Bala, S. (2023). The thorny entanglements of theater and colonial historiography in the Netherlan... more Bala, S. (2023). The thorny entanglements of theater and colonial historiography in the Netherlands: Anti-colonial critique and imperial nostalgia in J. Slauerhoff’s play 'Jan Pieterszoon Coen' (1931). In E. Fischer-Lichte, M. Sugiera, T. Jost, H. Hartung, & O. Sultani (Eds.), Entangled Performance Histories: New Approaches to Theater Historiography (pp. 145-164). (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies). Routledge. Advance online publication.
Theaterwissenschaft (post)kolonial, Theaterwissenschaft dekolonial : Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme, 2022
Bala, S. (2022). Dekolonisierung der Theaterwissenschaft und Performance Studies: Geschichten aus... more Bala, S. (2022). Dekolonisierung der Theaterwissenschaft und Performance Studies: Geschichten aus dem Seminarraum. In A. Sharifi, & L. Skwirblies (Eds.), Theaterwissenschaft (post)kolonial, Theaterwissenschaft dekolonial : Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme (pp. 61-76). (Theater; Vol. 142). Transcript . https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839455531-004.
Bala, S., & Kerrigan, D. (2021). Embodied Practices - Looking From Small Places. In J. Heide (Ed.... more Bala, S., & Kerrigan, D. (2021). Embodied Practices - Looking From Small Places. In J. Heide (Ed.), Minor Constellations in Conversation Lecture Series (pp. 1-11). Universität Potsdam. https://doi.org/10.25932/publishup-50899
“Embodied Practices – Looking From Small Places” is an edited transcript of a conversation between theatre and performance scholar Sruti Bala (University of Amsterdam) and sociologist, criminologist and anthropologist Dylan Kerrigan (University of Leicester) that took place as an online event in November 2020. Throughout their talk, Bala and Kerrigan engage with the legacy of Haitian anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot. Specifically, they focus on his approach of looking from small units, such as small villages in Dominica, outwards to larger political structures such as global capitalism, social inequalities and the distribution of power. They also share insights from their own research on embodied practices in the Caribbean, Europe and India and answer questions such as: What can research on and through embodied practices tell us about systems of power and domination that move between the local and the global? How can performance practices which are informed by multiple locations and cultures be read and appreciated adequately? Sharing insights from his research into Guyanese prisons, Kerrigan outlines how he aims to connect everyday experiences and struggles of Caribbean people to trans-historical and transnational processes such as racial capitalism and post/coloniality. Furthermore, he elaborates on how he uses performance practices such as spoken word poetry and data verbalisation to connect with systematically excluded groups. Bala challenges naïve notions about the inherent transformative potential of performance in her research on performance and translation. She points to the way in which performance and its reception is always already inscribed in what she calls global or planetary asymmetries. At the conclusion of this conversation, they broach the question: are small places truly as small as they seem?
Rob van der Zalm, Anja Krans, Bart Ramakers, Veronika Zangl (red.), In reprise. Tweeëntwintig Nederlandse en Vlaamse toneelstukken om opnieuw te bekijken. Amsterdam: AUP, 2020., 2020
In Jan Pietersz. Coen van J.J. Slauerhoff staan de laatste maanden uit het leven van deze omstred... more In Jan Pietersz. Coen van J.J. Slauerhoff staan de laatste maanden uit het leven van deze omstreden zeventiende-eeuwse gouverneur-generaal van de VOC centraal. Slauerhoff verweefde de politieke en bestuurlijke verwikkelingen waar Coen mee te maken kreeg, met een liefdesgeschiedenis die zich binnen de muren van de gouverneurswoning in Batavia afspeelde. Het stuk heeft een tumultueuze opvoeringsgeschiedenis. Keer op keer werden aangekondigde opvoeringen van het stuk door de autoriteiten verhinderd of werden er delen van het stuk geschrapt. Geen wonder: het stuk roept allerlei ongemakkelijke vragen op. Elke hedendaagse enscenering van het stuk vraagt dus om een nieuwe stellingname tot de verweven geschiedenissen van het kolonialisme.
