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.
Hall, Peter
Hall’s work is characterised by attention to detail, meticulous verse speaking, and a strong design aesthetic. He has written and spoken at length about mask work, classical theatre and verse.
Expressionism
The term ‘expressionism’ describes a radical style of visual art that aimed to express emotion non-naturalistically, in violent protest against the perceived bourgeois repression of naturalism.
Knebel, Maria
Maria Osipovna Knebel (1898–1985), actor, director, teacher, and author, is arguably the most influential figure in twentieth-century Russian theatre, next to Stanislavsky.
Suryodarmo, Suprapto
Suprapto Suryodarmo has taught and performed in Indonesia, Europe, the UK, Australia, the USA, Mexico, Japan, India and the Philippines for over twenty-five years.
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
Physical Comedy
Physical comedy prioritises the body as a signifier in performance. It often requires a level of performer training that focuses on gymnastic ability as well as comic skills.
Endo, Tadashi
Tadashi Endo is a butoh dancer and teacher. He is director of the Butoh-Center MAMU and the Butoh-Festivals MAMU in Germany.
Playwriting
Diverse experiments in playwriting over thousands of years mean a too-narrow definition could shortchange the multitudinous manifestations and methods of creation that constitute the art form.
Performance Art / Live Art & Performance
Performance art/live art is a live artistic practice that evolved as artists sought to extend art beyond the conventional media and practices of painting and sculpture.
Kwei-Armah, Kwame
Kwame Kwei-Armah was born in London in 1967 as Ian Roberts. Aged 19 he changed his name after tracing his family history back to Ghana via the slave trade.
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.
Holt, Thelma
Thelma Holt has been a key figure in introducing international theatre to Britain (including Yukio Ninagawa) and in encouraging risk-taking and artistic bravery among numerous companies.
Dance
Dance is central to any study of performance and, in non-Western cultures, dance’s many manifestations are often inseparable from the theatre.