Visuality in the Theatre

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

   PDF

2. Dissecting Visuality in the Theatre — Introduction

   • Maaike Bleeker

   Pages 1-18

3. Step Inside!

   • Maaike Bleeker

   Pages 19-40

4. Showing What Cannot Be Seen

   • Maaike Bleeker

   Pages 41-62

5. Walking the Landscape Stage

   • Maaike Bleeker

   Pages 63-79

6. Navel Gazing as Critical Practice

   • Maaike Bleeker

   Pages 80-97

7. Retheatricalizing Sexuality in the Field of Vision

   • Maaike Bleeker

   Pages 98-119

8. Disorders That Consciousness Can Produce

   • Maaike Bleeker

   Pages 120-145

9. Death, Digitalization and Dys-Appearance

   • Maaike Bleeker

   Pages 146-159

10. Managing the Attention of the Audience

    • Maaike Bleeker

    Pages 160-177

11. Welcome to What You Think You See

    • Maaike Bleeker

    Pages 178-198

12. Back Matter

    Pages 199-228

    PDF

This book presents an exploration of the under-explored terrain of visuality, demonstrating the use of new theoretical insights into vision for the analysis of theatre and performance and simultaneously shows theatre and performance to be an excellent 'theoretical object' for exploring the cultural, historical and embodied character of visuality.

• consciousness
• cultural difference
• death
• drama
• performance
• Plato
• subject
• theatre

'This study by Dutch theatre and performance scholar Maaike Bleeker is an important work. Its subject - visuality within theatre and performance studies - is new and in many respects Bleeker is quite literally defining a field. Her book provides critical and theoretical tools with which to analyse and better understand postdramatic theatre as part of today's visual culture.' - Professor Christopher Balme, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munich

'The book's major contribution is to use theories of vision to track the mid-twentieth century shift from the avant-garde sublation of art and the everyday to a postmodern, deconstructive method a step towards addressing a curious oversight in theatre and performance studies: the absence of a convincing account of what we do when we look at events in the theatre.'- Dominic Johnson, Queen Mary University of London, Theatre Research International

MAAIKE BLEEKER is Professor of Theatre Studies at Utrecht University, Netherlands. She has previously lectured at the School for New Dance Development, the Piet Zwart postgraduate programme in Fine Arts and the Department of Theatre Studies at the University of Amsterdam. She also works as a dramaturg for various theatre directors, choreographers and visual artists.

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