Performance Research Volume 27 Issue 4

This edition of Performance Research offers critical examinations of contemporary performances of protest across the globe. Protest can be understood as theatre, and more particularly as a form of public manifestation that draws upon a wide repertoire of representational devices. This edition asks how protest feels, and who is doing the feeling? It considers the performativity of protest. It pays particular regard to the extent to which protest achieves change and the ways in which historical protests help to inform judgements of the conduct, legitimacy and efficacy of current protest actions. What historical instances are invoked to draw comparisons to current forms of activism and resistance? How do contemporary protests draw on historical repertoires of protest that reflect or extend beyond their specific political contexts? Do protest strategies and tactics need to evolve as languages of protest become a default mode of mainstream political discourse?

 

READ THE EDITORIAL AND ABSTRACTS ONLINE

 

1 Editorial: On Protest

ANDY LAVENDER AND JULIA PEETZ

 

13 On the Ends and Endings of Protest

MATT JONES AND JIMENA ORTUZAR

 

26 Performing Democracy: Non-verbal protest through

a democratic lens

SELEN A. ERCAN, HANS ASENBAUM AND RICARDO F.

MENDONÇA

 

38 On the ‘Doing’ of ‘Something’: A theoretical defence of

‘performative protest’

TEEMU PAAVOLAINEN

 

48 Gaming Protest

ANDREW LENNON

 

51 The Deep, Dark Play of the US Capitol Riots

CHRISTOPHER GROBE

 

63 Games and Playfulness: Bodiless solidarity in Hong Kong and

Mainland China

YIOU PENELOPE PENG AND LUOLIN ZHAO

 

71 Digital Contention in Latin America: Material and affective

infrastructures to address online activism as performance

MARTÍN ZÍCARI

 

81 ‘Shut Up and Dance’

TOM HASTINGS

 

90 What the heck? – hacking HEK [Artist pages]

Garrett Lynch IRL

 

92 Performance and Protest as Creative World-Building for

Black Liberation: A conversation with artist/activist Jordan

Occasionally

JOY BROOKE FAIRFIELD

 

98 Policing Exhibit B in St Denis and Paris: Afterlives of the

French Imperial state at the theatre doors

CAOIMHE MADER MCGUINNESS

 

105 The Power of Unwanted Presence: The performance

aesthetics of women’s protests in Iran

AZADEH GANJEH

 

112 Shifting Boundaries of ‘Perceived’ Legitimacy: Animative

scenarios from the farmers’ protests in India

UPASANA MAHANTA AND GARGI BHARADWAJ

 

122 COVID-19 Protests and the Performative Force of Untruth:

Some Arendtian intimations

GURUR ERTEM

 

125 Banners and Memes: The rhetoric of protests in defence of

democracy and women's rights in Poland in 2015 and 2020

AGNIESZKA KAMPKA

 

136 We Will Outlive the Blood You Bleed [Artist pages]

JAMIE LEWIS-HADLEY

 

138 The Remnant of My Volition (Force Majeure) [Artist pages]

MORGAN WONG

 

139 Gezi’s Many Women in Red: A genealogy of an icon from

street to stage

PIETER VERSTRAETE

 

150 South Africa’s Student Activist Turn in the Decolonial Present

AYLWYN M. WALSH

 

161 I am Queen Mary: On sustained protest and Denmark’s

‘colonial amnesia’

HELENE GRØN

 

167 Protesting Venetians: A carnival attitude

PETER O’ROURKE

 

172 A Maiden Speech: This is an emergency

LENA ŠIMI?

 

177 When Theatre Can Wait: The ambiguity of silence in activist

theatre

RÉKA POLONYI

 

180 The Politics of Urban Silence: Sound installation [Artist pages]

ANDROMACHI VRAKATSELI

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REVIEWS

182 The Formation of Identity and the Disruption of Colonial

Ideological Hegemony

OFOSUWA M. ABIOLA

 

183 A Radical Imagination

HONEY CRAWFORD

 

185 After the Ordinary

TOM HASTINGS

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187 Notes on Contributors