The Routledge Performance Archive is a developing resource produced in partnership with Digital Theatre, providing unique access to an unprecedented range of audio-visual material from past and present practitioners of performance. This ground-breaking and constantly growing online collection delivers essential resources direct to the classroom, lecture theatre and library. The video material spans more than fifty years of documented work direct from renowned practitioners and specialists, and ranges across the entire spectrum of theatre topics.
Practitioners
Browse the Archive through our list of practitioners, ranging from legendary figures to contemporary pioneers. Trace connections between individuals and entire movements, via specially commissioned biographies and peer-reviewed cross-referencing. All biographical information and video descriptions come direct from the practitioners themselves, unless otherwise stated.
Subjects
Explore content thematically through our carefully structured taxonomy, and reflect on fascinating new relationships between concept and content. All entries have been taken from Paul Allain’s and Jen Harvie’s Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance (Routledge: London, 2006), and are edited by Maggie B. Gale, unless otherwise indicated.
Street Theatre
Many performance traditions have involved parades and displays in streets, towns or village squares, and the majority of these performances have been constructed with this spatial context in mind.
Barba, Eugenio and Odin Teatret
Odin Teatret began in Oslo in 1964 and moved to Holstebro, Denmark, in 1966, changing its name to Nordic Theatre Laboratory/Odin Teatret. Its members come from twelve countries and three continents.
Dada
Pioneered by a trans-European group of artists, Dada is an ‘anti-art’ form that came into being in 1916, partly as a deliberately illogical response to the perceived irrationality of World War One.
Postmodern Acting
Postmodern acting has interrogated the idea of a unified subject and individual agency in a variety of ways.
Masking & Body Adornment
Modes of masking or decorating the body have been used throughout history, from ancient rituals, to ancient Greek theatre, to circus’s red-nosed clown, or the stock characters of commedia dell’arte
Protests, Demonstrations & Parades
These are forms of mass group events or performances that generally take place in public spaces in order to influence public opinion by occupying and exploiting the power of those sites.
Shaplin, Adriano
Adriano Shaplin is a New Jersey-based playwright, actor, and artistic director of the Riot Group theatre company.
Commedia dell’Arte
Commedia dell’arte is a performance form that originated in Italy during the sixteenth century. The performers work with stock or fixed character types.
Dance
Dance is central to any study of performance and, in non-Western cultures, dance’s many manifestations are often inseparable from the theatre.
Solo Performance
Examples of solo performance have existed since records of theatre and performance activity have been available, but often here the ‘solo’ involves the delivery of some sort of monologue or soliloquy.
Seyferth, Katharina
Katharina Seyferth worked with Grotowski during the “Paratheatre” and “Theatre of Sources” periods. She is Director of the International Centre for Theatrical Research and Training of Las Téoulères.
Simmons, Pip
In 1968, Pip Simmons set up his own experimental company, The Pip Simmons Theatre Group, whose devised style was intense, physical and musical.
Gaskill, William
William Gaskill was born in Yorkshire in 1930 and studied at Oxford University, alongside Tony Richardson and Kenneth Tynan.
Goat Island
Goat Island was a Chicago-based collaborative performance group that began in 1987. They made nine intimate, low-tech and intensely physical performance works that toured internationally.
Pearson, Mike / Brith Gof
Mike Pearson is Professor of Performance Studies and Leverhulme Research Fellow, Dept. of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, Aberystwyth University. Director: Brith Gof Theatre Company, 1981-97.
Tandon, Rekha
Rekha Tandon is a performer, choreographer and researcher working in Odissi, one of the eight classical dance forms of India. She is the Artistic Director of Dance Routes.