South African Theatre and the Politics of the Improvisatory

Yarrow, Ralph (2019) South African Theatre and the Politics of the Improvisatory. In: Forays into Contemporary South African Theatre. Brill, Leiden & Boston:, pp. 143-163. ISBN 978-90-04-41445-7

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Abstract

This essay explores, with reference to South African theatre practice from the 1980s to the present, ways in which the capacity to be in a state of improvisation has resonances for political, existential, psychological and social performativity, agency and responsibility. Much improvisatory practice is concerned with ways in which the body, in and as performance, remembers and/or composes meaning. The essay traces the improvisatory (a condition rather than a single outcome) across different modes: from resistance to “formal hybridity,” moving towards a theatre rich in physical immediacy, and evoking a refusal to avoid trauma or pain as direct experience, engendered in and transmitted by the body in action, which operates a multi-layered presencing of history.

Item Type:	Book Section
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	20 May 2021 23:39
Last Modified:	14 Jul 2022 14:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/80059
DOI:	10.1163/9789004414464_010

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