Performing Indigenous Identities on the Contemporary Australian Stage

Land, People, Culture
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-032-09026-9
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 208 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 324 g

Over the past 50 years, Indigenous Australian theatre practice has emerged as a dynamic site for the discursive reflection of culture and tradition as well as colonial legacies, leveraging the power of storytelling to create and advocate contemporary fluid conceptions of Indigeneity.

Performing Indigenous Identities on the Contemporary Australian Stage offers a window into the history and diversity of this vigorous practice. It introduces the reader to cornerstones of Indigenous Australian cultural frameworks and on this backdrop discusses a wealth of plays in light of their responses to contemporary Australian identity politics. The in-depth readings of two landmark theatre productions, Scott Rankin’s Namatjira (2010) and Wesley Enoch & Anita Heiss’ I Am Eora (2012), trace the artists’ engagement with questions of community consolidation and national reconciliation, carefully considering the implications of their propositions for identity work arising from the translation of traditional ontologies into contemporary orientations. The analyses of the dramatic texts are incrementally enriched by a dense reflection of the production and reception contexts of the plays, providing an expanded framework for the critical consideration of contemporary postcolonial theatre practice that allows for a well-founded appreciation of the strengths yet also pointing to the limitations of current representative approaches on the Australian mainstage. This study will be of great interest to students and scholars of Postcolonial, Literary, Performance and Theatre Studies.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Thurow, Susanne

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Australische und Pazifische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literatur: Sammlungen, Anthologien
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft Theatergeschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Indigene Völker
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Dramen und Dramatiker

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction; Chapter 1- Cultural and Historical Context; Chapter 2- Contemporary Indigenous Australian Theatre; Chapter 3- Case Study: Scott Rankin’s NAMATJIRA (2010); Chapter 4- Case Study: Wesley Enoch & Anita Heiss’ I AM EORA (2012); Conclusion

Über Autor(innen)

Susanne Julia Thurow is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. She obtained her PhD in English Philology from Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (Germany) in 2017. Previously, she worked for Big hART Inc., the Universities of Melbourne and Sydney, Goethe Institut and Thalia Theater (Hamburg, Germany).