Springer International Performance Research Pedagogies: Towards an Unconditional Discipline?

This book offers a unique and much-needed interrogation of the broader questions surrounding international performance research which are pertinent to the present and the future of Theatre and Performance studies. Marking the completion of eight years of the Erasmus Mundus MA Programme in International Performance Research (MAIPR) - a programme run jointly by the universities of Warwick (UK), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Helsinki/Tampere (Finland), Arts in Belgrade (Serbia), and Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) - the essays in this volume take stock of the achievements, insights and challenges of what international performance research is or ought to be about. By reflecting on the discipline of Performance Studies using the MAIPR programme as a case study in point, the volume addresses the broader question of the critical link between the discipline of Performance Studies and humanities education in general, examining their interactions in the contemporary university in the context of globalisation. Review “From 2008 to 2015, the European Union funded an experiment conducted at the pedagogical intersection of research of international performance and practice-informed research: the Erasmus Mundus MA Programme in International Performance Research. This volume provides readers with a nuanced and varied chronicle of experiences and reflections from MAIPR alumni, core staff and visiting experts. Even more imperatively, it encourages us to reflect upon our own engagements with, misgivings about and dreams for the global university. It is my fervent hope that MAIPR’s conjoined pedagogy of creativity and literacy stand not as an exceptional moment but as one of multiple roadmaps for arts and humanities education in the twenty-first century.” (Jean Graham-Jones, Professor of Theatre, Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages, and Comparative Literature, City University of New York, USA) “This volume asks an important question: How do we think about and through a truly international education in performance research that counters Neoliberal modes of value while avoiding nostalgia for a European enlightenment model of education? International Performance Research Pedagogies offers a series of possible answers through a rigorous set of essays focusing on pedagogy and research within European university collaborations, arguing for performance as an unconditional discipline. This collection is rich, timely, and important in a time of crisis for international education, offering hope and challenge through the unique contribution of embodied performance research.” (Patricia Ybarra, Chair and Associate Professor of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, Brown University, Rhode Island, USA) “How do we ‘walk our talk’ or perform what we profess as radical educators in the field of theatre and performance research? Often our ideas about the politics of knowledge production come undone in the training of new practitioners and scholars. Given the field’s fluidity and refusal to be an ‘unconditional discipline’, what might a ‘performative’ pedagogy be like? How can it truly model or embody an ‘equality of intelligences’ and knowledges especially in an international context that is well beyond the West-Rest divide? The book offers grounded and very practical but critically insightful and honest answers to these difficult questions as it shares concrete experiences at the classroom level in an international collaborative programme.” (Jazmin Llana, Associate Professor of Drama, Theatre and Performance, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines) From the Back Cover This book offers a unique and much-needed interrogation of the broader questions surrounding international performance research which are pertinent to the present and the future of Theatre and Performance studies. Marking the completion of eight years of the Erasmus Mundus MA Programme in International Performance Research (MAIPR) -