Acting on the Past: Historical Performance Across the Disciplines

Leading scholars redefine the scope and concerns of scholarship on historical performance.

Performance studies have been increasingly influential on recent developments in musicology, theater, art, and dance history, as these fields shift from primarily text-based disciplines to consider performativity, subjective experience, and particularized practice. At the same time, the editors argue, investigations into the pre- and early-modern periods have been rare in performance studies. Acting on the Past assembles some of the foremost scholars to theorize particular historical performances ― in dance, opera, theater, and music. Exploring relationships between archive and act, text and sounding, subject and practice, this collection expands and redefines our understanding of both past and performance.

CONTRIBUTORS: Annette Richards, Karen Bassi, Joseph Roach, Shelby Rchardson, Catherine M. Soussloff, Mary Carruthers, John Butt, Carolyn Dean, Susan McClary, James Miller.

MARK FRANKO is Professor of Dance and Performance Studies, University of California at Santa Cruz, and author of Dancing Modernism / Performing Politics (1995) and Dance as Text (1993). ANNETTE RICHARDS is Assistant Professor of Music at Cornell University.