Contours of the Theatrical Avant-Garde

by Harding, James M.

• ISBN13: 9780472067275
• ISBN10: 0472067273
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-07-01
• Publisher: Univ of Michigan Pr

Summary

This collection of essays explores the development of avant-garde theater and its relation to questions of textuality, authority, and the academy. Although the canon of modern and contemporary drama would be difficult to imagine without the influential legacy of the movements and strands of the historical avant-garde, this critical history is often overlooked in courses on modern and contemporary drama and theater. Though primarily focusing on issues of textuality and performance, the essays regard the antitextualism of the avant-garde as indicative of the wide variety of anti-cultural sentiments that have characterized avant-garde performance. The volume begins with the anti-textual sentiments of the avant-garde, then offers antitextual models, explores specific performances, and ends with a critical analysis of the avant-garde. Uniting the array of opinions articulated is a belief that despite the problems that haunt the traditions of avant-garde theater, it can nonetheless offer continued valuable insights into the industries of literature, theater, scholarship, and culture. James M. Harding is Assistant Professor of English, Mary Washington College. He is author ofAdorno and a"Writing of the Ruins."

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(15)
James M. Harding
PART I. Text and Antitext in the Historical Avant-Garde
Text and Violence: Performance Practices of the Modernist Avant-Garde	15	(28)
Laurence Senelick
Antonin Artaud and the Authority of Text, Spectacle, and Performance	43	(15)
David Graver
Text/Pre-Text/Pretext: The Language of Avant-Garde Experiment	58	(21)
Christopher Innes
PART II. Theorizing Antitext and Beyond
The Avant-Garde and the Semiotics of the Antitextual Gesture	79	(17)
Erika Fischer-Lichte
Which Theories for Which Mise-en-Scenes?	96	(14)
Patrice Pavis
Fluxus Art-Amusement: The Music of the Future?	110	(20)
Philip Auslander
``Mais je dis le chaos positif'': Leaky Texts, Parasited Performances, and Maxwellian Academons	130	(27)
Michael Vanden Heuvel
PART III. Textual Spaces, Theatrical Spaces, and Avant-Garde Performance
Bad Memory: Text, Commodity, Happenings	157	(19)
Mike Sell
Dissent behind the Barricades: Radical Art, Revolutionary Stages, and Avant-Garde Divisions	176	(26)
James M. Harding
An Interview with Richard Schechner	202	(15)
James M. Harding
PART IV. Reflections on the Institutions of the Avant-Garde
Institutionalizing Avant-Garde Performance: A Hidden History of University Patronage in the United States	217	(22)
Sally Banes
Never Enough Is Something Else: Feminist Performance Art, Avant-Gardes, and Probity	239	(52)
Kristine Stiles
Index	291