The Radical in Performance investigates the crisis in contemporary theatre, and celebrates the subversive in performance. It is the first full-length study to explore the link between a western theatre which, says Kershaw, is largely outdated and the blossoming of postmodern performance, much of which has a genuinely radical edge. In staying focused on the period between Brecht and Baudrillard, modernity and postmodernism, Baz Kershaw identifies crucial resources for the revitalisation of the radical across a wide spectrum of cultural practices. This is a timely, necessary and rigorous book. It will be a compelling read for anyone searching for a critical catalyst for new ways of viewing and practising cultural politics.

Addresses fundamental questions about the social and political purposes of performance through an investigation of post-war alternative and community theatre. A detailed analysis of oppositional theatre as radical cultural practice.

The Radical in Performance investigates the crisis in contemporary theatre, and celebrates the subversive in performance. It is the first full-length study to explore the link between a western theatre which, says Kershaw, is largely outdated and the blossoming of postmodern performance, much of which has a genuinely radical edge. In staying focused on the period between Brecht and Baudrillard, modernity and postmodernism, Baz Kershaw identifies crucial resources for the revitalisation of the radical across a wide spectrum of cultural practices. This is a timely, necessary and rigorous book. It will be a compelling read for anyone searching for a critical catalyst for new ways of viewing and practising cultural politics.

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.

Assembling a remarkable group of scholars, these essays explore how the circulation and exchange of 'vectors of the radical' shape the avant-garde. Mapping the movement of scripts, theatre activists, performances, and other material entities, they provide unprecedented perspectives on the transnational performance culture of the avant-garde.

"Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art, the first comprehensive survey of performance art by black visual artists. While black performance has been largely contextualized as an extension of theater, visual artists have integrated performance into their work for over five decades, generating a repository of performance work that has gone largely unrecognized until now. Radical Presence provides a critical framework to discuss the history of black performance traditions within the visual arts beginning with the "happenings" of the early 1960s, throughout the 1980s, and into the present practices of contemporary artists."--Publisher's website

The period from the mid-1930s to the end of the 1950s in India saw the cultural expression of a wide range of political sentiments and positions around imperialism, fascism, nationalism, and social transformation. It was a period that covered a crucial transitional phase: from colonialism to a postcolonial context. This transitional period in India coincided with a vibrant radical ethos in many other parts of the world where, among numerous political issues, the aesthetics-politics relationship came to be articulated and debated in unprecedented ways. No history of this period can be written without giving an account of the departures, inventions, and reinventions made by the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) in the fields of drama, music, and dance. Yet music, a very important part of the IPTA's creations as well as the connecting link between the various artistic forms, has not been studied as part of the history of the IPTA movement. This book attempts to fill this gap in knowledge about the vast musical repertoire of the IPTA. It is about the IPTA tradition's music in a national as well as specifically regional contexts (Bengali, Malayalam, Telugu, Assamese, and Hindu/Urdu in particular), situated within the overall cultural and political context of the transitional period in India, and in the context of a radical impulse emergent in many parts of the world from the beginning of the twentieth century. The book is the culmination of an archiving-cum-documentation project of music in the IPTA tradition undertaken by the author. It can also be read as a songbook, including lyrics and musical scores, revivifying the songs and music of a radical impulse in South Asia.