Table Of ContentSPORT AND PERFORMANCE IN
THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Analyzing sport through the lens of performance and theorizing performance
through the lens of sport, Sport and Performance in the Twenty-First Century offers
a field intervention, a series of in-depth performance analyses, and an inves-
tigation of the intersection between sport performances and public life in the
historical present.
The objectives of this book are three-fold. First, the book advocates for the
study of sport in the fields of Theatre and Performance Studies and, through
in-depth performance analyses, demonstrates how the critical language and
methods of performance studies help illuminate the manifold impacts of the
practices, activities, and events of sport. Second, the book introduces new
critical language that was originally developed in conjunction with sport but
is also designed for cross-genre performance analysis. In introducing novel
terminology, the book aims to simultaneously facilitate analysis of sport per-
formances and to demonstrate how the study of sport can contribute to the
fields of Theatre and Performance Studies. Finally, the book investigates the
epistemological, affective, and socio-political effects of sport performances in
order to illuminate how sport performances influence, and are influenced by,
their historical conditions.
This study will be of great interest to students and scholars in Theatre
and Performance Studies, Physical Culture Studies, and Socio-Cultural Sports
Studies.
Kelsey Blair is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Con-
cordia University in Montreal. She is a theatre, performance, and cultural
studies scholar, a university teacher, an author, and a freelance writer.
Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies
This series is our home for cutting-edge, upper-level scholarly studies and
edited collections. Considering theatre and performance alongside topics
such as religion, politics, gender, race, ecology, and the avant-garde, titles are
characterized by dynamic interventions into established subjects and innova-
tive studies on emerging topics.
Entangled Performance Histories
New Approaches to Theater Historiography
Erika Fischer-Lichte, Małgorzata Sugiera, Torsten Jost and Holger Hartung with
Omid Soltani
Rechoreographing Learning
Dance As a Way to Bridge the Mind-Body Divide in Education
Sandra Cerny Minton
Politics as Public Art
The Aesthetics of Political Organizing and Social Movements
Martin Zebracki and Zane McNeill
Lessons for Today from Shakespeare’s Classroom
The Learning Benefits of Drama and Rhetoric in Schools
Robin Lithgow
Notelets of Filth
An Emilia Companion Reader
Laura Kressly, Aida Patient, and Kimberly A. Williams
Transcultural Theater
Günther Heeg
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.
com/Routledge-Advances-in-Theatre--Performance-Studies/book-series/
RATPS
SPORT AND
PERFORMANCE IN
THE TWENTY-FIRST
CENTURY
Kelsey Blair
Cover image: Kelsey Blair
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Kelsey Blair
The right of Kelsey Blair to be identified as author of this work
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.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Blair, Kelsey, author.
Title: Sport and performance in the twenty-first century / Kelsey Blair.
Other titles: Sport and performance in the 21st century
Description: First Edition. | New York : Routledge, 2023. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2022035198 (print) | LCCN 2022035199 (ebook) | ISBN
9781032231280 (Hardback) | ISBN 9781032231297 (Paperback) | ISBN
9781003275879 (eBook)
Subjects: LCSH: Sports. | Performance.
Classification: LCC GV706.8 .B56 2023 (print) | LCC GV706.8 (ebook) | DDC
790--dc23/eng/20220811
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022035198
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022035199
ISBN: 9781032231280 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781032231297 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003275879 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003275879
Typeset in Bembo
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
For my parents, Jim Blair and Joan Blair
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction: Sport and the Field of Performance 1
1 Performance Genres, Sport, and Match-Fixing at
the 2012 Olympics 18
2 Configurations and Formations: The Patterning of
Behaviour in Performance Activities 43
3 The Patterning of Audience Behaviours and Hockey
in Canada 65
4 Sequences of Action across Genres: Injury Mini-Dramas
and American Football 90
5 Gestural Marks in Sport Performance, The Genealogy
of the Butterfly, and the Refugee Olympic Team 110
Conclusion 130
Appendix 1 137
Index 139
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Laying on a gymnasium floor at my first basketball camp, I tossed a ball into
the air and watched the rust-coloured leather spin. Gravity took hold, and
the ball began to tumble toward me. I extended my arms, allowing the ball
and its gently ribbed texture to land in my palms. It was, quite simply, the
most thrilling experience. Arguably, it was also when I started writing this
book. Unknowingly, I kept writing this book through my childhood and
my time as a competitive swimmer, through my multisport teens, and into
my basketball-filled young-adulthood. I started actually writing this book
roughly ten years ago and am thankful for all the people who have supported
me throughout.
The intellectual energy for this project was developed and maintained
throughout my graduate studies in Vancouver, British Columbia, at the
University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University. My MA supervi-
sor, Kirsty Johnston, encouraged me to pursue the intersection between sport
and performance, supported me intellectually and professionally, and was a
consistent source of rigour, wit, and boundless compassion. My PhD supervi-
sor, Peter Dickinson, was immensely helpful with his thoughtful intellectual
engagements, humour, and unparalleled editing skills. During this time, I also
met a cohort of collaborators, colleagues, and friends in Selena Couture, Julia
Henderson, Claire Carolan, Sandra Chamberlain-Snider, and Katrina Dunn,
all of whom supported ideas and research at various stages of development. I am
also grateful to Jocelyn Pitsch, who enlivened my thinking through p assionate
conversation and keen editorial wisdom while also being an inspiring and
caring friend. During this time, I was welcomed into a community of rig-
orous and kind Canadian theatre and performance studies scholars including
Marlis Schweitzer, Keren Zaiontz, Karen Fricker, Peter Kuling, Laura Levin,
Acknowledgements ix
Kim Solga, and Susan Bennett—all of whom have supported the development
of chapters through various conference activities. I am particularly thankful to
Keren Zaiontz—whose editorial skills guided one of my first publications—
Susan Bennett—whose commentary on my doctoral dissertation was invalu-
able for the trajectory of this project—Erin Hurley—who offered theoretical
wisdom and professional guidance as my postdoctoral supervisor—and to Kim
Solga—for sharing her blog, her mentorship, and her editorial prowess. Thank
you also to sport and performance scholars Shannon Walsh, Eero Laine, and
Broderick Chow for their conference curation and editorial work that sup-
ported the development of various sport and performance-related essays.
Additionally, I have been fortunate to be the recipient of infrastructural and
institutional support. Throughout my PhD, I received financial support from
the Department of English at Simon Fraser University. I was also a recipient of
a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council doctoral fellowship and
later a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council postdoctoral fel-
lowship, both of which permitted me to complete the research for this book.
I would also like to thank Taylor & Francis for allowing me to republish por-
tions of two essays: copyright 2018, “The 2012 Olympic Badminton Scandal:
Match-Fixing, Code of Conduct Documents, and Women’s Sport” by Kelsey
Blair, from The International Journal of Sport History, reproduced by permission
of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, a division of Informa plc.; and copyright
2020, “The politics of performing the butterfly stroke” by Kelsey Blair, from
Sporting Performances: Politics in Play edited by Shannon Walsh, reproduced by
permission of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, a division of Informa plc.
Throughout the latter stages of this project, my intellectual, profes-
sional, and personal communities continued to expand. Scott Mealey, Kelsey
Jacobson, Signy Lynch, and Jenny Salisbury, co-directors of the Centre for
Spectatorship and Audience Research: you continually push me to explore
methods and areas of thought and have also provided me with a professional
anchor full of gentle venting and lots of laughter. Megan Johnson: you are an
intellectual teammate, who has the sharpest of theoretical minds and the most
compassionate of hearts. Andréanne Larouche: your curiosity, expansive sup-
port, laughter, and care have shaped the texture of the last few years, at once
softening days and strengthening me.
Finally, thank you to my parents, Jim Blair and Joan Blair. You have read
drafts, talked me through ideas, laughed with me, laughed at me, and most
importantly, reminded me that love is an action: when it is performed with the
compassion, generosity, and selflessness that you both enact every day, it can
subtly but radically change the world. It has mine.
