Contemporary Performance Translation
Challenges and Opportunities for the Global Stage
Published on 14. May 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
196 pages
978-1-009-18013-9 (ISBN)
Description
Radically rethinking translation for the contemporary international stage, Jean Graham-Jones interrogates standard linguistic and cultural categories and proposes an overhaul of the translation process itself, incorporating dramaturgical logic and staging, actor training and performance styles, gesture and embodiment, and performance aesthetics and reception. She demonstrates how a theory of translationality - in which translations do not erase the original but rather stand in relation to it and to other texts and performances - encapsulates the collaborative process between contemporary translators and theatre artists. Presenting multiple experiential cases and drawing on Graham-Jones's own career as a translator, actor, director and scholar working in Argentina, the US, and the UK, this richly interdisciplinary work extends a traditional understanding of contemporary performance translation and its potential in theatrical practice.
Reviews / Votes
'This is a book that is imbued with intellectual and creative generosity, taking the reader on a journey through Graham-Jones's practice that, as the title suggests, challenges ways of thinking about performance and translation, and proposes ways in which we enact translation knowledge and practice in different environments. ... The book is full of inspiring instances of how to move beyond the textual in translation and is translational in its agile movement across disciplines and practice and its evidencing of the complexity, challenges and potential of the approach. The book is a fascinating and enlightening account of a life's work as educator, academic, translator, performer, theatre spectator, all of which feed into the experiences from which the analysis arises.' Catherine Boyle, The MercurianMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 11 mm
Weight
295 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-009-18013-9 (9781009180139)
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
Other editions
Additional editions
Jean Graham-Jones
Contemporary Performance Translation
Challenges and Opportunities for the Global Stage
Book
12/2024
Cambridge University Press
€114.50
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Jean Graham-Jones is Lucille Lortel Professor of Theatre at the City University of New York's Graduate Center. A theatre artist and scholar, she has translated into English some two dozen plays by Argentinian artists (in five edited collections) and published widely on Latin American (especially Argentinian) theatre and performance.
Content
Introduction: translationality and the impossible necessity of contemporary performance translation; 1. Translationality in performance; 2. The over-translated, the under-translated, the untranslatable, and the limits of performance translation; 3. Translationality and the 'Atypical Actor' in performance; 4. Translationality and the decolonial gesture in performance; Conclusion: The Translator as Coyote-Scholar / Teacher / Artist, Translationally; Bibliography; Index.