The moment the concept of translation is employed with reference to theatre or music and performa... more The moment the concept of translation is employed with reference to theatre or music and performance, i.e., to a form that includes but exceeds language, the concept becomes detached from its conventional sense and is made to travel, it acquires other dimensions, becoming what Gayatri Spivak terms ‘catachrestic’, a necessary misapplication. To consider translation across cultures or performance forms or idioms, i.e., across global and historical asymmetries, is to call into question the obstinate idea that translation can ever be about finding equivalences and equilibrium between languages or cultures. Rather, the work of translation is about drawing different world-making projects into one another in the textures of performance, transforming both the features of the performance as well as the required means of its appreciation. By way of a response to the performance Legacy (2015) by Ivorian choreographer and performer Nadia Beugré, the article reflects on the work of translation in an era of global incommensurability.
What are the ways in which we can think through theatre’s impact on the world? The question itsel... more What are the ways in which we can think through theatre’s impact on the world? The question itself contains several assumptions that deserve to be examined: claims around usefulness, applicability, causality and measurability, or the nature of the relationship and interdependence between artistic and socio-political domains. Different traditions of performance practice entail different understandings of impact. How, if at all, can such impact be traced, measured and assessed? This question raises a vast number of thorny issues and debates in theatre and performance scholarship, pertaining to methods of research, organizational modes of justification and ethical motivations of theatrical practices. Using an example of a community based production by lesbian feminist theatre collective Siluetas from Guatemala/El Salvador, the chapter points to the difficulties around impact assessment and suggests ways of expanding these criteria to include qualitative and interpretive aspects, in order to avoid restricting the question of impact to the tyranny of evidence and numbers. This implies re-shaping concepts such as participation or empowerment, unburdening them from the pressures of policy, governance and hollow trickle-down promises, and imbuing them with the unorthodox potentials offered by performance practice.
K. Howe, J. Boal, & J. Soeiro (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to the Theatre of the Oppressed (pp. 304-308). (Routledge Theatre and Performance Companions). London: Routledge, 2019
A reflection on the workshop format, the effects of the workshop format on the very content of th... more A reflection on the workshop format, the effects of the workshop format on the very content of the workshop, and how those effects play out specifically in relation to the objectives of the Theatre of the Oppressed.
What does the demand to 'decolonise the university' imply for the discipline of Theatre and Perfo... more What does the demand to 'decolonise the university' imply for the discipline of Theatre and Performance Studies? Based on questions and insights derived from the author's own pedagogical practices and experiences at the University of Amsterdam, the article enquires into the intellectual traditions in the discipline of Theatre Studies that place questions of decolonisation together with a multi-axis, intersectional analysis of race, class, gender, sexuality, and global asymmetries. To what extent is the discipline of Theatre and Performance Studies still imperialist? What are the ways of acknowledging absences and invisibilities? How does embodied knowledge become knowable? The article reflects on how the question of the decolonisation of the university is inseparable from the question of defending the task of the university in social and political struggles, as a sphere of civic engagement. It equally emphasises the significance of theatrical and performative modes of engagement in these struggles. The classroom becomes a crucial site for the exploration of these issues.
Bala, S. (2017). Scattered Speculations on the 'Internationalisation' of Performance Research. In S. Bala, M. Gluhovic, H. Korsberg, & K. Röttger (Eds.), International Performance Research Pedagogies: Towards an Unconditional Discipline?. Basingstoke: PalgraveMacMillan. (PROOFS), 2017
The author looks at what the catchword of 'internationalization' does to the practice of performa... more The author looks at what the catchword of 'internationalization' does to the practice of performance research, especially in terms of its pedagogical implications. If internationalization is seen as the answer, what is the question? What vision of the university could the discipline of Theatre Studies hope to offer by way of this enticing and ambitious call for internationalization? Beyond the critique of the financialization of higher education that most universities and especially Humanities faculties around the world are facing, the author offers hope generated from the classroom, based on the experiences of the MAIPR programme. The task that internationalization confers upon the discipline of Theatre and Performance Studies is the task of thinking and doing beyond the myopic limitations of the national framework. Two aspects of internationalization are charted here: the use of English as its language, and the translation of the concept of performance as epistemology into pedagogical practice.
