Making Interdisciplinary Performance
Processes and Practices in Collaboration
Published on 15. May 2025
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-1-350-31852-6 (ISBN)
Description
This collection offers an examination of and guide to interdisciplinary collaboration through the working practices of performance makers, exploring its pleasures, problems and pitfalls.
The book explores contemporary working practices at the interfaces between performance and other disciplines. Focusing on collaborations between theatre makers and these 'others', it investigates the processes and conditions involved in the interdisciplinary. Chapters cover areas such as psychology, the environment, physical cultures, the military, healthcare, festivals and communities, architecture, pedagogy and fine dining.
At a time when interdisciplinary practice is actively encouraged in the academy, this book asks what it means in practical terms to engage with artists and scholars outside of our home territories. Where does the interdisciplinary exist and what does it rely on? How do theatre makers approach and sustain these projects? What is the nature of the journey?
Offering examples of unusual collaborations and arranged through 3 key areas of performance-making, this book acknowledges the difficulties of such work and that the aims of interdisciplinarity can fail, while examining how new methods and understandings can shift notions of knowledge.
The book explores contemporary working practices at the interfaces between performance and other disciplines. Focusing on collaborations between theatre makers and these 'others', it investigates the processes and conditions involved in the interdisciplinary. Chapters cover areas such as psychology, the environment, physical cultures, the military, healthcare, festivals and communities, architecture, pedagogy and fine dining.
At a time when interdisciplinary practice is actively encouraged in the academy, this book asks what it means in practical terms to engage with artists and scholars outside of our home territories. Where does the interdisciplinary exist and what does it rely on? How do theatre makers approach and sustain these projects? What is the nature of the journey?
Offering examples of unusual collaborations and arranged through 3 key areas of performance-making, this book acknowledges the difficulties of such work and that the aims of interdisciplinarity can fail, while examining how new methods and understandings can shift notions of knowledge.
Reviews / Votes
Making Interdisciplinary Performance brings together fascinating contributions from practitioners, scholars and educators (and those who combine these in various ways) who explore the mess, playfulness and complexity of making work across conventional boundaries. It will be of value to those who want a pragmatic and reflective account of both methods and understandings of interdisciplinarity. * Paul Johnson, University of Chester, UK *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
12 bw illus
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 145 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
497 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-350-31852-6 (9781350318526)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Gianna Bouchard is Professor of Contemporary Performance at the University of Birmingham, UK. Her interdisciplinary research explores the interface between medicine and performance. She is the author of Performing Specimens: Biomedical Display in Contemporary Performance (Methuen Drama, 2020).
Adam J. Ledger is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Birmingham, UK. He has published widely on performance practices, including The Director and Directing: Craft, Process and Aesthetic in Contemporary Theatre and on Eugenio Barba for the Great European Stage Directors series (Methuen Drama, 2018).
Adam J. Ledger is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Birmingham, UK. He has published widely on performance practices, including The Director and Directing: Craft, Process and Aesthetic in Contemporary Theatre and on Eugenio Barba for the Great European Stage Directors series (Methuen Drama, 2018).
Content
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction, Gianna Bouchard and Adam J. Ledger (University of Birmingham, UK)
Part One: Journeys and Permeating
1. Lessons Learned in Other People's Classrooms Alexander Kelly (Leeds School of Arts & Third Angel, UK)
2. What is the Work For?: Complexities, Collaboration and Commodification in Performance-making: Adam J. Ledger (University of Birmingham, UK)
3. Crossing the Bridge: From Artist to Psychologist, Hannah Newman (University of Surrey, UK)
Part Two: Performance and Other Spaces
4. Performance in the Restaurant: Fine Dining and the Confluence of Disciplinary Approaches and Practices, Paul Geary (University of East Anglia, UK)
5. The Productive Ward: Interdisciplinary Collaboration with/in the Disciplined Space, Alex Mermikides (King's College London, UK)
6. Notes from the In Between, Suzy Willson (Clod Ensemble, UK)
7. Chodzenie-Siberia: Undisciplined Encounters on the High Street, Mehrdad Seyf (Public Works / 30 Bird, UK)
Part Three: Performance and Pedagogies
8. Le Laboratoire d'Etude du Mouvement (LEM) - A Space for Interdisciplinarity, Mark Evans (Coventry University, UK), Aurelian Koch (Freelance Theatre Designer, Teacher and Performer) and Amy Russell (Founder and Director of Embodied Poetics)
9. Interdisciplinarity at the Bottom of the World: Designing New Performance-led Curriculum, Kathleen Williams and Meg Keating (University of Tasmania)
10. Interdisciplinary Performance Pedagogy: Undoing Mastery in the Studio, Gianna Bouchard (University of Birmingham, UK)
11. 'When the Students Entered the Stage, they were actors': Students, Educators, Artists and Spectators as Ensemble, Tatiana Chemi & Kristian Firing (Aalborg University, Denmark)
Index
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction, Gianna Bouchard and Adam J. Ledger (University of Birmingham, UK)
Part One: Journeys and Permeating
1. Lessons Learned in Other People's Classrooms Alexander Kelly (Leeds School of Arts & Third Angel, UK)
2. What is the Work For?: Complexities, Collaboration and Commodification in Performance-making: Adam J. Ledger (University of Birmingham, UK)
3. Crossing the Bridge: From Artist to Psychologist, Hannah Newman (University of Surrey, UK)
Part Two: Performance and Other Spaces
4. Performance in the Restaurant: Fine Dining and the Confluence of Disciplinary Approaches and Practices, Paul Geary (University of East Anglia, UK)
5. The Productive Ward: Interdisciplinary Collaboration with/in the Disciplined Space, Alex Mermikides (King's College London, UK)
6. Notes from the In Between, Suzy Willson (Clod Ensemble, UK)
7. Chodzenie-Siberia: Undisciplined Encounters on the High Street, Mehrdad Seyf (Public Works / 30 Bird, UK)
Part Three: Performance and Pedagogies
8. Le Laboratoire d'Etude du Mouvement (LEM) - A Space for Interdisciplinarity, Mark Evans (Coventry University, UK), Aurelian Koch (Freelance Theatre Designer, Teacher and Performer) and Amy Russell (Founder and Director of Embodied Poetics)
9. Interdisciplinarity at the Bottom of the World: Designing New Performance-led Curriculum, Kathleen Williams and Meg Keating (University of Tasmania)
10. Interdisciplinary Performance Pedagogy: Undoing Mastery in the Studio, Gianna Bouchard (University of Birmingham, UK)
11. 'When the Students Entered the Stage, they were actors': Students, Educators, Artists and Spectators as Ensemble, Tatiana Chemi & Kristian Firing (Aalborg University, Denmark)
Index