Performance Research Volume 26 Issue 6

This issue of Performance Research explores the act of repair as it pertains to the broken systems, people and things that we see and experience, and that we break every day. ‘On Repair’ was made during the global Covid-19 pandemic and, as such, it explores the ways in which this pandemic has accelerated and made visible so many lifeforms and things that are on their last legs, patched over, stretched too thinly or just not given a fair go. Most things, it would appear, seem to be broken in fundamental ways and our institutions, knowledge systems, human relations and the overarching ecosphere are all in urgent need of repair. This issue considers how performance, creativity and the imagination work as a means of repair. Contributors explore what modes of performance dramaturgy and performance criticism are relevant now as ways to rehabilitate and repair the human.

The Japanese technique of kintsugi—repairing broken objects with filaments of precious metal—reflects close attention to detail, to the minutiae and to an act of repair that enhances the original. This practice is a hopeful one. It teaches us that the human and non-human worlds alike need mending and deep care. Ultimately, this issue explores the act of repair as an act of care. Our aim is to show how artists and thinkers can do this, especially now, when the need for repair is paramount.

READ THE EDITORIAL AND ARTICLE ABSTRACTS online

CONTENTS

Necessity or Choice: Demanding the right to repair
PETER ECKERSALL AND HELENA GREHAN

5 Listening in Three Acts: Thinking, responding, doing. Act 1
HELENA GREHAN

9 A Moving Moment: A reprise of choreographing empathy as
practice of conscientization
ANNA JAYNE KIMMEL

18 The Universal Caregiver Society
ANNE MANNE

24 Deconstruction as Repair: An ecological perspective on the Six Viewpoints

JOSH ARMSTRONG AND MERYL MURMAN

34 The Net
MICHA BANDINI [Artist pages]

36 Your House Does Not Look Like You Anymore: On repair,
restoration and destruction in Gaza
MONA KRIEGLER

45 The Aesthetics of Acclimatization: Performing the slow death of traditional dance in Singapore
APARNA R NAMBIAR

54 On Repair – Between cosmopolitics and decoloniality
MISCHA TWITCHIN

62 China Quick-Fix
BILL AITCHISON

70 Listening in Three Acts: Thinking, responding, doing. Act 2
HELENA GREHAN

73 Beauty, Sleeping
JESS RICHARDS

75 Concentric Circles of Dramaturgy
DAVID PLEDGER

84 A Multitude of Drops
VIKRAM IYENGAR, LAV KANOI AND VICKY LONG
[Artist pages]

86 Plant Blindness and Repair
PRUDENCE GIBSON

94 Artistic Practices as Gestures of Resistance and Repair: Two
Colombian dancers during COVID-19
TOBY MILLER, ISABEL CRISTINA RAMÍREZ-BOTERO AND
FEDERICO GUILLERMO SERRANO-LÓPEZ

100 Bringing the Body to Beckett’s MOUTH: A short manifesto in the times of Zoom
MARIA LITVAN

102 Choreographic Gestures of Resurgence and Repair: Arkadi
Zaides’s research-based performance project Necropolis
CHRISTEL STALPAERT

112 Listening in Three Acts: Thinking, responding, doing. Act 3
HELENA GREHAN

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REVIEWS
115 Failing Purposefully, Productively and Politically
SUHAILA MEERA
116 Race and Performance Dal Segno
SEAN METZGER
118 Pushing Forward with Creative Practice
DIANE STUBBINGS
119 Staging the Not-Past Past
KIMBERLY CHANTAL WELCH
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121 Notes on Contributors