Radical Street Performance

Radical Street Performance is the first volume to collect together the fascinating array of writings by activists, directors, performers, critics, scholars and journalists who have documented street theatre around the world. More than thirty essays explore the myriad forms this most public of performances can take: * agit-prop * invisible theatre * demonstrations and rallies * direct action * puppetry * parades and pageants * performance art * guerrilla theatre * circuses These essays look at performaces in Europe, Africa, China, India and both the Americas. They describe engagement with issues as diverse as abortion, colonialism, the environment and homophobia, to name only a few. Introduced by editor Jan Cohen-Cruz, the essays are organized into thematic sections: Agitating; Witnessing; Involving; Imagining; and Popularizing. Radical Street Performance is an inspiring testimony to this international performance phenomenon, and an invaluable record of a form of theatre which continues to flourish in a televisual age.

General introduction; 1: Peter Handke; Part One: Agit-Prop; 1: Introduction; 2: Introduction by Vladimir Tolstoy Documents Edited by Vladimir Tolstoy, Irina Bibikova And Catherine Cooke; 3: Edgar Snow; 4: Safdar Hashmi; 5: Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz; 6: Alisa Solomon; 7: Dubravka Knezevic; Part Two: Witness; 2: Introduction; 8: Steven Durland; 9: Diana Taylor; 10: Marguerite Waller; 11: Jan Cohen-Cruz; 12: Dan Sullivan; 13: Sudipto Chatterjee; 14: Hollis Giammatteo; Part Three: Integration; 3: Introduction; 15: Augusto Boal; 16: Adrian Piper; 17: Lauren Berlant and Elizabeth Freeman; 18: from THE DIMENSION OF SOCIAL EXTERIORITY IN THE PRODUCTION; 19: Living on the Street; 20: from TAKING DIRECT ACTION; Part Four: Utopia; 4: Introduction; 21: from Triumph Des Willens (Triumph of the Will, 1935); 22: Notes on Political Street Theatre, Paris; 23: from Letter from the South of Italy; 24: America has more Television Sets than Toilets; 25: from The Street is the Stages; 26: from The Celebratory Performance of John fox and Welfare State International; Part Five: Tradition; 5: Introduction; 27: Health Theatre in a Hmong Refugee Camp; 28: Communal Space and Performance in Africa; 29: from The Language of African Theatre; 30: from EL Teatro Campesino and the Mexican Popular Performance Tradition; 31: The Taumbayan as Epic Hero,the Audience as Community; 32: A Queer Circus Amok in New York; 33: Louder than Traffic Bread and Puppet Parades; 34: Notes toward an Unwritten History of Anti-apartheid Street Performance