Sociology of Performing Arts

This research proposes to come to terms with musical performance. An inclusive definition of musical performance is sought, which can provide a basis for further investigation into other issues concerning other disciplines within the performing arts. The authors feel compelled to propose an inclusive understanding of performance-as-event prior to pursuing other matters including meaning. The point of departure for this research is a sociological perspective (McCormick, 2006) in which musical performance is considered as a social process, and as such, a consequence of historical evolution of social structures leading to the modern social situation. The scholarship of  Godlovitch (1993, 1998),  Small (1998), Kivy (1995, 2002), and D. Davies (2011) are considered as are contributions of other researchers as deemed appropriate . Keeping in mind that the purpose of what follows is to bring to the surface key ideas from the literature, with apologies, the authors recognize that there are omissions. The paper reviews thought leadership focused on defining musical  performance and concludes with a tentative definition.

*This paper draws heavily from the author’s lecture notes and numerous discussions with colleagues and students including Karolina Nevoina, Savar Kahlon and Victoria Parker.

Based on a comprehensive survey among creators and performers in media, arts and entertainment in the Netherlands, this study summarizes these artists attitudes  vis-a-vis relevance of authors and performing rights (copyrights) in the digital age. Most creators and performers perceive digitisation as a threat to their future economic position, although in some cases it is seen as an opportunity. The contribution shows interesting effects of age, creative discipline, business model and sectoral developments, putting for instance many older translators versus some young rock musicians and video artists.

This monograph is the Ph.D dissertation which Saskia Kersenboom defended (cum laude) on May 18, 1984 at Utrecht University, Dept. of Oriental Studies. As an early example of interdisciplinary research this work brings together primary textual data in Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu, fieldwork in and around temples in Tamil Nadu and artistic apprenticeship in South Indian music and dance as performed by DEVADASIS in temples and royal courts until the middle of the XX-th century.
The main hypothesis "Nityasumangali" the 'ever auspicious female' that applies to hereditary ritual specialists holds until today and continues to inspire contemporary research. It was one of the first works to extricate Devadasi matriarchal culture from the (post-)colonial binary question whether these professional, independent females operating in the public sphere should be considered as secular "prostitutes" or as "nuns" dedicated to ritual service in Hindu temples.
NITYASUMANGALI the PhD dissertation has been edited integrally by Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, as 'Nityasumangali Devadasi Tradition in South India', first in 1987 and subsequently reprinted in 1998, 2002 , 2011 and 2016. Currently, it is a prescribed textbook in Dance Studies, both academic and applied. 
During the period 1984 and 1987 this PhD Dissertation has entered both academic and popular scientific publications in India and abroad. It has been heavily plagiarised  both in academic and popular writing. The central hypothesis Nityasumangali has fired public imagination into dance, drama and film projects for which I as an author am not responsible and which I deeply regret if not despise.
I  open my original PhD manuscript up to the general public in order to offer a corrective  antecedent to all later use of this popular epithet.

For ongoing research see under Projects 'MURAI - the Right to Perform' www.academia.edu/11226255

See also the ways in which the author proposes to share her fieldwork and research with a younger generation through' YATRA Residency in Tamil Nadu': https://vimeo.com/140105118 and www.academia.edu/15392636

Cet article propose une étude sociologique du mode de construction de la qualité artistique d'un spectacle théâtral. Il analyse les moyens utilisés pour résoudre les problèmes que pose la production de spectacles avec des amateurs. L'observation ethnographique de situations de travail avec des amateurs permet d'identifier les trucs techniques que les animateurs professionnels utilisent pour renforcer la coopération entre les acteurx inexpérimentés, contrôler l'efficacité de l'action de leur corps sur la scène et faire reconnaître au spectateur la singularité de leur performance

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, dancing masters had a central role in educating European aristocrats in matters related to genteel behavior. The five positions of French noble dance, originally invented for the purposes of choreography, became common ideals of posture both in society and in full-length portraiture. Breaking with previous postural traditions in art, French manners introduced new attitudes for the human figure. In swagger portraiture, a genre whose purpose was to praise the qualities and status of the sitter, the five positions came to serve as markers of nobility and good breeding, and thus contributed to the aesthetic concept of aristocratic life.

(Cover text.) Most artists earn very little. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of aspiring young artists. Do they willing or unwilling give to the arts? Governments and other institutions also give to the arts. They often subsidize the arts to raise the low incomes. But their support is ineffective: subsidies only increase the artists’ poverty.

The economy of the arts is exceptional. Although the arts operate successfully in the marketplace, their natural affinity is with gift-giving rather than with commercial exchange. People believe that artists are selflessly dedicated to art, that price does not reflect quality and that the arts are free. But is this true?

This unconventional multidisciplinary analysis explains the exceptional economy of the arts. Insightful illustrations from the practice of a visual artist support the analysis.

Hans Abbing is a painter, a photographer and an economist. As economist he lectures at the Faculty of History and Arts at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

                             

                              Who but Hans Abbing could write such a book, combining penetrating economic analysis and a studio-level grasp of what's really going in the art world?  And it is openhandedly written, accessible to lay people of all sorts--whether non-economists or non-artists.  A triumph, and a sure best-seller.

