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World Political Theatre and Performance: Theories, Histories, Practices is the second collection of essays to emerge from the Political Performances Working Group at the International Federation for Theatre Research. Bringing together scholars and practitioners from multiple locations, the book analyses a range of examples – historical and contemporary – of counter-hegemonic theatre and performance.
Part 1 offers a diachronic view of the relationship between activism and performance; Part 2 focuses on the changing nature of what constitutes ‘political theatre’ today. Case studies from Finland to India and from Chile to China are framed by section introductions that underline both commonalities and tensions, while the general introduction reflects on what a radical practice can look like in the face of global neoliberalism.

Contributors: Julia Boll, Paola Botham, Marco Galea, Aneta Głowacka, Pujya Ghosh, Camila González Ortiz, Bérénice Hamidi-Kim, Fatine Bahar Karlıdağ, Madli Pesti, José Ramón Prado-Pérez, Trish Reid, Mikko-Olavi Seppälä, Andy Smith, Evi Stamatiou, Wei Zheyu.
In: World Political Theatre and Performance
In: World Political Theatre and Performance
In: World Political Theatre and Performance
In: World Political Theatre and Performance
In: World Political Theatre and Performance
In: World Political Theatre and Performance

Abstract

As part of local Labor Day celebrations in the Turkish city of Eskişehir, union workers utilized a desolate film-set replica of Istanbul’s iconic Taksim Square to stage their protest against the ban on entering Taksim on such a resonant date. This essay explores the performance aspects of this event, held from 2013 to 2015, enquiring about the power of space to promote social and political activism by mimicking both an actual place (Taksim Square) and a fictional space of rehearsal and production (a theatre stage). Following Scott Magelssen’s theory of simming, the chapter analyses the processes of meaning-making and the emancipatory dimension of the episode, understood as an upcycled relic of capitalist cultural production. Despite the progressive nature of the event, which suggested the empowering potential to construct social places from excess cultural products, the Turkish working class rejected that novel expressive experience and returned to the former institutional celebrations.

In: World Political Theatre and Performance