How do audiences respond to participatory art in unscripted ways? This chapter questions the stat... more How do audiences respond to participatory art in unscripted ways? This chapter questions the status of participatory art in the developmental context as forging cohesion amongst participants and instead focuses on its sometimes conflictual potentials. Reflecting on a case study of the Theatre of the Oppressed in the context of a Congress-party-led initiative for women's mobilization in India, the essay analyses participation by linking the macro-dimension of development with the micro-dimension of community theatre practice. Of particular interest is how participation occurs by way of a nuanced range of reactions, with functions ranging from the disruptive to the meliorative. The essay calls for methodological attention to ancillary activities that take place at the margins of the theatre event. These seemingly para-theatrical phenomena indicate that community participation often assumes unsolicited forms.
M. Warstat, F. Evers, K. Flade, F. Lempa, & L. Seuberling (Eds.), Applied Theatre: Rahmen und Positionen (pp. 274-288). (Recherchen; Vol. 129). Berlin: Theater der Zeit. (Proof), 2017
Hg.) Rahmen und Positionen TdZ_Rech_129_Applied Theatre-Rahmen und Positionen_2017__2.Umbruch.qxp... more Hg.) Rahmen und Positionen TdZ_Rech_129_Applied Theatre-Rahmen und Positionen_2017__2.Umbruch.qxp__ 05.01.17 20:05 Seite 1 TdZ_Rech_129_Applied Theatre-Rahmen und Positionen_2017__2.Umbruch.qxp__ 05.01.17 20:05 Seite 2 Applied Theatre -Rahmen und Positionen TdZ_Rech_129_Applied Theatre-Rahmen und Positionen_2017__2.Umbruch.qxp__ 05
The article analyses three instances of artistic activism from the 21 st century in terms of thei... more The article analyses three instances of artistic activism from the 21 st century in terms of their dramaturgies of humour. The cases examined are the procession of "the human gorging society" by Viennese collective Rebelodrom in 2013, the 2012 lecture-performance "The Return of Border Brujo" by Chicano performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña and the ongoing Tracking Transience project by US-American artist Hasan Elahi. By extending the concept of dramaturgy from theatre theory to the study of protest and activism in the public sphere, and by interpreting the chosen artistic actions as protest, the article seeks to contribute to humour research from a perspective that focuses on its performative dimension, rather than on its functions or effects alone. The term "dramaturgies of humour" refers here to both principles of ordering as well as of unfolding an idea, which inform an act as humorous. In these instances of artistic activism, humour does not simply mark one characteristic or component of protest, but is indeed the embodied, performed means through which the protest is constituted. The article employs a reading of Mikhail Bakhtin's work on the grotesque, and in doing so, adapts the concept originally developed in relation to literary texts to the study of artistic activism. Such a focus on the dramaturgies of humour leads to two notable insights: first, that protest using a ludic aesthetic creates and sustains a highly ambivalent relation between activists and their opponents, specifically through a playful questioning of the logic of protest in terms of opposition. Second, the dramaturgy of humour in protest reveals a strong historicity: each of the examples reference the past in sophisticated ways, and the shifting narratives of memory are integral to humour as a link between memory and imagination.
Bala, S. (2023). The thorny entanglements of theater and colonial historiography in the Netherlan... more Bala, S. (2023). The thorny entanglements of theater and colonial historiography in the Netherlands: Anti-colonial critique and imperial nostalgia in J. Slauerhoff’s play 'Jan Pieterszoon Coen' (1931). In E. Fischer-Lichte, M. Sugiera, T. Jost, H. Hartung, & O. Sultani (Eds.), Entangled Performance Histories: New Approaches to Theater Historiography (pp. 145-164). (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies). Routledge. Advance online publication.
Theaterwissenschaft (post)kolonial, Theaterwissenschaft dekolonial : Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme, 2022
Bala, S. (2022). Dekolonisierung der Theaterwissenschaft und Performance Studies: Geschichten aus... more Bala, S. (2022). Dekolonisierung der Theaterwissenschaft und Performance Studies: Geschichten aus dem Seminarraum. In A. Sharifi, & L. Skwirblies (Eds.), Theaterwissenschaft (post)kolonial, Theaterwissenschaft dekolonial : Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme (pp. 61-76). (Theater; Vol. 142). Transcript . https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839455531-004.