                                Deirdre McCloskey, Professor of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago

Brief Bio Devi Girish Chandra is a Kuchipudi performer who has an accentuating academic as well as professional record. Devi continues her research along with performances and teaching, she combines artistic presentation with an academic bend. With this combination, she explores the intricacies of Kuchipudi, experiment with the body extensions, by relating it to the theoretical constructs and travel along the ascend as a learning journey. Devi, along with her husband Girish Chandra has created their own niche in the field of Kuchipudi tracing, together, a performing career of more than 11 years and individually for more than 18 years. Currently she is working as an Educator at Department of Kuchipudi, University of Silicon Andhra, California. She has formulated and consolidated inter-disciplinary dance curriculum for National Institute of Fashion Technology-Kerala and International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT)-Basara. She is also an Empanelled Artist of Ministry of Culture, Government of India. Abstract "Re-imagining Gollabhama as a woman of resistance" This paper 'reads' Gollakalāpam and its practice as 'social text'. The effect of power relations-exclusion, inclusion and marginalization against women in the society was also mirrored in performing arts tradition. This in turn molded and structured the art forms to illustrate the way these aspects construct, devise and provide insights into the performances as 'social texts. Gollakalāpam is a text of resistance that questions the gender issues, caste-class hierarchies and elevates the suppressed castes as well as women. It appears to have evolved as the result of a popular response to the social problems of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The thrust of Gollakalāpam as a social protest and satire is to serve as the voice of women, through which they

"In this brief essay, originally published in France in 1956, the Russian born French sociologist Georges Gurvitch (1894-1965) traces the very early project for the sociology of the theatre. He first discusses the “striking affinity” between theatre and social life in such a way that his treatise parallels the well-known “dramaturgical metaphor” argument. Then Gurvitch describes what he considers to be the branches of the sociology of the theatre, some of which are: the study of the audiences; the research on the different types of theatre workers (actors, directors, playwrights, scenic designers, and so on), including the social/professional interactions among them; the relationships between plays and social frameworks (arguing that the sociology of the theatre would be a kind of sociology of knowledge). Further, the above-mentioned affinity between theatre and society leads Gurvitch to conceive a way of making sociological experimentation by using theatre within the settings of the everyday life.

Sociologia del teatro (1956) è il breve saggio con il quale Georges Gurvitch ha impostato per la prima volta un programma per la ricerca sociologica nel campo del teatro. Le sue indicazioni risultano ancora oggi attuali e delineano percorsi di analisi di fatto seguite e approfondite da diversi studiosi nei decenni successivi. Il panorama delle proposte contenute in questo saggio rivolge l’attenzione a temi quali la realtà sociale dinamica e stratificata del pubblico teatrale, le interazioni tra i professionisti del teatro a tutti i livelli (attori, registi, scrittori, ma anche tecnici, responsabili amministrativi e organizzazioni di categoria), le trasformazioni delle opere, delle teorie e delle pratiche teatrali in relazione al contesto politico-sociale, e così via. Inoltre, collocando questa riflessione nel vivo del dibattito sociologico della sua epoca, Gurvitch ragiona, a partire dall’imprescindibile e «sorprendente affinità» tra teatro e vita sociale, e individua per la sociologia un metodo di indagine sperimentale che, proprio attraverso il teatro, sia in grado di cogliere la più viva realtà dei gruppi e delle collettività «in fermento». Uno scritto anticipatore, la cui portata è stata a lungo misconosciuta. Questo volume ne propone la prima traduzione italiana, nell’intento di sottrarlo all’oblio nel quale è stato relegato e di sollecitare una riapertura del dibattito intorno ai temi dei quali è oggetto.

Georges Gurvitch (1894-1965), dopo i primi studi di filosofia e diritto, si dedicò alla sociologia nell’intento di sviluppare un pensiero in grado di cogliere il divenire della realtà sociale, in una continua tensione umana e intellettuale propria del suo spirito di studioso e della sua esperienza di vita. Nacque in Russia, dove visse in prima persona la Rivoluzione d’Ottobre ed iniziò la carriera accademica nelle università di Pietrogrado (oggi San Pietroburgo) e di Tomsk. Emigrato nel 1920, insegnò a Praga per poi approdare in Francia, sua patria d’elezione dal 1925, e prendere, nel 1935, il posto di Halbwachs alla cattedra di sociologia a Strasburgo. Tra il 1940 ed il 1945 soggiornò negli Stati Uniti, entrando così in contatto con la sociologia nordamericana. Rientrato in Francia, dal 1948 fu professore alla Sorbona e all’École Pratique des Hautes Études. Pensatore arguto e appassionato, oggi quasi dimenticato, ha lasciato ampia traccia di sé in opere come La vocazione attuale della sociologia (1950), Determinismi sociali e libertà umana (1955), Dialettica e sociologia (1962)."

