27.12.12

Laura Cull - Theatres of Immanence. Deleuze and the ethics of performance - Palgrave Macmillan, Uk, October 2012


Theatres of Immanence: Deleuze and the Ethics of Performance is the first monograph to provide an in-depth study of the implications of Gilles Deleuze's philosophy for theatre and performance. Engaging with a wide range of interdisciplinary practitioners including Goat Island, Butoh, Artaud, John Cage, the Living Theatre, Robert Wilson and Allan Kaprow, as well as with the philosophies of Deleuze and Guattari, Henri Bergson and François Laruelle, the book conceives performance as a way of thinking 'immanence': the open and endlessly creative whole of which all things are a part. 

Theatres of Immanence builds upon Deleuze's emphasis on immanence, affect, change and movement to provide new approaches to five key topics in theatre and performance: 1) authorship and collaboration, 2) voice and language, 3) animals in performance, 4) audience participation and 5) time or duration. The book provides an accessible introduction to Deleuze's ideas and draws attention to the ethical dimensions of performance, asking: 'what good is theatre, and particularly immanent theatre, anyway?'


Contents: Immanent Authorship: From the Living Theatre to Cage and Goat Island
Disorganizing Language, Voicing Minority: From Artaud to Carmelo Bene, Robert Wilson & Georges Lavaudant
Immanent Imitations, Animal Affects: From Hijikata Tatsumi to Marcus Coates
Paying Attention, Participating in the Whole: Allan Kaprow Alongside Lygia Clark
Ethical Durations,Opening to Other Times: Returning to Goat Island with Wilson
In-Conclusion: What 'Good' is Immanent Theatre? Immanence as an Ethico-aesthetic Value


LAURA CULL is Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies at the University of Surrey, UK. She is editor of Deleuze and Performance(2009) and co-editor with Karoline Gritzner of On Philosophy and Participation (2011) – an issue of the journal Performance Research. She has published chapters on Deleuze and performance in the edited collections Deleuze and Ethics andContemporary French Theatre (both, 2011) and a range of articles on Performance and Philosophy including in Theatre Research International (2009 & 2012). Laura is Secretary of Performance Studies international (PSi) and the founder and Chair of the PSi Performance and Philosophy working group.


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