Meaning in the Midst of Performance: Contradictions of Participation (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies) - Softcover

White, Gareth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1032660961 ISBN 13: 9781032660967

Publisher: Routledge, 2025

Synopsis

Being an audience participant can be a confusing and contradictory experience. When a performance requires us to do things, we are put in the situation of being both actor and spectator, of being part of the work of art while also being the audience who receives it, and of being both perceiving subject and aesthetic object. This book examines these contradictions – and many others – as they appear by accident and by design in increasingly popular forms of interactive, immersive, and participatory performance in theatre and live art.

Borrowing concepts from cognitive philosophy and bringing them into a conversation with critical theory, Gareth White sharply examines meaning as a process that happens to us as we are engaged in the problems and negotiations of a participatory performance.

This study will be of great interest to scholars and students of theatre and performance, intermedial arts and games studies, and to practising artists.

About this title

About the Author

Gareth White is Reader in Theatre and Performance at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, UK.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1032660961
• ISBN 13: 9781032660967
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 196