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.
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.
Paxton, Steve
Steve Paxton has been a professional dancer since 1960. He is the inventor of contact improvisation, and continues to perform, choreograph and teach around the world.
Feminism, Theatre & Performance
Throughout the twentieth century, feminist performance has interrogated the ways women’s conventional representation is often derogatory, or exploitative, reproducing scenes of female disempowerment.
Kathakali
Kathakali dance-drama is a distinctive genre of South Asian performance which developed during the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries in the Malayalam speaking coastal region of south-west India.
Mirecka, Rena
Rena Mirecka graduated from the Theatre School in Krakow. A founding member of Jerzy Grotowski’s Laboratory Theatre, she is a specialist in the physical exercises known as plastiques.
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.
Baker, Bobby
Bobby Baker is a woman, and an artist. She is acclaimed for producing radical work of outstanding quality across disciplines including performance, drawing and multimedia.
Modernist Theatre
Modernist theatre and performance includes works considered as naturalist, symbolist, surrealist, futurist, Dadaist or expressionist, covering a period roughly from the 1880s to the 1930s.
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.
Paratheatre
Para literally means ‘beyond’. In practice, paratheatre therefore lies outside and beyond the spatial, temporal and structural forms of the theatre, denoting instead related practices.
Animals
The behaviour of animals on stage is unpredictable and difficult to control. Yet animals have often been used by groups and artists, exploiting these very qualities of surprise and unpredictability.
Clowns & Clowning
Clowns are predominantly physical performers, and there are a number of different traditions and ‘schools’ of clowning.
Intercultural Theatre & Performance
‘Interculturalism’ describes cultural interaction which confronts and/or combines the practices of one culture with those of one or more others.