Movement provides the first overview of relevant critical theory for students and researchers in theatre and performance studies. Exploring areas such as kinesthesia, gestic acting, rhythm and affect, this volume opens up the study of theatrical production, live art and intercultural performance to socio-political conceptions of movement as both practice and concept. It covers movement training systems and considers how they have been utilized in key works of the 20th and 21st centuries. The final section traces the convergence of movement in theatre with other media and digital technologies. By way of developed case studies, readers access new methodologies and approaches for their own exploration of 'movement' as a performance component. In an engagement with the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of movement studies, this book introduces theatre and performance studies scholars and students to new work important to the field.
Among the case studies included are: Katie Mitchell's The Trojan Women, contemporary productions of Strindberg's Miss Julie, and Thomas Ostermeier's production of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. In the second part - Movement Systems and Embodied Action - Fensham examines Kurt Jooss's choreography of the Green Table (1932), the Berliner Ensemble's Mother Courage (1949), The Constant Prince (1965) performed by Ryzsard Cieslak, and Complicite's Encounter. Section three - Movement in Contemporary Theatre - considers the Wooster Group's Hamlet, Takao Kawaguchi's About Kazuo Ohno and Caryl Churchill's Love and Information. This volume is supported by further online resources including illustrative material, questions and exercises.