Description
Book SynopsisDAH Theatre: A Sourcebook is a collection of essays about the work of one of the most successful and innovative performance groups in contemporary history. With a direct line of descent from Jerzy Grotowski and Eugenio Barba, DAH Theatre, founded during the worst of times in the former Yugoslavia, amidst a highly patriarchal society, predominantly run by women, has thrived now for twenty-five years. The chapters in this book, for the most part, have been written by both theatre scholars and practitioners, all of whom have either seen, studied with or worked with this groundbreaking troupe. What makes DAH so exceptional? The levels of innovation and passion for them extend far beyond the world of mere performance. They have been politically and socially driven by the tragedies and injustices that they have witnessed within their country and have worked hard to be a force of reconciliation, equity and peace within the world. And those efforts, which began on the dangerous streets of Belg
Trade ReviewThis is an excellent, easy to comprehend book that fills a gap in studies on resistance performance groups dedicated to “alternatives to the dominant narrative of denial” and is an invaluable sourcebook for those who choose to investigate how theatre as “a space for collective mourning” has been and can be staged. As such, it is a valuable contribution to the recently enfranchised discipline concerned with creative transformation of conflict.... [I]t is a pioneer in books on theatre that are written with the conviction that “theatre can change the world”. * Plays International & Europe *
This international collection of theoretically and historically grounded analyses and illuminating testimonials by scholars and practitioners comprises the impressive dramaturgical archive of one of the most enduring (East) European alternative theatres today. For more than twenty-five years, the Belgrade-based DAH Theatre has resonated with Eastern as well as Western audiences by highlighting 'postcolonial' conditions fiercely agitated in some post-totalitarian countries, yet obscured in egalitarian societies, such as ethnic and gender inequities, (multi)cultural expressions, and reconciliation with traumatic and divisive histories. DAH's journey outlines a global artistic trade that begins with adopting postmodern practices originating in the West, in particular Eugenio Barba's 'theatre anthropology', creatively advancing them in the volatile post-communist context of former Yugoslavia, and exporting them internationally as a model of new performance aesthetics and socially engaged theatre. -- Vessela Warner, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Dennis Barnett has assembled a most informed and engaging sourcebook on DAH Theatre, one of the world’s definitive companies working in social conflict contexts. A work of great breadth that offers a meaningful and enjoying read to the historian, the scholar and the practitioner, while ultimately managing to paint the rich portrait of a living theater and of the people and societal circumstances that breathe life into it. This is a necessary and revelatory book. -- Roberto Gutiérrez Varea, University of San Francisco
Table of ContentsForeword: Butterflies Who Dream of Being a Theatre Eugenio Barba Introduction Dennis Barnett A PATH TO HEALING: PERFORMANCES IN SERBIA Chapter 1 - Theatre that Matters: How DAH Theatre Came to Be Duca Knezević Chapter 2 - Honoring Memory and Articulating Truth: The Case of Serbia’s DAH Theatre Max Stephenson and Lyusyena Kirakosyan Chapter 3 - DAH Theatre’s Angels: Doubling the Directions of Community-based Memory Amy Sarno Chapter 4 - Two Main Tendencies in the Work of DAH Theatre: A Performance Analysis of Two Respective Cases Ivan Medenica Chapter 5 - Story of Tea Dennis Barnett Chapter 6 - In/Visible City: Transporting Histories and Intersecting Identities in Post-war Serbia Shawn Womack Chapter 7 The Lost Show: Tender, Tender, Tenderly and Yugo-nostalgia Beth Cleary SPREADING THE PEACE: REACHING OUT TO THE WORLD Chapter 8 - Enduring and Transforming: DAH Theatre and 7 Stages' Maps of Forbidden Remembrance Leigh Clemons Chapter 9 - On Directing A Lie of the Mind by Sam Shepard: DAH Theatre, Physical Theatre, and Neurobiology Elizabeth Carlin-Metz PERSONAL ACCOUNTS Chapter 10 - Two Interviews: Erik Ehn and Siegmar Schroeder Dennis Barnett Chapter 11 - My Experience of DAH Arthur Skelton Chapter 12 - Elegance, Refusal, Survival: DAH Theatre Jill Greenhalgh Chapter 13 - Changing Ourselves to Change Society David Diamond Chapter 14 - On Making Devised Performances with DAH Theatre Del Hamilton Chapter 15 - Previously Blue: Devising the Salvage of Disaster, Resilience and Beauty Ruth Margraff APPENDIX
