Performance, Identity, and the Neo-Political Subject

288 Pages·2013·4.742 MB·English

by  Fintan Walsh, Matthew Causey

Performance, Identity, and
the Neo-Political Subject
This book stages a timely discussion about the centrality of identity pol-
itics to theatre and performance studies. It acknowledges the important
close relationship between the discourses and practices historically, while
speculating that theatre and performance can enlighten ways of being that
are not limited by conventional identitarian languages or formations. The
essays engage contemporary theatre and performance practices that pose
challenging questions about identity and politics—as well as subjectiv-
ity, relationality, and ethics—responding to neoliberal constructions and
exploitations of identity by seeking to discern, describe, or imagine a new
political subject. The volume includes essays by leading international schol-
ars who look to a range of performance sites that include visual arts prac-
tice, digital culture, music, public events, and experimental theatre.
Matthew Causey is Associate Professor in the School of Drama, Film and
Music at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and Founder and Director of the
College’s Arts Technology Research Laboratory.
Fintan Walsh is Lecturer in Theatre and Performance at Birkbeck, Univer-
sity of London, UK.
Routledge Advances in Theatre and Performance Studies
1 Theatre and Postcolonial Desires 9 Crossing Cultural Borders
Awam Amkpa Through the Actor’s Work
Foreign Bodies of Knowledge
2 Brecht and Critical Theory Cláudia Tatinge Nascimento
Dialectics and Contemporary
Aesthetics 10 Movement Training for the
Sean Carney Modern Actor
Mark Evans
3 Science and the Stanislavsky
Tradition of Acting 11 The Politics of American Actor
Jonathan Pitches Training
Edited by Ellen Margolis and
4 Performance and Cognition Lissa Tyler Renaud
Theatre Studies and the Cognitive
Turn 12 Performing Embodiment in
Edited by Bruce McConachie and Samuel Beckett’s Drama
F. Elizabeth Hart Anna McMullan
5 Theatre and Performance in 13 The Provocation of the Senses in
Digital Culture Contemporary Theatre
From Simulation to Stephen Di Benedetto
Embeddedness
Matthew Causey 14 Ecology and Environment in
European Drama
6 The Politics of New Media Downing Cless
Theatre
Life®™ 15 Global Ibsen
Gabriella Giannachi Performing Multiple Modernities
Edited by Erika Fischer-Lichte,
7 Ritual and Event Barbara Gronau, and Christel
Interdisciplinary Perspectives Weiler
Edited by Mark Franko
16 The Theatre of the Bauhaus
8 Memory, Allegory, and The Modern and Postmodern
Testimony in South American Stage of Oskar Schlemmer
Theater Melissa Trimingham
Upstaging Dictatorship
Ana Elena Puga
17 Feminist Visions and Queer 27 Dramas of the Past on the
Futures in Postcolonial Drama Twentieth-Century Stage
Community, Kinship, and In History’s Wings
Citizenship Alex Feldman
Kanika Batra
28 Performance, Identity, and the
18 Nineteenth-Century Theatre and Neo-Political Subject
the Imperial Encounter Edited by Matthew Causey and
Marty Gould Fintan Walsh
19 The Theatre of Richard Maxwell
and the New York City Players
Sarah Gorman
20 Shakespeare, Theatre and Time
Matthew D. Wagner
21 Political and Protest Theatre
after 9/11
Patriotic Dissent
Edited by Jenny Spencer
22 Religion, Theatre, and
Performance: Acts of Faith
Edited by Lance Gharavi
23 Adapting Chekhov
The Text and its Mutations
Edited by J. Douglas Clayton and
Yana Meerzon
24 Performance and the Politics of
Space
Theatre and Topology
Edited by Erika Fischer-Lichte
and Benjamin Wihstutz
25 Music and Gender in English
Renaissance Drama
Katrine K. Wong
26 The Unwritten Grotowski
Theory and Practice of the
Encounter
Kris Salata
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Performance, Identity, and
the Neo-Political Subject
Edited by Matthew Causey
and Fintan Walsh
NEW YORK LONDON
First published 2013
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2013 Taylor & Francis
The right of Matthew Causey and Fintan Walsh to be identified as the
author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Performance, identity, and the neo-political subject / edited by Matthew
Causey and Fintan Walsh.
pages cm. — (Routledge advances in theatre and performance
studies ; 28)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Performing arts—Political aspects. 2. Theater—Political aspects.
3. Identity (Psychology) I. Causey, Matthew. II. Walsh, Fintan.
PN1590.P64P47 2013
792—dc23
2012040725
ISBN: 978-0-415-50965-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-07845-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by IBT Global.
Contents
List of Figures xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: Performance, Identity,
and the Neo-Political Subject 1
MATTHEW CAUSEY AND FINTAN WALSH
PART I
Positioning the Neo-Political Subject
1 The Metaphyiscal Fight: Performative
Politics and the Virus of Alienation 21
HERBERT BLAU
2 ID/entity: The Subject’s Own Taking Place 33
MATTHEW CAUSEY AND GABRIELLA CALCHI NOVATI
PART II
A/Semiotic Directions
3 The Theatre of Thought 51
PATRICIA MACCORMACK
4 ‘I Scream the Body Electric’: Performance,
the Field Body, and Zombies in Societies of Entrainment 62
DAVID FANCY
viii Contents
5 The Fugitive Theatre of Romeo Castellucci:
Intermedial Refractions and Fractalactic Occurrences 82
ADAM BRYX AND BRYAN REYNOLDS
6 The Post-subjective Body, Or Deleuze
and Guattari Meet Romeo Castellucci 101
AUDRONĖ ŽUKAUSKAITĖ
PART III
Collaborative Practice, Collective Action
7 A Diluted Manifesto 119
LAURA CULL, MATTHEW GOULISH, AND LIN HIXSON
8 Being Janez Janša 138
MAAIKE BLEEKER
9 The Bone’s Pirouette:
Disability Dance Writing and the Crip Relic 154
PETRA KUPPERS
10 Dance and the Event: John Jasperse’s
Giant Empty and the Disclosure of Being 166
NIGEL STEWART
PART IV
Performing Along and Outside the Borders of Identity
11 Temporary Legitimacy:
Queer Possibilities in Digital Performance 185
STEPHEN GREER
12 Aff ective Presents/Eff ective Presence:
History, Futurity, and the Theatrical Politics of the Child 201
JOSHUA ABRAMS
Contents ix
13 The Matter of Queer Politics and Ethics:
Antony Hegarty and The Crying Light 215
FINTAN WALSH
14 Refl ective Viewing: ORLAN’s Hybridised Harlequin,
Banksy, Bacon, and the Animal-Human Divide 230
JENNIFER PARKER-STARBUCK
15 Palestine and Political Invention 245
MAURYA WICKSTROM
Contributors 261
Index 267