Books by Charlotte McIvor
This book investigates Ireland’s translation of interculturalism as social policy into aesthetic ... more This book investigates Ireland’s translation of interculturalism as social policy into aesthetic practice and situates the wider implications of this ‘new interculturalism’ for theatre and performance studies at large. Offering the first full-length, post-1990s study of the effect of large-scale immigration and interculturalism as social policy on Irish theatre and performance, McIvor argues that inward-migration changes most of what can be assumed about Irish theatre and performance and its relationship to national identity.
This edited collection is the first to respond to a recent resurgence of critical activity around... more This edited collection is the first to respond to a recent resurgence of critical activity around the term ‘interculturalism’ that has multiplied rather than limited its contemporary resonances. Long one of the most vigorously debated theoretical keywords in the field of theatre and performance studies, intercultural performance has typically referred to the hybrid mixture of performance forms from different cultures (typically divided along an East-West or North-South axis). New critical approaches since the late 2000s and early 2010s in the work of scholars including Ric Knowles, Leo Cabranes-Grant, Daphne P. Lei, Diana Looser, Marcus Cheng Chye Tan, Yvette Hutchison and San-San Kwan among others have challenged this paradigmatic critical approach by examining more localized and historical perspectives on intercultural performance and interculturalism.
This collection presents a consideration of historical approaches to intercultural performance, indigeneity and interculturalism, Asian and other oppositional models of interculturalism that challenge (and/or reify) Western hegemonies, the use of interculturalism within migrant performance cultures, and interculturalism as aesthetic practice and social policy in the European Union and Canada among other themes.
Devised Performance in Irish Theatre: Histories and Contemporary Practice, 2015
Introduction This essay collection situates the histories and contemporary practice of devised pe... more Introduction This essay collection situates the histories and contemporary practice of devised performance in the Irish theatre by bringing together a range of perspectives from both academics and practitioners. It responds to a decisive shift in the landscape of Irish theatre, following the increasing recognition afforded by several emerging companies including ANU Productions, Brokentalkers, THEATREclub, THISISPOPBABY and The Company. This contemporary surge of work has influenced not only the evolving needs of Irish theatre and performance criticism but the very pedagogy of theatre training in Ireland with institutions including Trinity College, Dublin, National University of Ireland, Galway, the Gaiety School of Acting and others now offering practical courses that incorporate devised performance techniques at BA and MA levels. The current wave of devised performance builds on a physical and dance theatre movement in Irish theatre that began to coalesce in the 1990s through the work of companies like Barabbas, Macnas, Blue Raincoat, Corn Exchange, Pan Pan, and Corcadorca which was influenced by earlier genealogies of Irish, European and international arts practice. That body of practice in turn built on what Sandy Fitzgerald has interpreted as a cross-border Irish community arts movement, emerging throughout the island of Ireland from the 1970s, characterized by broadly leftist politics and often enmeshed with the interrelated community development sector ('Beginnings' 70). We have told the history of devised performance in Irish theatre backwards in our opening paragraph because this is often how we have encountered it as scholars, critics, audience members, and educators (who are also practitioners) working at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Devised Performance in Irish Theatre: Histories and Contemporary Practice aims to challenge this perception that devised performance techniques are primarily contemporary performance practice in the field of Irish theatre by placing these practices in longer historical genealogies. Our working definition of devised performance for the purpose of this task encompasses material that is collectively created by individuals working together in ways that resist (but do not necessarily reject altogether) the hierarchical organizational structures usually associated with institutional theatre. Devising is an umbrella term that describes a range of collaborative methodologies of creation that are characterized by collective dramaturgical input into the generation of a new 'work,' whether original text, work of dance theatre or even adaptation of a known work. Devised performance methodologies can therefore lead to the creation of work in multiple theatrical genres, including but not limited to physical, immersive, site-specific, improvised, collaborative, community, documentary and verbatim theatre as well as adaptations or the premiere of a new 'play' in the case of companies who bring writers into their devising processes. We highlight the fact that Irish (and other) practitioners employing practices of devised performance also regularly draw on diverse artistic disciplines including but not limited to theatre, dance, visual arts, music and multimedia in order to create original material. We also reject here the notion that devised performance methodologies have an 'implied binary position to text-based theatre' (Radosavlejevic 62), arguing instead that devising can be employed to transform an already existing text (such as in the case of adaptation) or aid in the creation of a new play. This 'implied binary' betrays the reality of what Patrick Lonergan discerns in his popular blog as
Articles by Charlotte McIvor
This essay investigates the expanded opportunities for theatre as a mode of campus or community e... more This essay investigates the expanded opportunities for theatre as a mode of campus or community education around sexual assault in light of this shift toward affirmative consent. I will do so by analyzing multiple stages of the development and performance of a devised play on these themes titled "100 Shades of Grey" that I co-created with multiple ensembles of undergraduate and postgraduate students at NUI Galway during 2014–16.2 I consider the relationship among affirmative sexual-consent educational paradigms, theatre, and university education at a time of heavy coverage of persistently high rates of sexual assault within educational contexts, particularly at the university level.
Modern Drama, Jan 1, 2011
In this article, I argue that the work of minority-ethnic artists reframes the parameters of Iris... more In this article, I argue that the work of minority-ethnic artists reframes the parameters of Irish national belonging and tests the limits of interculturalism as official discourse in the postCeltic Tiger nation. I engage with the search for new critical paradigms to illuminate how ...