Bala, S., & Kerrigan, D. (2021). Embodied Practices - Looking From Small Places. In J. Heide (Ed.... more Bala, S., & Kerrigan, D. (2021). Embodied Practices - Looking From Small Places. In J. Heide (Ed.), Minor Constellations in Conversation Lecture Series (pp. 1-11). Universität Potsdam. https://doi.org/10.25932/publishup-50899
“Embodied Practices – Looking From Small Places” is an edited transcript of a conversation between theatre and performance scholar Sruti Bala (University of Amsterdam) and sociologist, criminologist and anthropologist Dylan Kerrigan (University of Leicester) that took place as an online event in November 2020. Throughout their talk, Bala and Kerrigan engage with the legacy of Haitian anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot. Specifically, they focus on his approach of looking from small units, such as small villages in Dominica, outwards to larger political structures such as global capitalism, social inequalities and the distribution of power. They also share insights from their own research on embodied practices in the Caribbean, Europe and India and answer questions such as: What can research on and through embodied practices tell us about systems of power and domination that move between the local and the global? How can performance practices which are informed by multiple locations and cultures be read and appreciated adequately? Sharing insights from his research into Guyanese prisons, Kerrigan outlines how he aims to connect everyday experiences and struggles of Caribbean people to trans-historical and transnational processes such as racial capitalism and post/coloniality. Furthermore, he elaborates on how he uses performance practices such as spoken word poetry and data verbalisation to connect with systematically excluded groups. Bala challenges naïve notions about the inherent transformative potential of performance in her research on performance and translation. She points to the way in which performance and its reception is always already inscribed in what she calls global or planetary asymmetries. At the conclusion of this conversation, they broach the question: are small places truly as small as they seem?
Rob van der Zalm, Anja Krans, Bart Ramakers, Veronika Zangl (red.), In reprise. Tweeëntwintig Nederlandse en Vlaamse toneelstukken om opnieuw te bekijken. Amsterdam: AUP, 2020., 2020
In Jan Pietersz. Coen van J.J. Slauerhoff staan de laatste maanden uit het leven van deze omstred... more In Jan Pietersz. Coen van J.J. Slauerhoff staan de laatste maanden uit het leven van deze omstreden zeventiende-eeuwse gouverneur-generaal van de VOC centraal. Slauerhoff verweefde de politieke en bestuurlijke verwikkelingen waar Coen mee te maken kreeg, met een liefdesgeschiedenis die zich binnen de muren van de gouverneurswoning in Batavia afspeelde. Het stuk heeft een tumultueuze opvoeringsgeschiedenis. Keer op keer werden aangekondigde opvoeringen van het stuk door de autoriteiten verhinderd of werden er delen van het stuk geschrapt. Geen wonder: het stuk roept allerlei ongemakkelijke vragen op. Elke hedendaagse enscenering van het stuk vraagt dus om een nieuwe stellingname tot de verweven geschiedenissen van het kolonialisme.
The moment the concept of translation is employed with reference to theatre or music and performa... more The moment the concept of translation is employed with reference to theatre or music and performance, i.e., to a form that includes but exceeds language, the concept becomes detached from its conventional sense and is made to travel, it acquires other dimensions, becoming what Gayatri Spivak terms ‘catachrestic’, a necessary misapplication. To consider translation across cultures or performance forms or idioms, i.e., across global and historical asymmetries, is to call into question the obstinate idea that translation can ever be about finding equivalences and equilibrium between languages or cultures. Rather, the work of translation is about drawing different world-making projects into one another in the textures of performance, transforming both the features of the performance as well as the required means of its appreciation. By way of a response to the performance Legacy (2015) by Ivorian choreographer and performer Nadia Beugré, the article reflects on the work of translation in an era of global incommensurability.
What are the ways in which we can think through theatre’s impact on the world? The question itsel... more What are the ways in which we can think through theatre’s impact on the world? The question itself contains several assumptions that deserve to be examined: claims around usefulness, applicability, causality and measurability, or the nature of the relationship and interdependence between artistic and socio-political domains. Different traditions of performance practice entail different understandings of impact. How, if at all, can such impact be traced, measured and assessed? This question raises a vast number of thorny issues and debates in theatre and performance scholarship, pertaining to methods of research, organizational modes of justification and ethical motivations of theatrical practices. Using an example of a community based production by lesbian feminist theatre collective Siluetas from Guatemala/El Salvador, the chapter points to the difficulties around impact assessment and suggests ways of expanding these criteria to include qualitative and interpretive aspects, in order to avoid restricting the question of impact to the tyranny of evidence and numbers. This implies re-shaping concepts such as participation or empowerment, unburdening them from the pressures of policy, governance and hollow trickle-down promises, and imbuing them with the unorthodox potentials offered by performance practice.
