How can performance create and transform places of urban renewal and regeneration? What does performance contribute to the creation of community? These are some of the questions addressed in this study of the relationship of performance to urban space.

Marrying theory with a series of international case studies of performance practice and interviews with practitioners, this interdisciplinary study examines how space is performatively produced to create a sense of 'placeness'.

Offering multiple perspectives on space and place, this book investigates the connections between space and the construction of social and cultural narratives. It focuses on the multiple ways performative actions produce space, including theatre, installations, site-specific work, visual arts and digital performance.

Combining interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary performance, architecture and digital media studies, this study builds on a clear theoretical framework that draws on the work of Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Henri Lefevre, Richard Schechner, Hans-Thies Lehmann, Lev Manovich and Slavoj Zizek. It offers themed sections comprising theory, studies of practice and interviews with practitioners. Case studies include site-specific work by Catalan collective La Fura Dels Baus, Barcelona, Spain, the Prague Quadrennial, community engagement in Praca Roosevelt in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the Portland Inn Project in Stoke-on-Trent, UK, Campo de la Cebada in Madrid, Spain, and digital spaces created by artists in India and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Marrying theory with interviews and case studies of practice, this is a critical examination of how performance transforms and regenerates urban spaces, making them places of community engagement.

About the Author

Aleksandar Sasha Dundjerovic is Professor of Performing Arts at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University, UK and and director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Performative Arts (CIPA).

Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez is Professor of Architecture and Associate Dean for Research in Scot Sutherland School of Architecture and Built Environment, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK.

Reviews
This is a fascinating study of the interaction of performative practice and its impact on public space - a must read for site-specific artists, urban planners and curators. * Kathleen Irwin, University of Regina, Canada *



Book Information
ISBN 9781350349810
Author Aleksandar Sasha Dundjerovic
Format Hardback
Page Count 216
Imprint Methuen Drama
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC