Historically Responsive Storytelling: How Contemporary Western Theatre is Rediscovering its Roots

Author:   Eleanor Chadwick
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
ISBN:  

9780367547240


Pages:   310
Publication Date:   14 April 2025
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
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Historically Responsive Storytelling: How Contemporary Western Theatre is Rediscovering its Roots


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Overview

This book explores the notion that the emergent language of contemporary theatre, and more generally of modern culture, has links to much earlier forms of storytelling and an ancient worldview. This volume looks at our diverse and amalgamative theatrical inheritance and discusses various practitioners and companies whose work reflects and recapitulates ideas, approaches, and structures original to theatre’s ritual roots. Drawing together a range of topics and examples from the early Middle Ages to the modern day, Chadwick focuses on a theatrical language which includes an emphasis on the psychosomatic, the non-linear, the symbolic, the liminal, the collective, and the sacred. This interdisciplinary work draws on approaches from the fields of anthropology, philosophy, historical and cognitive phenomenology, and neuroscience, making the case for the significance of historically responsive modes in theatre practice and more widely in our society and culture.

Full Product Details

Author:   Eleanor Chadwick
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Weight:   0.590kg
ISBN:  

9780367547240


ISBN 10:   0367547244
Pages:   310
Publication Date:   14 April 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction PART ONE: Looking Back: Tracing Theatre’s Roots Chapter 1. Reaching for the Unknowable: the Human need for Ritual Chapter 2. A Flexible Superstructure: Macrocosm/Microcosm and the Medieval Worldview Chapter 3. The Power of Archetype: Universal-General and Historical-Specific Chapter 4. Time and Space: Hierophany and Imaginative Flexibility PART TWO: Moving Forward: New Historically-Responsive Methods Chapter 5. The Sacred Body-as-Text: from Medieval to Avant-Garde Chapter 6. Seeking Immersion, Finding Connection: the Contemporary Theatre Chapter 7. Theatre in Times of Crisis: the Power of Ancient Forms in Collective Processing Bibliography Index

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Author Information

Eleanor Chadwick is a researcher and theatre maker currently working with Watershed Pervasive Media Studio and University of Bristol on a MyWorld Fellowship. She is also Artistic Director of Sleight of Hand theatre company, and a postdoctoral associate in Theatre and Performance Studies at University of Warwick, UK.

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