Résumé
Le théâtre d'Eugène Ionesco fait l'objet d'un paradoxe: son «avant-gardisme» spectaculaire se nourrit d'une vision essentiellement classique. Plus précisément, Ionesco envisage des «archétypes oubliés», et cherche à les «renouveler» sous l'aspect de l' expression dramatique, tel qu'il dit lui-même. Son «antithéâtre» pousse ainsi à l'extrême le ressort expressif du genre. Ionesco ne s'essaye plus à un théâtre d'événements, ni à l'intrigue bien faite à la manière d'Ibsen et du drame realiste du XIX-ième siècle; tout au contraire, il tente l'expérience d'un théâtre voulu «abstrait», «nonfiguratif», dépourvu du référent extra-théâtral circonscrit par l'imitation vraisemblable (mimesis) que recommande Aristote; quelquefois, un théâtre d'énergie pure, préconceptuelle − sonore ou kinésique −, comme dans ses «anti-pièces» (La Cantatrice chauve, La Leçon).
Les nouvelles dites «fantastiques» de Mircea Eliade avancent également, d'une manière plus ou moins implicite, une certaine poétique du théâtre. Celle-ci repose essentiellement sur l'aptitude sotériologique de l'art. La figure exemplaire en est le Poète orphique. Chez Mircea Eliade, la thèse bien connue du «sacré camouflé dans le profane», épouse le principe-clé d'un «nouveau» théâtre. À son avis, le vrai théâtre croise l'ancien rituel, et le drame revient ainsi au dromenon; c'est-à-dire, à l'ancienne (re)présentation rituelle, de la tradition des cultes de mystères, censés révéler les grands mythes fondateurs et ce qu'ils disent de la destinée humaine.
Notre travail porte donc sur la remise en question du mécanisme théâtral de souche aristotélicienne, que tente à la fois Mircea Eliade et Eugène Ionesco, chacun à sa façon. On envisage principalement les aspects suivants:
a) tout d'abord, la poétique théâtrale dont quelques nouvelles de Mircea Eliade sont à même de rendre compte: Nouăsprezece trandafiri [Dix-neuf roses], În curte la Dionis [Dans la cour de Dionis], Incognito la Buchenwald [Incognito à Buchenwald], Uniforme de general [Uniformes de général] ;
b) deuxièmement, l'imaginaire de Ionesco vu par Eliade; la dissolution du «théâtre de l'absurde» (tel que le désignait Martin Esslin) dans un théâtre plutôt mythique, voire mystique (selon Marguerite Jean-Blain), «théâtre des origines» à la manière d' Antonin Artaud et des «archétypes oubliés», comme disait Ionesco;
c) en troisième lieu, la dissolution chez Ionesco, d'une dichotomie essentielle de l'esthétique classique: tragique vs. comique; d'où la tragi-comédie sur laquelle repose symptomatiquement son antithéâtre;
d) enfin, l'(anti)théâtre d' Eugène Ionesco − ou tel qu'il dit, son «théâtre abstrait» − en tant que  mise à l'oeuvre et mise à l' épreuve d'une certaine poétique du «nonfiguratif», dont se réclame le dramaturge.

Mots-clés:  poétique, théâtre, absurde, abstrait, nonfiguratif, mimesis, rituel, archétype, Aristote, Artaud, Pirandello, Ionesco, Eliade.

There has been an outpouring of articles examining the rise of non-Egyptian belly-dancers and what that means for this particular type of performance in Egypt. In this essay I try to shed the light on the problematic position of this practice and how and why any nuanced understanding is thwarted by the discourses on "cultural originality" or a "moralizing discourse".

Pieter Verstraete is an independent theater scholar who, for the past 6 years, had been working and researching in Turkey. The political development of the last years has had many effects, e.g. on the daily lives, on the arts and culture, on journalism. Verstraete is not only one of those who had to leave the country but also an expert on contemporary Turkish theater. In this very personal and moving text, he shares his impressions of the last two years and gives a brief insight into a few of the artistic consequences.

The growing global economic uncertainties have in recent times been attended by a cutting down of costs by corporate bodies and families alike. In most developing economies, the perennial scaling down of budgets has meant dwindling provisions for leisure and entertainment. This accounts for the sharp drop in theatre attendance in most of these countries. In Africa where people are used to enjoying folk theatre performances in the open community squares for free, the idea of paying for tickets to attend theatre becomes more and more unattractive. The growing cases of global terrorism and general insecurity in most societies has made it even more difficult for families to see the wisdom in risking attending theatre productions at night, what more to spend scarce family income on tickets when there are cheaper and safer alternatives at home by way of cable television and soap operas. The theatre critic's job is in jeopardy if the theatre makers are not producing. Undaunted the theatre makers have been reinventing their audience engineering strategies and production approaches. This paper is an incursion into the new approaches theatre makers have adopted to keep their art and professionalism afloat in the face of persisting harsh social and economic realities.

"Dwelling across from each other. Theatre as an art of avoiding encounters" – In this paper I sketch a theory of theatre situations from the point of view of the social. I argue that theatre situations are essentially anti-social. The so-called »bodily co-presence« of actors and spectators is not their origin – but something they have simply in common with any normal social situation. What makes theatre exceptional is rather, that interaction between those who are present is sensibly in the offing – while never taking place. Social systems in theatre remain in an rudimental stump state. Encounters are systematically thwarted by the actors as well as by the spectators. This avoidance of encounters facing the Other, however, is anything but easy. It requires a special kind of skills: »The art, not to encounter each other".

I scrutinize this art with an unusual methodological approach: I follow Niklas Luhmann’s Theory of Social Systems, but add and deepen it with the phenomenology and ethics of Emmanuel Lévinas. Meanwhile my argumentation consequently relates to my own experiences as a performer on stage. Thus the paper is a second-order observation of theatre, as well as theatre-phenomenology from the point of view of the subject on stage.

//

In dieser Arbeit entwerfe ich eine Theorie der Theatersituation aus der Perspektive des Sozialen. Theatersituationen, so die Ausgangsthese, sind wesentlich anti-sozial. Ihr Ursprung liegt nicht in der „leiblichen Kopräsenz“ von Akteuren und Publikum – denn gleichzeitige Anwesenheit im selben Raum haben sie mit normalen sozialen Situationen ohnehin gemein. Das eigentlich Ungewöhnliche am Theater ist vielmehr, dass sich Interaktion zwischen den Anwesenden hier zwar fühlbar anbahnt – aber niemals stattfindet. Soziale Systeme verbleiben im Theater in einem rudimentären Zustand, einer Art Stummel-Stadium. Begegnungen werden systematisch ausgebremst, von Seiten der Akteure wie von Seiten der Zuschauer. Dieses Verhindern von Begegnung im Angesicht des Anderen ist jedoch alles andere als einfach. Es erfordert eine Kunst: die »Kunst, sich nicht zu begegnen«.