K. Howe, J. Boal, & J. Soeiro (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to the Theatre of the Oppressed (pp. 304-308). (Routledge Theatre and Performance Companions). London: Routledge, 2019
A reflection on the workshop format, the effects of the workshop format on the very content of th... more A reflection on the workshop format, the effects of the workshop format on the very content of the workshop, and how those effects play out specifically in relation to the objectives of the Theatre of the Oppressed.
What does the demand to 'decolonise the university' imply for the discipline of Theatre and Perfo... more What does the demand to 'decolonise the university' imply for the discipline of Theatre and Performance Studies? Based on questions and insights derived from the author's own pedagogical practices and experiences at the University of Amsterdam, the article enquires into the intellectual traditions in the discipline of Theatre Studies that place questions of decolonisation together with a multi-axis, intersectional analysis of race, class, gender, sexuality, and global asymmetries. To what extent is the discipline of Theatre and Performance Studies still imperialist? What are the ways of acknowledging absences and invisibilities? How does embodied knowledge become knowable? The article reflects on how the question of the decolonisation of the university is inseparable from the question of defending the task of the university in social and political struggles, as a sphere of civic engagement. It equally emphasises the significance of theatrical and performative modes of engagement in these struggles. The classroom becomes a crucial site for the exploration of these issues.
Bala, S. (2017). Scattered Speculations on the 'Internationalisation' of Performance Research. In S. Bala, M. Gluhovic, H. Korsberg, & K. Röttger (Eds.), International Performance Research Pedagogies: Towards an Unconditional Discipline?. Basingstoke: PalgraveMacMillan. (PROOFS), 2017
The author looks at what the catchword of 'internationalization' does to the practice of performa... more The author looks at what the catchword of 'internationalization' does to the practice of performance research, especially in terms of its pedagogical implications. If internationalization is seen as the answer, what is the question? What vision of the university could the discipline of Theatre Studies hope to offer by way of this enticing and ambitious call for internationalization? Beyond the critique of the financialization of higher education that most universities and especially Humanities faculties around the world are facing, the author offers hope generated from the classroom, based on the experiences of the MAIPR programme. The task that internationalization confers upon the discipline of Theatre and Performance Studies is the task of thinking and doing beyond the myopic limitations of the national framework. Two aspects of internationalization are charted here: the use of English as its language, and the translation of the concept of performance as epistemology into pedagogical practice.
How do audiences respond to participatory art in unscripted ways? This chapter questions the stat... more How do audiences respond to participatory art in unscripted ways? This chapter questions the status of participatory art in the developmental context as forging cohesion amongst participants and instead focuses on its sometimes conflictual potentials. Reflecting on a case study of the Theatre of the Oppressed in the context of a Congress-party-led initiative for women's mobilization in India, the essay analyses participation by linking the macro-dimension of development with the micro-dimension of community theatre practice. Of particular interest is how participation occurs by way of a nuanced range of reactions, with functions ranging from the disruptive to the meliorative. The essay calls for methodological attention to ancillary activities that take place at the margins of the theatre event. These seemingly para-theatrical phenomena indicate that community participation often assumes unsolicited forms.
