Performance And The City

Urban studies has long understood the city as a 'text.' What would it mean now to use performance to rethink that metaphor? Performance and the City queries the role theatre and performance play in urban policy, architecture, and civic history, while also exploring their important place in the memories created in the wake of urban trauma.

Review: 'The publication opens up a relevant perspective for theatre and performance studies as well as allied fields. It emerges at a time when the city, and performance in the city, offer particularly charged experiences.' - Theatre Research International, Stuart Andrews, University of Surrey, UK '...high quality, engaging - and moving - explorations of the relationship between spectators, performers and spaces, written by the best scholars in the field both established and emerging.' - Stephen Johnson, Director, Graduate Centre for Drama, University of Toronto, Canada 'the collection's potential market extends beyond that for traditional theatre and performance studies; each essay intervenes in larger conversations regarding globalization and urban capital production' - Jean Graham-Jones, Professor, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, USA 'Hopkins, Orr and Solga have edited a text which foregrounds the individual's performance of the city. [...

Performance and the City] offers a range of essays that question how the city performs itself, how institutions, organizations and policies perform the city and what role the individual's body might play in this nexus of relationships.' - Lee Miller, University of Plymouth, UK 'a range of essays that question how the city performs itself, how institutions, organizations and policies perform the city and what role the individual's body might play in this nexus of relationships.' - Contemporary Theatre Review With the precision and detail of an A-Z guide, Performance and the City charts the terrain of what performance in the city is and can be.

The sections of the book are extremely well mapped out, giving a clear passage for the reader. The city expands and contracts through the pages of this book. We are allowed access not only from above and down below, but we are also led down side streets, we are shown hidden corners, and we are guided into unknown territories...Hopkins, Orr, and Solga have produced a timely, resonant, and rich collection, highlighting performance and the city as a fertile terrain for exploration and analysis' -Helen Paris, Canadian Theatre Review 'Works by Marvin Carlson, Gay McAuley, Una Chaudhuri, Elinor Fuchs, Leslie Hill, and Helen Paris, to name but a few, have expanded our understanding of how performance relates to the way we move through space and experience a sense of place.

Performance and the City is a valuable contribution to this ever-growing body of scholarship...the editors of this important book hope that it will be the first in a continuing series that looks at a variety of performance trends around the world. I would welcome further studies of other cities that such a series might provide.' - Deirdre O'Leary, Manhattan College, Theatre Journal '...the book is well worth reading and remains memorable for its rich archives and its many local insights into urban issues...these local reflections and insights into the relationship between performance and the urban make Performance and the City well worth reading.' - Sabine Haenni, Cornell University, Modern Drama