This roundtable brings together a group of academics and artists working throughout Europe to dis... more This roundtable brings together a group of academics and artists working throughout Europe to discuss the question of memory in theoretical and artistic contexts at a historical moment highly preoccupied with acts of commemoration and moving memory.
Irish University Review, 2013
Irish Studies Review, 2015
Book Chapters by Charlotte McIvor
The immigrant in contemporary Irish literature, 2014
Book Reviews of my work by Charlotte McIvor
Conference Papers by Charlotte McIvor
The period of 2012-2023 marks the Republic of Ireland’s Decade of Centenaries, encompassing event... more The period of 2012-2023 marks the Republic of Ireland’s Decade of Centenaries, encompassing events leading up to the establishment of the Free State in 1921.’ This paper examines ANU Productions’ Dublin-based site-specific and immersive work that has explicitly engaged minority national histories of gender, sexuality, class and race in the lead-up to and as part of the official Decade of Centenaries programme between 2010-present.
ANU’s work does not focus on recreation of the past, but rather makes use of commemorative time as the coexistence of past and present activated specifically by the relationship between place and performative action/presence. Working from archival materials as well as through contemporary community partnerships, their ensemble of performers blend fragments of historical narratives with contemporary storylines that emphasize the continuance of structures of oppression and violence against social minorities. These continuances are made radioactively visible by the site of each work’s presentation, such as ANU’s strategic use of former Magdalene Laundry on Sean McDermott Street, opened for the first time since its closing in 1996 to present Laundry in 2012.
ANU’s work dramatizes the conviction that spectators/citizens should be equipped with the ability to hold different frames of temporal reference simultaneously in order to understand local geographies, and by extension, the cumulative effect of national histories on present material economic and political circumstances. In doing so, they ‘re-plot’ the synergistic (and political) performative possibilities activated by conscious engagement with the interaction between commemorative time and place in Ireland’s Decade of Centenaries and beyond.
This paper examines the aftermath of #WakingTheFeminists in terms of how the wider social context... more This paper examines the aftermath of #WakingTheFeminists in terms of how the wider social context of increased interculturalism within Irish society makes visible the complex tactics needed to truly achieve “equal championing and advancement of women artists” and “economic parity for all working in theatre” and the layers of our theatre industry that we will need to tackle in order to do so? I argue that our intercultural social landscape makes manifest the need for an intersectional feminism in Irish theatre practice and criticism as we participate in realising the ongoing goals put forward by the WTF movement.
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Books by Charlotte McIvor
This collection presents a consideration of historical approaches to intercultural performance, indigeneity and interculturalism, Asian and other oppositional models of interculturalism that challenge (and/or reify) Western hegemonies, the use of interculturalism within migrant performance cultures, and interculturalism as aesthetic practice and social policy in the European Union and Canada among other themes.
Articles by Charlotte McIvor
Book Chapters by Charlotte McIvor
Book Reviews of my work by Charlotte McIvor
Conference Papers by Charlotte McIvor
ANU’s work does not focus on recreation of the past, but rather makes use of commemorative time as the coexistence of past and present activated specifically by the relationship between place and performative action/presence. Working from archival materials as well as through contemporary community partnerships, their ensemble of performers blend fragments of historical narratives with contemporary storylines that emphasize the continuance of structures of oppression and violence against social minorities. These continuances are made radioactively visible by the site of each work’s presentation, such as ANU’s strategic use of former Magdalene Laundry on Sean McDermott Street, opened for the first time since its closing in 1996 to present Laundry in 2012.
ANU’s work dramatizes the conviction that spectators/citizens should be equipped with the ability to hold different frames of temporal reference simultaneously in order to understand local geographies, and by extension, the cumulative effect of national histories on present material economic and political circumstances. In doing so, they ‘re-plot’ the synergistic (and political) performative possibilities activated by conscious engagement with the interaction between commemorative time and place in Ireland’s Decade of Centenaries and beyond.
This collection presents a consideration of historical approaches to intercultural performance, indigeneity and interculturalism, Asian and other oppositional models of interculturalism that challenge (and/or reify) Western hegemonies, the use of interculturalism within migrant performance cultures, and interculturalism as aesthetic practice and social policy in the European Union and Canada among other themes.
ANU’s work does not focus on recreation of the past, but rather makes use of commemorative time as the coexistence of past and present activated specifically by the relationship between place and performative action/presence. Working from archival materials as well as through contemporary community partnerships, their ensemble of performers blend fragments of historical narratives with contemporary storylines that emphasize the continuance of structures of oppression and violence against social minorities. These continuances are made radioactively visible by the site of each work’s presentation, such as ANU’s strategic use of former Magdalene Laundry on Sean McDermott Street, opened for the first time since its closing in 1996 to present Laundry in 2012.
ANU’s work dramatizes the conviction that spectators/citizens should be equipped with the ability to hold different frames of temporal reference simultaneously in order to understand local geographies, and by extension, the cumulative effect of national histories on present material economic and political circumstances. In doing so, they ‘re-plot’ the synergistic (and political) performative possibilities activated by conscious engagement with the interaction between commemorative time and place in Ireland’s Decade of Centenaries and beyond.