Das Wesen dieser so verstandenen Kunst untersuche ich mittels eines methodisch ungewöhnlichen Ansatzes: Ich orientiere mich grundlegend an Niklas Luhmanns Theorie sozialer Systeme, die ich jedoch ergänze und vertiefe durch Einbeziehung der Phänomenologie und Ethik von Emmanuel Lévinas. Die Argumentation bezieht sich dabei durchgehend auch auf meine eigenen Bühnenerfahrungen. Die Arbeit ist also sowohl Theater-Beobachtung zweiter Ordnung, als auch Theater-Phänomenologie aus der Perspektive des auf der Bühne stehenden Subjekts.

In this article I examine the methodological and ethical rigor of a geographic profiling study and resulting article, published in 2016 in "Journal of Spatial Science", which identifies by name a candidate for being the artist known as Banksy. I demonstrate that the article is characterized by a number of methodological flaws which fundamentally undermine the researchers’ basis for determining Banksy’s identity. On this background I argue that the researchers’ decision to include a specific name in their article is ethically problematic.

Indian Theatre was and is always a marginal phenomenon in the larger context of the Indian society. Though, theatre was one of those mediums which were always there with the society for the entertainment of the people but it was not entertained always by the same people and the society. Theatre as a tool or medium was much stronger to reign easily than the other performing and other art forms that’s why it was sidelined, displaced and marginalized in the society at certain point of time. The people associated with it were thrown out of the periphery of the localities (society) and simultaneously were declassed, of which we get several instances in history.

Add Up Project: un nuovo modello d'indagine. L'osservazione partecipante tra etnografia ed arte performativa. Il corpo come strumento di analisi, di ricerca, è ciò che a mio avviso unisce in modo specifico la disciplina etnografica a quella dell'arte performativa. In entrambe il medium attraverso il quale la ricerca viene eseguita è l'interezza del corpo del ricercatore: la sua carne, le sue emozioni, la sua persona. Prima di proseguire vorrei fare un piccolo accenno alla qualificazione del termine arte performativa che qui si intende come quella disciplina che contiene il teatro e la danza nello spettacolo dal vivo. Nella mia esperienza professionale di artista performativo mi sono trovato, ad un certo punto, a distinguere, all'interno delle discipline artistiche, la specificità dell'arte performativa: l'oggetto che viene prodotto non è un oggetto (lo spettacolo), ma un evento relazionale che svanisce nel momento in cui si produce. Prima caratterista distintiva è l'evanescenza dell'opera stessa che la qualifica come evento. In secondo luogo mi sono trovato a constatare che, a differenza di tutte le altre arti, lo strumento con il quale si produce " l'opera " è il corpo stesso dell'artista con tutto il suo bagaglio biografico: la sua fisicità, la sua emotività, la sua personalità, in sintesi la sua conoscenza del mondo attraverso l'esperienza che ha prodotto quel determinato " corpo culturale ". Uno dei primi lavori che si insegna nelle scuole di teatro è " pulire " il proprio corpo da tutti i suoi habitus, quelle modellazioni culturali, quei comportamenti, quei modi di parlare e muoversi, che ne caratterizzano la sua fisicità, in modo da avere poi un corpo " neutro " sul quale indossare altre maschere, altri personaggi. Quando mi sono trovato a studiare la metodologia etnografica ho potuto constatare una similitudine specchiante con quella del performer. L'etnografo, per compiere la sua ricerca sul campo, si immerge nella comunità che studia utilizzando la sua esperienza fisica come strumento di indagine: deve indossare quei costumi per interpretarli. Allo stesso modo quindi, diversamente dalle altre discipline scientifiche, lo strumento di indagine è proprio il corpo stesso del ricercatore. Da questo punto di vista l'osservazione partecipante che permette all'etnografo di mimetizzarsi con la comunità, diventando lui stesso parte di quella comunità, è sostanzialmente per lo scienziato una esperienza liminale in cui la totalità del suo essere e del suo corpo vengono messe in discussione e trasformate. Si dice appunto che se il campo non ti ha cambiato qualcosa durante la ricerca non ha funzionato, ovvero che il ricercatore non è riuscito ad andare così in profondità nell'incorporare abitudini estranee e quindi a mettersi nella prospettiva dell'oggetto studiato.

Kehadiran DRT di Thailand ini  bukan untuk melindungi hak-hak transgender atau LGBTI melainkan ingin mendorong kesetaraan di setiap bidang, terutama kesetaraan ekonomi warga negara tanpa memandang gender. Keterlibatan transgender di dalam pembangunan Thailand yang menuangkan minat dan bakatnya pada acara kompetisi Drag Race Thailand menjembatasi hak, kewajiban dan aspirasi dari minoritas seksual dalam upaya dekriminalisasi pekerja seks. Dengan mengakuinya sebagai profesi yang berhak atas hak dan kesejahteraan, pekerja drag queen bisa terlindungi dari pelecehan dan penganiayaan secara fisik, mental, dan seksual.

Tulisan ini bukan membela kelompok minoritas seksual tetapi memberikan gambaran bahwa mereka [drag queen] menuangkan bakat dan minat melalui acara kompetisi seperti Drag Race Thailand yang betul-betul mewakili budaya pop gender Asia yang menggambarkan bahwa Asia adalah budaya feminin diskursus dari budaya Eropa-Amerika yang maskulin. Revolusi gender yang di dalamnya terdapat representasi budaya pop gender bukanlah sesuatu yang benar-benar diperhitungkan oleh pertunjukan, sebab sebagian besar kontestan tetap pria cisgender yang tampil sebagai karakter wanita. Drag Race Thailand mungkin menyadari bahwa memperluas kumpulan bakatnya adalah kunci kelangsungan hidup drag queen dan LGBTI di tengah arus utama heteroseksual dan heteronormatif. Ini sangat rumit karena ketika berbicara tentang drag, lapisan yang berbeda ini dan itu hanya lebih dari sekadar hiburan dan tidak mampu menjangkau politik suatu negara seperti Asia (Asia Tenggara) yang mengedepankan aspek religiusitas. Drag adalah semacam aktivisme yang menantang stereotip heteroseksual terhadap kelompok minoritas seksual seperti drag queen yang ngondek dan kefeminim-feminiman atau flamboyan.

Part 7 in Robert Mshengu Kavanagh's forthcoming publication, 'A Contended Space: The Theatre of Gibson Kente", looks at the last phase in the South African playwright's life and work, namely the years between the end of formal apartheid in 1994 and his death ten years later. The Chapter that is offered here (Chapter 23: "Sun City is still Sun City") is the third chapter in the book that looks at aspects of social and cultural transformation in South Africa. The first dealt with the pre-Kente era, the second with the apartheid era and the third, this chapter, with the post–apartheid era up to the death of Kente in 2004. The first described the tragic process of dispossession and subjugation of the indigenous African majority by a settler minority from Europe and the establishment of English-speaking political, social and cultural hegemony in South Africa. The second described the coming to power of the Afrikaner Nationalists, their implementation of formal apartheid and their struggle to convert their political clout into social and cultural hegemony. This chapter briefly describes the end of minority rule and the coming to power of a government voted in by the majority. Curiously, far from attempting to impose majority hegemony on South Africa, the new government publicly proclaimed a non-hegemonic stance, leaving economic, social and cultural hegemony in the hands of the minority.  By and large, the English-speaking component of that minority was able to regain its former hegemonic status. Chapter 23 is followed by a chapter on the theatre of the period, "The New Forest" and another on how Kente himself fared in this last phase of his life, entitled "The hour has come for me", sad words expressing the hopes he cherished but which were never fulfilled. The chapters in Part 9 talk as much about the ‘New South Africa’ as they do about Kente himself, for his fate was bound up with that of his country. It asks the question: “What could have been done to ensure that South Africa's cultural greats from the apartheid era, Kente included, were empowered to make the kind of contribution to the struggle for a genuinely new South Africa they had it in them to make?

Bunt i, często idąca z nim w parze, rewolucja zawsze mają na celu dokonanie zmiany. Bez względu na ambicje inicjatorów, które mogą się ograniczać do rozwiązania pracowniczych problemów organizacyjnych jakiejś instytucji lub sięgać w kierunku doprowadzenia do dramatycznej transformacji społeczno-politycznej, wszystkie działania „rewolucjonistów” nakierowane są w zasadzie tylko na przekształcenie określonego fragmentu ich rzeczywistości. Wydaje się, że dotyczy to także manifestu, który zwykle zapoczątkowuje oficjalne wydarzenia, ale sam również ma za zadanie dokonywać przemian. Innymi słowy, w perspektywie współczesnego kulturoznawstwa, manifest jest, lub może być, tekstem performatywnym. W tekście dokonany zostaje przegląd manifestów historycznych i artystycznych oraz próba oceny ich performatywności w porównaniu do działań performatywnych o charakterze manifestu.

Earlier explorations of artists as shamans did not adequately consider how art audiences might function as shamanic communities.  An extensive collection of archival  data, from multiple fields, was analyzed using theoretical methods.  Twenty-four accomplished contemporary artists were compared to an operationalized, cross-culturally validated definition of shaman. The definition included social designation of shamans by shamanic communities, who then receive benefits from shamanic practices. 
In artists with family resemblances to shamans, the most distinguishing feature  was the creation of art to provide benefits to individuals and society. What benefits might audiences receive from engagement with arts? 
Beneficial creative processes that offered healing features involved redirected attention, suspension of disbelief, empathy with key characters, loosening of  conventions, awareness of dysfunction, catharsis, positive disintegration, improved physical health, enhanced social interactions, new dialogues with self, insight, discovery of alternative perspectives, peak experience, integration, closure, and positive growth. Collective responses also contributed to social change.  Some examples are given.
Martha Graham’s dance, Lamentation, benefitted a woman in the audience. She released repressed emotions and began grieving for a deceased son, feeling her experience of loss was honored by the dance. In a visual artwork, George Longfish presented images of genocide, past and present, historic and symbolic. In response, one Native American viewer felt recognized, understood, honored, and healed.
The social-problem genre of literature, including authors Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, Lorraine Hansberry, and Toni Morrison, helped end slavery, garnered support for civil rights, and improved multicultural understanding, contributing to political change and positive social growth.
Such intentions and outcomes can inspire arts-engaged individuals, communities, and institutions.  We researchers can help by clarifying creative processes that can enhance audience healing, resiliency and positive change.  And we can honor artists, and qualities of such artists, who have chosen to pursue this socially beneficial path.

