Flesh and Text

Simon Jones

ISBN 10: 183595071X / ISBN 13: 9781835950715

Published by Intellect, GB, 2025

About this Item

BODIES IN FLIGHT make performance where flesh utters and words move, challenging and re-energizing the relationship between audiences and performers, and audiences and place. Emerging from rigorous interdisciplinary and collaborative methods, often with new technologies in cutting-edge venues, we insist on the buzz of ideas, on philosophy and poetry, using words and images, movement and stillness, voices and bodies, through which they aim to move audiences emotionally and spiritually. Organized in a highly visual design, this volume is both a history and a workbook with selections of scripts and archival material from 30 years of making devised theatre and performance in the UK and internationally, plus texts by collaborators, arts professionals and scholars exploring the company's collaborative working method, contextualizing it in the wider performance ecology and culture. Intended as an inspiration to emerging artists, the volume covers key questions for any maker of contemporary performance: the relationship of choreography and spoken word, the use of new technologies and multi-media, the role of original music and soundscapes, the differences between work presented in a theatre or gallery or sited in non-theatrical places, the persistence of theatre as an art-form in an increasingly digital culture.

Seller Inventory # LU-9781835950715

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Flesh and Text
• Publisher: Intellect, GB
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 183595071X
• ISBN 13: 9781835950715
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 900 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Presents the history and an analysis of the experimental theater works produced by Bodies in Flight.

Based in Bristol and Nottingham, the performance group Bodies in Flight makes works where flesh utters and words move, challenging and re-energizing the relationship between audiences and performers as well as audiences and place.

Drawing on rigorous interdisciplinary and collaborative methods, they use words and images, movement and stillness, and voices and bodies to engage audiences emotionally and spiritually.

Intended as an inspiration to emerging artists, the volume covers key themes for any maker of contemporary performance: the relationship of choreography and spoken word; the use of new technologies and multimedia; the role of original music and soundscapes; the differences between work presented in a theater, gallery, or sited in non-theatrical places; and the persistence of theater as an art form in an increasingly digital culture.

This highly illustrated volume includes selections of scripts and archival material from thirty years of making devised theater and performance in the UK and internationally. It also features texts by collaborators, arts professionals, and scholars exploring the company’s collaborative working method, contextualizing it in the wider performance ecology and culture.
 

About the Authors

Simon Jones is a theater director and writer. Simon is director of Bodies in Flight and emeritus professor of performance at the University of Bristol, UK.

Sara Giddens was a choreographer and theater director. She was also a professor of choreographic practice at the University of Central Lancashire, UK.