European Performative Theatre

Performative theatre is one of the most important trends of our time. It is emblematic of the work of many European theatrical artists in the early twenty-first century. Annamaria Cascetta does not propose a model or a historical overview, but rather strives to identify the salient features of a significant trend in the theatrical research and transformation of our time by analysing some crucial examples from outstanding works, of great international resonance. She draws on work by artists from different generations, all active between the late twentieth century and the first decades of the twenty-first, and in various European countries, performed in a number of European theatres in recent years. The aim is to apply a method of analysis in depth, bringing out the technical elements of contemporary "performative theatre" in the field, and above all to highlight the close links between it and the urgent and troubled issues and problems of history and society in the phase of cultural and anthropological transition we are experiencing.

Annamaria Cascetta is past full professor of History of Theatre and Performing Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy at Università Cattolica in Milan (Italy). She is member of the executive committee of the international Accademia Ambrosiana (area Borromean Studies) and member of the executive committee of CIT (Centro di cultura e di iniziativa teatrale) "Mario Apollonio", which she founded in 2008 and directed until 2013. She is co-director of the series Canone teatrale europeo/Canon of European Drama. She is author or editor of numerous books on the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italian Theatre and twentieth-century European theatre (Modern European Tragedy, 2013). At present she is working on several research projects, including FUCE (European Humanism in Making) - Brussels.

INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1 The human journey. Odyssey by Robert Wilson. CHAPTER 2 A journey into mind and brain. From Je suis un phénomène to The Valley of Astonishment by Peter Brook. CHAPTER 3 Upending tradition: Christ and Aeschylus irrelevant? Romeo Castellucci's Orestea and Sul concetto di volto nel figlio di Dio. CHAPTER 4 Christ's legacy: Golgota Picnic by Rodrigo Garcia: starting again from man or drowning in nothingness? CHAPTER 5 Anna Castoldi and Francesco Marzano: How to live together? From militarism and authoritarianism to the weapon of joy in Gaudeamus by Lev Dodin. CHAPTER 6 A school of democracy for an ever-changing identity: The Blind Poet by Jan Lauwers and Ça ira by Joël Pommerat. CHAPTER 7 Migration, artificiality and the city on the axis of time: Bodenprobe Kazachstan and Remote X (Remote Milano) by Rimini Protokoll. CHAPTER 8 Oh What a Lovely War by Joan Littlewood: The prophecy of a pioneer artist. CHAPTER 9 The body's dignity regained: MDLSX by Enrico Casagrande, Daniela Nicolò and Silvia Calderoni (Motos) and Bestie di scena by Emma Dante. CHAPTER 10 The beautiful and the true: from Orchidee to Vangelo, the salvational itinerary of Pippo Delbono. PHOTOS