The Twentieth Century Performance Reader

The Twentieth-Century Performance Reader has been the key introductory text to all types of performance for over fifteen years. Extracts from over fifty practitioners, critics and theorists from the fields of dance, drama, music, theatre and live art form an essential sourcebook for students, researchers and practitioners.

This carefully revised third edition offers focus on contributions from the world of music, and also privileges the voices of practitioners themselves ahead of more theoretical writing. A bestseller since its original publication in 1996, this new edition has been expanded to include contributions from:

Bobby Baker; Joseph Beuys; Rustom Bharucha; Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker; Hanns Eisler; Karen Finley; Philip Glass; Guillermo Gómez-Peña; Matthew Goulish; Martha Graham; Wassily Kandinsky; Jacques Lecoq; Hans-Thies Lehmann; George Maciunas; Ariane Mnouchkine; Meredith Monk; Lloyd Newson; Carolee Schneemann; Gertrude Stein; Bill Viola.

Each extract is fully supplemented by a contextual summary, a biography of the writer, and suggestions for further reading. The volume’s alphabetical structure invites the reader to compare and cross-reference major writings on all types of performance outside of the constraints and simplifications of genre, encouraging cross-disciplinary understandings.

All who engage with live, innovative performance, and the interplay of radical ideas, will find this collection invaluable.

Teresa Brayshaw is Director of Performing Arts at Leeds Metropolitan University. She teaches, directs and performs in a wide range of international performance contexts, and is co-editor of Training Grounds, located within the international journal Theatre, Dance and Performance Training.

Noel Witts is Emeritus Professor of Performing Arts at Leeds Metropolitan University, and was the founder and first Director of the Department of Performing Arts at De Montfort University. He has been a commentator on theatre for the BBC, has served as an Arts Council advisor for 20 years and has written widely on theatre, including most recently Tadeusz Kantor (Routledge). He was a founding member of the journal Performance Research.