A partir de un análisis de las distintas dimensiones del mundo sociocultural, y su entrecruce con el mundo del sujeto, se consideran las variables territorio y tiempo, con particular referencia a la postmodernidad. Escenario histórico-sociocultural y escenario teatral, mostrados en sus convergencias en términos de la dramaturgia de Samuel Becket, con particular referencia a “Esperando a Godot”. La dramaturgia de Beckett manifiesta la inutilidad de insistir en las relaciones interpersonales mostrándose al mismo tiempo un mundo marginal de derrotados, nihilistas, gente perpleja frente a la confusión entre realidad e irrealidad, sentido y sinsentido. Por algunos considerado el “último moderno”, sobre todo en términos de su estética de la incertidumbre, su dramaturgia se emparenta con un escepticismo teológico cercano -en parte- al Dasein heideggeriano. Se analiza la importancia y diversidad de territorios, tanto en sentido real como sobre todo simbólico: mares, montañas y desiertos, con particular referencia a la estética de Simmel, la poética de Bachelard y las interpretaciones de sentido en la postmodernidad como es el caso de Sloterdijk, Deleuze y Guattari, entre otros. Vida y muerte, la memoria y sus falencias, espera sin fin, caos, escenarios de postcatástrofe, son componentes todos del ámbito existencial y desértico donde se debaten los protagonistas beckettianos.
Palabras clave
Samuel Beckett; esperando a Godot; sociología; post-modernidad; territorio; desarraigo; existencialismo; paisajes; desierto.

ABSTRACT: Departing from the analysis of the socio-cultural world and its dimensions, together with the subject’s world, we analyze the variables territory and time, with particular reference to postmodernity. The dramaturgical work of Samuel Beckett –with emphasis in his work “Waiting for Godot”- is considered in terms of its convergences with the historic and socio-cultural stage. Beckett undervalues the interpersonal relations, showing a marginal world of defeated and perplexed people facing the confusion between reality and unreality, sense and non-sense. Considered as the “last modern”, mainly in terms of his aesthetic of the uncertainty, his works can be related to a theological skepticism near to the heideggerian Dasein. We analyze the importance and diversity of territories, both in the real and symbolic senses: seas, mountains and deserts, focused in Simmel’s aesthetics, Bachelard’s poetics, and the understanding of the meaning of post-modernity present in authors like Sloterdijk, Deleuze and Guattari, among others. Life and death, memory and its fractures, endless wait, chaos, scenes of postcatastrophe: they are all components of the existential and desert realms where the Beckett characters debate.
Keywords: Samuel Beckett; Waiting for Godot; Sociology; Post-modernity; Territory; Rootednessless; Existentialism; Landscapes; Desert realm.

This article studies the socioeconomics of government public expenditure for the arts and the normative foundations of state intervention in the arts. I pose two interrelated research questions: (a) what is the relationship between the public funding of the arts and their consumption? and (b) what mode of justification and what perception of the place of art in society is reflected in this relationship? Based on the philosophical work of Alan Badiou, I develop a novel conceptual framework to delin-eate three types of normative justifications for the public funding of arts organizations: romantic, didactic and classical. Using data from the public funding of 92 orchestras, theaters and dance troupes in Israel between 1999 and 2011, I estimate a cross-lagged panel data model to study how arts funding both affects and is affected by the levels of consumption of the organizations' productions. The results of the study show a complex pattern of different relationships between funding and consumption that accord with the three types of normative justifications for public arts funding.

The paper is based on the author’s experience performing noise or experimental music in Latin America, East and South East Asia. In this paper, the author reflects on some social determinants of art and design. Dimensions such as technology, territory, identity, social  characteristics  and  social  acceptance  are  discussed. Additional  topics  such  as  class,  gender,  politics  are  covered. The  author  concludes  that  these  do  not  shape  the  practice  of noise music, they are also elements which provide frameworks on which artists and designer built.

Reflexiones sobre los determinantes sociales del arte y del diseño: Música de ruido en América Latina y Asia

Este  artículo  está  basado  en  la  experiencia  del  autor  dando interpretaciones  de  música  de  ruido  (noise  music)  o  de experimentación en América Latina, Asia del Oriente y del Sur-Oriente. En el artículo, el autor reflexiona acerca de algunas  determinaciones sociales del arte y del diseño como el territorio, la identidad, las características sociales y la aceptación social. Clase,  género  y  política  son  otros  temas  discutidos.  El  autor concluye que la dichas dimensiones no dan forma a la música de  ruido,  ellas  ofrecen  un  lienzo  sobre  el  cual  los  artistas  y diseñadores pueden construir.

Whilst Stanislavsky spent much of his energy trying to simplify the processes of acting and avoiding a (pseudo-) scientific terminology for his acting system, he was nevertheless caught up in Stalin’s appropriation of hard science after the Russian Revolution, to be paired with other ‘founding fathers’ of Soviet materialism, including Ivan Pavlov, in the creation of a powerful political orthodoxy. Here, Jonathan Pitches focuses on two of Stanislavsky’s key contemporaries, Meyerhold and Michael Chekhov, both of whom had worked with the founder of the System at different periods in their career, to pinpoint a significant shift, or turning point, in the development of twentieth-century Russian actor training. Drawing on Fritjof Capra’s history of systemic thinking, the article argues that a radical shift of thinking took place in actor training in the 1920s and 1930s, which prefigures the global paradigm crisis Capra has identified at the turn of the last century. Jonathan Pitches is a Principal Lecturer in the Department of Contemporary Arts at Manchester Metropolitan University and author of Vsevolod Meyerhold (Routledge, 2003). This article is a revised version of a paper delivered at the IFTR 2004 Conference in St Petersburg.
 Its argument derives from his forthcoming book Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition (Routledge, 2005).

At last theatre and visual and performing arts practitioners, scholars, students and anyone interested in what was going on in the unsegregated arts activity of South Africa in the 1970s can access the hugely informative pages of S'ketsh' Magazine, which described itself as 'South Africa's magazine for popular theatre and entertainment' [first five issues] and 'South Africa's magazine for theatre and entertainment' [last two issues]. A number of researchers and authors have published on or included a study of the theatre and performing arts of the 1970's but hitherto the treasure trove of information contained in the pages of S'ketsh' has been literally a closed book to them. This should now change as at last that book can be opened in the form of this facsimile edition. In addition to the complete texts and graphics of the seven issues, The Complete S'ketsh' includes a Reading List at the end of the book for those who wish to find out more about the theatre personalities, developments and works referred to in S'ketsh' Magazine. There is also a Consolidated Contents and a list of contributors.

