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.
Theatre-Making & Processes
The creation of a performance or a piece of theatre involves a process informed by method, aesthetic choice and economic context.
Rosenthal, Rachel
A winner of OBIE, Rockefeller, Getty, NEA and CAA awards, among many others, Rachel Rosenthal is an internationally recognised pioneers in the fields of feminist and ecological performance art.
Alfreds, Mike
Mike Alfreds has run theatre companies in the US, Israel and the UK as well as freelancing as a theatre director and teacher around the world.
Postmodern Dance
Postmodern dance tends to be divided between those choreographers who experiment formalistically with constructed and performed movement in space and time, and those who are influenced by modernism.
Acting & Actor Training
The training of actors and performers operates in a variety of ways according to the contexts for which they are being trained.
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.
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.
Political Theatre & Performance
It is possible to suggest that all theatre and performance is political as it in some way reflects the political and social contexts from which it is generated and in which it operates.
Clowns & Clowning
Clowns are predominantly physical performers, and there are a number of different traditions and ‘schools’ of clowning.
Naturalism & Realism
In theatre, naturalism and realism refer specifically to artistic movements that represent real life on stage, using believable characters, narrative action and plot.
Shaplin, Adriano
Adriano Shaplin is a New Jersey-based playwright, actor, and artistic director of the Riot Group theatre company.
Intercultural Theatre & Performance
‘Interculturalism’ describes cultural interaction which confronts and/or combines the practices of one culture with those of one or more others.
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.