Performative Inter-Actions in African Theatre 1, 2 and 3

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4438-5611-9
Verlag: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 566 Seiten

Performative Inter-Actions in African Theatre is a book-set with unique subtitles designed to focus and differentiate between the three volumes in the set. The first volume, Diaspora Representations and the Interweaving of Cultures, explores the idea that in and from their various locations around the world, the plays of the African diaspora acknowledge and pay homage to the cultures of home, while simultaneously and vigorously articulating a sense of their Africanness in their various inter-actions with their host cultures. In the second volume, Innovation, Creativity and Social Change, contributions address performativity as a process – particularly in the context of theatre’s engagement with contemporary realities with the hope of instigating social change. The examples explored point to the ingenuity and adaptive capacity of African theatre for engaging indigenous forms in the service of contemporary realities. The final volume is subtitled Making Space, Rethinking Drama and Theatre in Africa, and re-conceptualises notions of drama and theatre in Africa, and therefore redefines our understanding of the practice, role, and place they occupy in a constantly evolving African socio-cultural context.

The contributors’ backgrounds and global spread reflect the international focus of the book-set. The contributions, in their various ways, demonstrate the many advances and ingenious solutions adopted by African theatre practitioners in tackling some of the challenges arising from the adverse colonial experience, as well as the “one-sided” advance of globalisation. The essays attest to the thriving nature of African theatre and performance, which in the face of these challenges, has managed to retain its distinctiveness, while at the same time acknowledging, contesting, and appropriating influences from elsewhere into an aesthetic that is identifiably African. Consequently, the book-set is a comprehensive exploration of the current state of African theatre and performance, both on the continent and in the diaspora.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Igweonu, Kene

Okagbue, Osita

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft Theatertheorie, Ästhetik des Theaters, Theaterkritik

Über Autor(innen)

Dr Kene Igweonu is Senior Lecturer and Programme Director for Drama at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK. He is a member of the editorial boards of African Performance Review (APR) and South African Theatre Journal (SATJ). He is the founding convener, and current co-convener, of the African and Caribbean Theatre and Performance Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR). His most recent work is Trends in Twenty-First Century African Theatre and Performance (Rodopi, 2011).

Professor Osita Okagbue is the founding President of the African Theatre Association (AfTA) and founding/current Editor of African Performance Review (APR). He is also an Associate Editor for Routledge’s Theatres of the World Series. His published works include African Theatres and Performances (Routledge, 2007), Culture and Identity in African and Caribbean Theatre (Adonis and Abbey, 2009), and African Theatre: Diasporas (James Currey, 2009), co-edited with Christine Matzke. Professor Okagbue is Deputy Head of the Department of Theatre and Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK.