Table Of ContentTHE ROUTLEDGE DICTIONARY
OF PERFORMANCE AND
CONTEMPORARY THEATRE
The Routledge Dictionary of Contemporary Theatre and Performance provides the first authorita-
tive alphabetical guide to the last 30 years’ theatre and performance.
Conceived and written by one of the foremost scholars and critics of theatre in the world, it
takes us from Activism to Zapping, analysing everything along the way from Body Art and the
Flashmob to Multimedia and the Postdramatic.
What we think of as ‘performance’ and ‘drama’ has undergone a transformation in recent dec-
ades. Similarly, the ways in which these terms are defined, used and critiqued has also changed,
thanks to interventions from a panoply of theorists from Derrida to Rancière. Patrice Pavis’s
Dictionary provides an indispensable roadmap for this complex and fascinating terrain; a volume
no theatre bookshelf can afford to be without.
Patrice Pavis has been Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Paris VIII since 1987, and
is now Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Kent.
This Page is Intentionally Left Blank
THE ROUTLEDGE DICTIONARY
OF PERFORMANCE AND
CONTEMPORARY THEATRE
Patrice Pavis
Translated by Andrew Brown
First published 2016
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2016 Patrice Pavis
The right of Patrice Pavis to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Original title:
Dictionnaire de la performance et du théâtre contemporain by Patrice Pavis
© ARMAND-COLIN, Paris, 2014
ARMAND-COLIN is a trademark of DUNOD Editeur – 5, rue
Laromiguière – 75005 PARIS.
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 Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Names: Pavis, Patrice, 1947- | Brown, Andrew.
Title: The Routledge dictionary of performance and contemporary theatre /
Patrice Pavis; translated by Andrew Brown. Other titles: Dictionnaire de
la performance et du théâtre contemporain. English
Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge,
2016. | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015036935| ISBN 9781138854352 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781315721156 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Performing arts—Dictionaries. | Theater—Dictionaries.
Classification: LCC PN1579 .P3813 2016 | DDC 791.03—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015036935
ISBN: 978-1-138-85435-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-72115-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface x
Acknowledgements xiv
Typographic conventions xv
Activism 1
Aerial art 2
Aesthetic experience 2
Aesthetics 4
Affect 6
Apparatus 8
Appearance and disappearance 10
Applied theatre 11
Appropriation 11
Art brut 12
Artistic collective 13
Artistic proposal 13
Assemblage 14
Atmosphere 15
Aura 16
Authenticity 17
Author 20
Autobiography 21
Autofiction 22
Autoreflexivity 24
Autotheatre 24
Avant-garde 25
Awareness 28
Bizarre 29
Body and corporeality 29
Body art 32
Border 34
Caress 36
Choreography (and mise en scène) 36
Community 37
Community theatre 40
Contact improvisation 40
Contemporary 40
v
CONTENTS
Cosmopolitan theatre 41
Creolization 41
Cultural exception 42
Cultural performance 43
Curator 44
Cut-up 44
Cyborg 45
Dance-theatre 47
Decentring 49
Deconstruction 49
Détournement 51
Différance 52
Disfiguration 53
Disposition 53
Dissemination 54
Dramatic writing 54
Eccentricity 58
Effect produced 58
Ekphrasis 62
Embodiment 63
Empathy 64
Ending 64
Entertainment 67
Ethics 68
Ethnic theatre 70
Excess 71
Exoticism 72
Festivalization 75
Figure 76
Film performance 79
Flash mob 79
Flower 80
Fold 80
Freak show 81
Genetics 82
Globalization 86
Glocalization 91
Habitus 94
Haptic 94
Heightening/intensification 95
Hybridity 96
Identity 98
Immersive theatre 100
Indeterminacy 101
Installation 101
vi
CONTENTS
Interactivity 102
Interartistic 103
Intercultural theatre 104
Interpellation 108
Intersubjectivity 109
Intertextuality 110
Intervention 111
Intimacy 112
In-yer-face theatre 113
Kairos 115
Kinaesthesia 115
Landscape 117
Language-body 118
Laugh and smile 118
Lecture-performance 123
Life story 125
Liminality 127
Live art 127
Live broadcasting of performance 128
Live performance 128
Ma 130
Magic (new) 130
Mainstream 131
Materiality 132
Mediality and intermediality 133
Mediation 136
Minority 138
Mixed-means performances 139
Modernization 139
Movement 140
Multicultural 143
Multilingual theatre 144
Multimedia 145
Musicalization 145
Narractor 147
Neodramatic 147
New dramaturgy 147
New sites 152
One-to-one performance 153
Orientalism 153
Participation 156
Pathetic/pathic 156
Performance 157
Performance Studies 159
Performative theatre 162
vii
CONTENTS
Performative writing 162
Performativity 163
Philosophy and new theatre 168
Poetry and theatre 171
Politics and theatre 176
Popular 183
Postcolonial 185
Postdramatic 188
Postmodern theatre 195
Post-performance conversation 200
Posture 201
Practice as research 201
Pregnant moment 207
Presentation/representation 207
Process 208
Programming 208
Promenade performance 210
Proprioception 210
Proximization 211
Reconstruction 212
Recording 212
Recycling 213
Remediation 214
Rhetoric 215
Risk 216
Satori 218
Seating 218
Semiology 219
Sensation 224
Sense of smell 227
Session 227
Site-specific performance 228
Skin, flesh, bone 229
Social drama 231
Sociodrama 231
Soft power 231
Sonic writing 231
Sound in the theatre 232
Spacing 235
Speaking body 236
Special effects 236
Spectator 236
Stage-writer 243
Surface 243
Surtitles 244
Syncretic theatre 245
viii
CONTENTS
Tactility 246
Taste 246
Techniques of the body 248
Text 249
Texture 251
Theatre anthropology 252
Theatre for minorities 257
Theatre for tourists 258
Theatre of the real 258
Theatre performed in business meeting 261
Theatrical effect 261
Trace 262
Tradition 262
Trajectory 263
Transgression 265
Transmission 266
Visceral 269
Visual Studies 269
Visual theatre 269
Vocality 270
Walking 271
Word 273
Work of art 273
World theatre 275
Writing aloud 275
Zapping 277
Bibliography 279
Subject index 292
ix
