Contemporary street arts in Europe : aesthetics and politics / Susan C. Haedicke.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Haedicke, Susan C.

Series:

Studies in international performance

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Street theater--Europe.

Street theater.

Street theater--Political aspects--Europe.

Europe.

Physical Description:

xiii, 228 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Summary:

The series Studies in International Performance edited by Janelle Reinelt and Brian Singleton is the winner of the 2012 ATHE Excellence in Editing Award.

Street theatre invades a public space, shakes it up and disappears, but the memory of the disruption haunts the site for audiences who experience it. The artists seek to interrupt daily life, startle onlookers with an inversion of a familiar place and quotidian activities, and test the limits of what they can do in public and what they can encourage the public to do. Street theatre does more than offer outdoor entertainment; it frames the public space and the everyday with art. This book interrogates whether street arts acquire a socio-political significance as they offer the public the opportunity to view daily life through a lens of art and to re-evaluate the meaning and function of quotidian activities and urban spaces. It asks whether the dynamic interrelationship of performance, participant and place creates a unique politicized aesthetic of public space that, in turn, enables the public to rehearse democratic practices. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction: aesthetics and politics of street arts interventions

Looking back: a socio-historical and intellectual context for contemporary street arts in Europe

Democratic performatives and an aesthetics of public space

Performing democracy on a grand scale

Trespassing in urban places

Subversive imaginaries: performing the other

Community performance: community performatives

Postscript: beyond the street.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780230220263

0230220266

OCLC:

798615479