Les habitus perceptifs apportés par les nouveaux médias transforment la conception, la percpeption et l'usage de l'espace scénique. La caractéristique isomorphique du code numérique et sa non résistance à la transformation permettent d'avancer que le numérique généré de nouvelles perceptions de l'espace et du temps, mais q'il constitue aussi un nouvel état de la matière. Ceci n'est pas sans créer des nouveaux potentiels expressifs et de nouvelles dynamiques scéniques.
De multiples exemples d'usage scénique des images sont utilisés pour énumérer les principaux usages des images sur scène.

As a group the women came together to celebrate their relationship to the spiritual energy that animates all life, even though they expressed this in diverse ways. The festival was a place which bought together disparate groups that had a common resistance to global processes of destroying the local and relationships to place and community. The women and their partners, friends and family by participating in the festival renegotiated what community meant for them and in the process they renegotiated global process of neoliberalisation and standardisation.

"Cover Text: Youngsters and increasingly more older people are turning their backs on classical concerts. This is not because they do not like classical music or lack the education that enables them to enjoy the music. They simply cannot cope with the classical concert etiquette anymore and thus they feel ncreasingly uncomfortable. The etiquette here has become too formal and too elitist. They prefer the informal concert situations of pop music where there is more space to move around, people can react to the music, and do not have to be quiet for the entire duration of a concert.
Our society has been undergoing a fundamental process of informalization since the 1950s. Different art worlds respond to this process in different ways. The classical music world’s response has so far been one of resistance and denial. Here the code of conduct has actually become even more formal over the past 50 years. The current subsidy systems in various European countries enables the classical music world to remain largely unaffected by change. If this situation continues unheeded, the classical concert will lose more and more of its market share."

The  book  speaks  about  the  process  of  re-examining  and  restructuring  theatre  and  drama as well as performance arts in general by means of intertextuality, intermedi-ality and interculturality. During the last few decades of the 20th century, the (post-)dramatic  textual  and  performative  tactics  developed  together  with  a  new  wave  of  “post-avant-garde”,  “post-conceptual”,  and  theatre  of  images  that  governed  most  Slovene stages in the confusion of the post-socialist world. This was clearly seen in performances which undermined both the notion of theatre as mimesis, and the logo-centricity of dramatic theatre.

The dramatic and no longer dramatic innovations can therefore be seen as a part of the specificity of the second part of the 20th century, marked by unrest and a Badioui-an inability to decide between ending the old and beginning the new. The artists wit-nessed and participated in a series of aesthetic revolutions that disrupted the configu-ration of drama and theatre. They were not only witnesses but also the key figures of a process in which media, theatre and literature went through distinct transformations from the dramatic to the non-dramatic, non-literary, and post-dramatic, and to the primacy of the performative. Throughout the century the stage itself was re-examined and restructured, dismantled, and newly put together over and over again

Can practitioner-led cultural investment be expected to empower local communities? This paper examines that question using as a case the recent history of Sarawak, in Malaysian Borneo. It is found that Sarawak's tourism planners have exoticized its local communities at the cost of developing a much-needed diversified economy. Questions arising are the manner by which artists in urban areas can be productive on their own terms, and the mechanisms by which their faraway communities can lend support. Answers might be sought, it is argued, using a participatory rather than a top-down approach to cultural investment.

The economy of the arts is exceptional, or rather, it is relatively exceptional. One important characteristic that makes the economy of the arts differ from economies in other sectors is, what Throsby (1994) has called, ‘the work-preference of artists’. When creative artists like composers, writers and visual artists, but also many performing artists like dancers and actors receive more income, they do not use it to work fewer hours in the arts in order to have more leisure time, but instead they use it to work more hours1. Evidently the advantages of working more hours in the arts offset the advantages of more leisure time. This relative anomaly has far reaching consequences for the economy of the arts. It implies that the low average incomes in the arts are largely structural and that subsidies intended to raise income tend to be futile and can easily be counter-productive. At the same time it raises questions about the interpretation of low incomes and the professional status of artists: are artists as badly off as they appear to be? Or should a majority of artists be regarded as happy consumers instead of as miserable producers?

Introduction by Frank Barron

Part I: The Uncovered Heart
1. Henry Miller / Why Don't You Try to Write?
2. Federico Fellini / Miscellany
3. Pamela Travers / The Interviewer
4. Anna Halprin / The Process Is the Purpose
5. A. E. Housman / The Name and Nature of Poetry
6. Rainer Maria Rilke / Letters to Merline

Part II: The Opened Mind
7. Cathy Johnson / Lost in the Woods
8. Richard Feynman / The Dignified Professor
9. Kary Mullis / The Screwdriver
10. J. G. Bennett / Living in the Medium
11. William Butler Yeats / The Symbolism of Poetry
12. Annie Dillard / Heaven and Earth in Jest

Part III: The Web Of Imagination
13. Mary Shelley / The Genesis of Frankenstein
14. Carl G. Jung / First Years
15. Italo Calvino / Visibility
16. Michel Foucault / The Order of Things
17. Marion Milner / The Plunge into Colour
18. Virginia Woolf / Evening over Sussex: Reflections in a Motor Car
19. Mabel Dodge Luhan / Edge of Taos Desert

Part IV: The Creative Ecology
20. Maurice Sendak / The Shape of Music
21. Maya Angelou / A Life in the Day of Maya Angelou
22. Ingmar Bergman / The Magic Lantern
23. Sidney Bechet / The Second Line
24. Tony Kushner / Is It a Fiction That Playwrights Create Alone?
25. Irving Oyle / Odyssey
26. N. Scott Momaday / The Magic of Words
27. Brian Eno / Why World Music?