M. Warstat, F. Evers, K. Flade, F. Lempa, & L. Seuberling (Eds.), Applied Theatre: Rahmen und Positionen (pp. 274-288). (Recherchen; Vol. 129). Berlin: Theater der Zeit. (Proof), 2017
Hg.) Rahmen und Positionen TdZ_Rech_129_Applied Theatre-Rahmen und Positionen_2017__2.Umbruch.qxp... more Hg.) Rahmen und Positionen TdZ_Rech_129_Applied Theatre-Rahmen und Positionen_2017__2.Umbruch.qxp__ 05.01.17 20:05 Seite 1 TdZ_Rech_129_Applied Theatre-Rahmen und Positionen_2017__2.Umbruch.qxp__ 05.01.17 20:05 Seite 2 Applied Theatre -Rahmen und Positionen TdZ_Rech_129_Applied Theatre-Rahmen und Positionen_2017__2.Umbruch.qxp__ 05
The article analyses three instances of artistic activism from the 21 st century in terms of thei... more The article analyses three instances of artistic activism from the 21 st century in terms of their dramaturgies of humour. The cases examined are the procession of "the human gorging society" by Viennese collective Rebelodrom in 2013, the 2012 lecture-performance "The Return of Border Brujo" by Chicano performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña and the ongoing Tracking Transience project by US-American artist Hasan Elahi. By extending the concept of dramaturgy from theatre theory to the study of protest and activism in the public sphere, and by interpreting the chosen artistic actions as protest, the article seeks to contribute to humour research from a perspective that focuses on its performative dimension, rather than on its functions or effects alone. The term "dramaturgies of humour" refers here to both principles of ordering as well as of unfolding an idea, which inform an act as humorous. In these instances of artistic activism, humour does not simply mark one characteristic or component of protest, but is indeed the embodied, performed means through which the protest is constituted. The article employs a reading of Mikhail Bakhtin's work on the grotesque, and in doing so, adapts the concept originally developed in relation to literary texts to the study of artistic activism. Such a focus on the dramaturgies of humour leads to two notable insights: first, that protest using a ludic aesthetic creates and sustains a highly ambivalent relation between activists and their opponents, specifically through a playful questioning of the logic of protest in terms of opposition. Second, the dramaturgy of humour in protest reveals a strong historicity: each of the examples reference the past in sophisticated ways, and the shifting narratives of memory are integral to humour as a link between memory and imagination.
Handbook of Gender Studies in the Dutch Caribbean, 2024
This comprehensive handbook of gender studies scholarship on the Dutch Caribbean islands thematic... more This comprehensive handbook of gender studies scholarship on the Dutch Caribbean islands thematically covers the history of movements for gender equality; the relation of gender to race, colonialism, sexuality; and the arts and popular culture. The handbook offers unparalleled insights into a century of debates around gender from the six islands of the Dutch Caribbean (Curaçao, Bonaire, Aruba, St. Maarten, St. Eustatius and Saba).
This handbook makes gender studies in the Dutch Caribbean accessible to an international readership. Besides key academic writings, it includes primary historical sources, translations from Papiamento and Dutch, as well as personal memoirs and poetry.
If you are interested in the book and don't have access, please send me an email.
The gesture... more If you are interested in the book and don't have access, please send me an email.
The gestures of participatory art offers a critical investigation of key debates in relation to participatory art, spanning the domains of applied and community theatre, immersive performance as well as the visual arts. Rather than seeking a genre-based definition, it asks how artists, audiences and art practices approach the subject of participation beyond the predetermined options allocated to them. In doing so, it inquires into the ways that artworks participate in civic life.
Participation is the utopian sweet dream that has turned into a nightmare in contemporary neoliberal societies. Yet can the participatory ideal be discarded or merely replaced with another term, just because it has become disemboweled into a tool of pacification? The gestures of participatory art insists that the concept of participation must be re-imagined and shifted onto other registers. It proposes the concept of the gesture as a rewarding way of theorizing participatory art. The gesture is simultaneously an expression of an inner attitude as well as a social habitude; it is situated in between image, speech and action. The study reads the gestural as a way to link discussions on participatory art to broader issues of citizenship and collective action. Moving from reflections on institutional critique and impact to concrete analyses of moments of unsolicited, delicate participation or refusal, the book examines a range of practices from India, Sudan, Guatemala and El Salvador, the Lebanon, the Netherlands and Germany. It engages with the critiques of participation and pleads for a critical reclaiming of participatory practices.
International Performance Research Pedagogies: Towards an Unconditional Discipline? , 2017
Please email me if you are interested in the full publication.
The book makes the fir... more Please email me if you are interested in the full publication.
The book makes the first systematic attempt to bring together and reflect on issues pertaining to performance pedagogy in an international university classroom
Brings together diverse perspectives of performance pedagogy from institutions, students, teachers and artists
Uses the MA International Performance Research programme (a long-term co-operation between the universities of Warwick, Amsterdam, Belgrade, Helsinki and Tampere) as a case study to examine broader questions pertinent to the present and the future of theatre and performance studies
Judging by the number of events in this country in the recent years relating to diversity, inclus... more Judging by the number of events in this country in the recent years relating to diversity, inclusion, and decoloniality, I suppose one could safely conclude that the Dutch theatre and art world seems to be spilling over with good intentions.
