home. Most were attending with their schools, many with no history of family attendance. This paper highlights significant issues about cultural relevance, accessibility and the often unintended challenges and confrontations that theatre can present to young first-generation Australians.' (Publication abstract)
-
[Review Essay] Telling Stories: Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander Performance,
single work
essay
review
(p. 159-160)'Maryrose Casey's Telling Stories expands the territory of her ground-breaking book Creating Frames (2004), which traced the history of Indigenous Australian theatre from the 1960s to 1990 for the first time. In Telling Stories, Casey shifts her focus from script-based drama to traditional and historical Indigenous performance practices, where song, dance, storytelling and visual arts combine in dynamic interchange between spiritual ceremony and secular entertainment.' (Introduction)