Part V: The Dedication to Mastery
28. David Ogilvy / How to Manage an Advertising Agency
29. Leonardo da Vinci / Anatomy
30. Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky / Composing a Symphony
31. Muriel Rukeyser / The Genesis of Orpheus
32. Igor Stravinsky / Poetics of Music
33. Frank Zappa / All About Music
34. Eugen Herrigel / Zen in the Art of Archery

Part IV: The Courage to Go Naked
35. Isadora Duncan / The Mother Cry of Creation
36. Karen Finley / License for Madness
37. Laurence Olivier / Lessons from the Past
38. Mat Callahan / Creation Myth
39. Ursula K. Le Guin / The Fisherwoman's Daughter

Editor's Note
Suggested Readings
Permissions
Contributors

The Generational and Aesthetic Orientation of a State Award Addressed to Independent Theatre-This article analyses the orientation of an awarding practice held by the State-the Fiesta Provincial del Teatro de Tucumán (Argentine) between 2002 and 2017-in relation to the cast's ages and the aesthetics awarded. It is shown that awards are mainly addressed to young directors who practice a post-dramatic aesthetic, while these awards exclude other traditions such as realism, popular humor and the theatre of cruelty. Finally, State's reasons to make those exclusions are evaluated and so are local games of power, since the award recognition of youngsters and the reject towards consecrated figures is appealing for research.

Abstract and Introduction of "But Abu Ibrahim, We're Family!", a book published by The Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Studies, Tel Aviv University, is a series of case studies, which describes collaborations of Jewish and Palestinian professional theater artists in Israel, creating theater about their realities. It depicts the ways in which the artists grapple with shifting power dynamics and relations between them, while trying together to overcome external social and political forces, which run counter to their work.

A study in audience development: the proposal of an analysis model for use by those planning performing arts. When creative innovation meets the curve of audience willingness to welcome new trends.

Un studio per l’audience development: la proposta di un modello di analisi del pubblico ad uso di chi programma lo spettacolo dal vivo. L’innovazione creativa incontra la curva della propensione degli spettatori ad accogliere le novità.

Este artículo presenta un análisis sociológico del discurso profesional el campo de la
danza y de un equipo de rodaje televisivo realizadas entre 2006 y 2012 en San Diego,
Londres y Barcelona. El trabajo artístico se produce dentro de una determinada
distribución de capitales simbólicos, eminentemente lingüísticos. Este juego
comunicativo se basa en una cadena de microdecisiones y de negociación de la
incertidumbre en la carrera profesional. La hipótesis que se plantea es que el discurso
profesional esconde los procesos intersubjetivos que se encuentran en la base del la
autoridad artística. Los datos se compone de 40 entrevistas semi-estructuradas.
Mediante un análisis temático de contenido y el uso de ATLAS.ti, hemos definido los
elementos comunicativos que caracterizan la tomas de decisión artísticas. Parece que
el habitus artístico surge del ejercicio cotidiano de la violencia simbólica que configura
la identidad profesional de los directores/coreógrafos en oposición a sus colaboradores.

Since the mid-twentieth century, urban cultural policies have tended to broaden citizens’ access to cultural and arts facilities in most European cities. Italy saw its theatre infrastructure being enhanced by the teatri stabili which have emerged since the late 1940s, in developed urban contexts, and the decentralization of theatre activities during the 1970s, in the suburbs of cities as well as in small regional towns. This changed the distribution of theatregoing accessibility, but not sufficiently to make opportunities equal across the country's different geographical areas. In the present article Marco Serino discusses the decentralization of theatre in Italy, in particular as it has affected the southern Campania region, basing his argument on his own census of the venues in existence in southern Campania in 2008. Social, economic, and political issues are involved in the discussion since these always influence theatre policy and practice.

The Olympic Games’ Opening Ceremony has always been a challenge among practitioners in media and installation industries. In every four year cycle, it draws a lot of international attention. The creativity and preparation of the opening ceremony must be complex, elaborate and innovative; it results in a uniqueness in each ceremony. Therefore, the ceremonies are usually unpredictable. Significantly, the ceremony is broadcast live through international media networks; however, there is only one chance to exhibit it. Mistakes can occur in the presentation, but they will not be anticipated. In order to generate this spectacular ceremony, creative thinking must be involved. I propose to apply the Lateral Thinking (Creative thinking technique), invented by Edward de Bono, as a research metaphor to analyse the Athens 2004 Olympic Games’ Opening Ceremony as a case study. It is anticipated, the results of this study will illustrate whether or not de Bono’s lateral thinking technique is applicable to approach this mega-tainment ceremony.

Since the 19th century and romanticism, the “singularity regime” (Nathalie Heinich) – which highlights the vocation and achievements of the individual creator – informs the artist figure. Recently, the representation of the artist as an entrepreneur has been presented increasingly in the artistic sector itself, including within art schools and the creative industries. At the same time, the model of the artist as a worker (Pierre-Michel Menger), as part of competitive artistic fields (Pierre Bourdieu), and as embedded in collaborative “art worlds” (Howard Becker), stresses the competitive as well as the collective and collaborative dimension of artistic creation. In regard of these different representations: exactly who are visual artists in Switzerland today? What is or are the self-representation(s) of contemporary visual artists? What are their socio-demographic profiles – notably in terms of gender – and their link to professional or personal trajectories and positions? Do artist...