Uploads
Papers by Sruti Bala
“Embodied Practices – Looking From Small Places” is an edited transcript of a conversation between theatre and performance scholar Sruti Bala (University of Amsterdam) and sociologist, criminologist and anthropologist Dylan Kerrigan (University of Leicester) that took place as an online event in November 2020. Throughout their talk, Bala and Kerrigan engage with the legacy of Haitian anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot. Specifically, they focus on his approach of looking from small units, such as small villages in Dominica, outwards to larger political structures such as global capitalism, social inequalities and the distribution of power. They also share insights from their own research on embodied practices in the Caribbean, Europe and India and answer questions such as: What can research on and through embodied practices tell us about systems of power and domination that move between the local and the global? How can performance practices which are informed by multiple locations and cultures be read and appreciated adequately? Sharing insights from his research into Guyanese prisons, Kerrigan outlines how he aims to connect everyday experiences and struggles of Caribbean people to trans-historical and transnational processes such as racial capitalism and post/coloniality. Furthermore, he elaborates on how he uses performance practices such as spoken word poetry and data verbalisation to connect with systematically excluded groups. Bala challenges naïve notions about the inherent transformative potential of performance in her research on performance and translation. She points to the way in which performance and its reception is always already inscribed in what she calls global or planetary asymmetries. At the conclusion of this conversation, they broach the question: are small places truly as small as they seem?
“Embodied Practices – Looking From Small Places” is an edited transcript of a conversation between theatre and performance scholar Sruti Bala (University of Amsterdam) and sociologist, criminologist and anthropologist Dylan Kerrigan (University of Leicester) that took place as an online event in November 2020. Throughout their talk, Bala and Kerrigan engage with the legacy of Haitian anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot. Specifically, they focus on his approach of looking from small units, such as small villages in Dominica, outwards to larger political structures such as global capitalism, social inequalities and the distribution of power. They also share insights from their own research on embodied practices in the Caribbean, Europe and India and answer questions such as: What can research on and through embodied practices tell us about systems of power and domination that move between the local and the global? How can performance practices which are informed by multiple locations and cultures be read and appreciated adequately? Sharing insights from his research into Guyanese prisons, Kerrigan outlines how he aims to connect everyday experiences and struggles of Caribbean people to trans-historical and transnational processes such as racial capitalism and post/coloniality. Furthermore, he elaborates on how he uses performance practices such as spoken word poetry and data verbalisation to connect with systematically excluded groups. Bala challenges naïve notions about the inherent transformative potential of performance in her research on performance and translation. She points to the way in which performance and its reception is always already inscribed in what she calls global or planetary asymmetries. At the conclusion of this conversation, they broach the question: are small places truly as small as they seem?
This handbook makes gender studies in the Dutch Caribbean accessible to an international readership. Besides key academic writings, it includes primary historical sources, translations from Papiamento and Dutch, as well as personal memoirs and poetry.
The gestures of participatory art offers a critical investigation of key debates in relation to participatory art, spanning the domains of applied and community theatre, immersive performance as well as the visual arts. Rather than seeking a genre-based definition, it asks how artists, audiences and art practices approach the subject of participation beyond the predetermined options allocated to them. In doing so, it inquires into the ways that artworks participate in civic life.
Participation is the utopian sweet dream that has turned into a nightmare in contemporary neoliberal societies. Yet can the participatory ideal be discarded or merely replaced with another term, just because it has become disemboweled into a tool of pacification? The gestures of participatory art insists that the concept of participation must be re-imagined and shifted onto other registers. It proposes the concept of the gesture as a rewarding way of theorizing participatory art. The gesture is simultaneously an expression of an inner attitude as well as a social habitude; it is situated in between image, speech and action. The study reads the gestural as a way to link discussions on participatory art to broader issues of citizenship and collective action. Moving from reflections on institutional critique and impact to concrete analyses of moments of unsolicited, delicate participation or refusal, the book examines a range of practices from India, Sudan, Guatemala and El Salvador, the Lebanon, the Netherlands and Germany. It engages with the critiques of participation and pleads for a critical reclaiming of participatory practices.
The book makes the first systematic attempt to bring together and reflect on issues pertaining to performance pedagogy in an international university classroom
Brings together diverse perspectives of performance pedagogy from institutions, students, teachers and artists
Uses the MA International Performance Research programme (a long-term co-operation between the universities of Warwick, Amsterdam, Belgrade, Helsinki and Tampere) as a case study to examine broader questions pertinent to the present and the future of theatre and performance studies