Introduction:Theatre, Performance and Commemoration

How is theatre, by its very nature, commemorative? How, and why, does theatre centralize commemoration as a performative, conceptual, historical and political site from which to interrogate the inherent utopia and dysfunction of nationhood? Throughout these intersecting lineages of theatrical process and cultural production, how does selfhood, in its personal and public adaptations, become so committedly embroiled in this gesture of creative articulation and reference? This volume addresses these questions, noting the connections that converge across distinct forms of knowledge and disciplinary structures but which remain invested in ties of ritual and relationality through the event of theatre, a public and communal spectacle of imagining.Commemoration refers to the relationship between the past and the present, relying on symbols of ritual and relationality to reassert certain value systems within the social fabric. Nationhood, and the various crises it reflects and produces throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in the main, constitutes the starting point of this volume’s enquiry. The responses generated by this project traverse a broad spectrum of narratives pertaining to macro and micro histories and memories on the stage that span established knowledge, tacit and haptic interactions, myth and legend, as well as the lesser-known or marginalized experiences. As the contemporary moment increasingly foregrounds a certain performativity of nationhood dominated by crisis, spectacle and discrimination, the discourse of nationhood – politically and philosophically – becomes urgent and, at times, overwhelming, in everyday contexts

Think outside my box: Staging respectability and responsibility in Ireland's Repeal the 8th Referendum

This article argues that the targeting of certain narratives of womanhood, those deemed ‘respectable’ and ‘responsible’, operated as a key performative and affective strategy during the Irish 2018 Referendum on the 8th Amendment of the Irish Constitution. When the Referendum to ‘repeal the 8th’ amendment was announced, both pro-choice and pro-life campaigns affiliated themselves with idealised imagery, narratives and performative strategies that focused on outdated patriarchal heterosexual constructions of ‘good’ women, i.e., respectable and responsible women, with the intention of convincing middle-ground voters. Pro-life and pro-choice campaigns in Ireland are deeply oppositional; that both sides identify the performativity of respectability and responsibility as the most influential narrative to convince the electorate signals that the conception of embodied womanhood and the traditional heterosexual family remains inextricably linked with idealised nationhood, entrenched with ideological, affective, political, cultural, and personal power. ‘Think Outside My Box’ is a call to cut ties that intersect with the foundational myth of modern Irish nationhood, and, female embodiment and representation in the twenty-first century

\u27Perform, or Else!\u27

This latest issue of Irish Theatre International bridges the discourses of theatre practice and research with that of performance studies, and also with the ways in which social, economic, political and cultural activities perform their needs and demands. Recent decades honed these links through the ‘turn to performance’ markedly explored in the US since the 1960s, as ideas of play, ritual, and performativity flowered and cross-pollinated the humanities and indeed, scientific disciplines, crossing shores and attracting a global reach. This bridge specifically locates these interdisciplinary enquiries in the context of neoliberal economic cultures pervading the western world and further afield, produced and managed under the costume of ‘freedom’. Neoliberal engineers and advocates argue for the economic and social benefits such policies offer, foregrounding their argument around the notion of ‘freedom’. Freedom is a human right, a moral imperative, and a symbol of progress in civilization. As David Harvey summarizes, ‘The founding figures of neoliberal thought took political ideals of human dignity and individual freedom as fundamental, as “the central values of civilization” […] These values, they held, were threatened not only by fascism, dictatorships, and communism, but by all forms of state intervention that substituted collective judgements for those of individuals free to choose’ (A Brief History of Neoliberalism [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005], p. 5)

\u27Perform, or Else!\u27

This latest issue of Irish Theatre International bridges the discourses of theatre practice and research with that of performance studies, and also with the ways in which social, economic, political and cultural activities perform their needs and demands. Recent decades honed these links through the ‘turn to performance’ markedly explored in the US since the 1960s, as ideas of play, ritual, and performativity flowered and cross-pollinated the humanities and indeed, scientific disciplines, crossing shores and attracting a global reach. This bridge specifically locates these interdisciplinary enquiries in the context of neoliberal economic cultures pervading the western world and further afield, produced and managed under the costume of ‘freedom’. Neoliberal engineers and advocates argue for the economic and social benefits such policies offer, foregrounding their argument around the notion of ‘freedom’. Freedom is a human right, a moral imperative, and a symbol of progress in civilization. As David Harvey summarizes, ‘The founding figures of neoliberal thought took political ideals of human dignity and individual freedom as fundamental, as “the central values of civilization” […] These values, they held, were threatened not only by fascism, dictatorships, and communism, but by all forms of state intervention that substituted collective judgements for those of individuals free to choose’ (A Brief History of Neoliberalism [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005], p. 5)

Theatre, performance and commemoration : staging crisis, memory and nationhood

Seri Sejarah Budaya Teater dan Pertunjukan Bloomsbury mengakui Pengetahuan sejarah itu selalu diperebutkan dan direvisi. Sejak pergantian Abad kedua puluh satu, transformasi pemahaman konvensional tentang budaya diciptakan melalui realitas politik baru dan teknologi komunikasi, bersama dengan Pergeseran paradigma dalam antropologi, psikologi dan bidang serumpun lainnya, telah menantang metodologi dan cara berpikir yang mapan tentang bagaimana kita melakukan sejarah.Serial merangkul volume yang mengambil tantangan tersebut, sambil memperbesar gagasan teater dan kinerja melalui representasi pengalaman hidup dari kinerja masa lalu pembuat dan penonton. Tujuan serial ini adalah untuk menjadi inklusif dan ekspansif, termasuk studi tentang topik yang berkisar secara temporal dan spasial, dari yang spesifik secara lokal hingga antarbudaya dan transnasional