Sonja Kuftinec - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Sonja Kuftinec
The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, 1998
Ten years ago when I began a brief career as a professional dramaturg and Literary Manager, my jo... more Ten years ago when I began a brief career as a professional dramaturg and Literary Manager, my job centered on the text. I read hundreds of original scripts, worked with playwrights on the structure of their language, and offered rehearsal comments on what performance revealed about writing. Storytelling has always been the mainstay of western theatrical practice, and language and narrative tended to dominate my dramaturgical concerns. But theater also offers a language of presence, visceral experience, and live context that can vary the reception of the spoken word. Bert States notes that theater "is really a language whose words consist to an unusual degree of things that are what they seem to be." While every object on stage functions as a sign of something else, those objects are also things-in-themselves. Chairs maintain chair-ness even as they suggest a cafe, castle or bedroom. Similarly, human beings serve as embodied representations of characters. Yet, while bodies...
American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education
TDR/The Drama Review
Holot Legislative Theatre (HLT) is a mixed group of African asylum seekers and Israeli allies. Th... more Holot Legislative Theatre (HLT) is a mixed group of African asylum seekers and Israeli allies. Through continuously evolving, modular, interactive performances, the ensemble presents social dilemmas created by Israeli state policy towards refugees and asylum seekers. Based on testimonies and personal stories, HLT offers a rereading of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.
TDR/The Drama Review
Artist-scholars Leslie Hill and Helen Paris are Curious. They are the inquisitive codirectors of ... more Artist-scholars Leslie Hill and Helen Paris are Curious. They are the inquisitive codirectors of Curious, a company whose intimately scaled performances in lifeboats, on country buses, and by seashores might seem odd to conventional theatrical spectators. Yet, that curiosity fuels their performances as well as their analyses; and they are particularly curious about how closeness impacts the audience/performer relationship. Performing Proximity offers an in-depth look into this encounter developed through research that ranges from the molecular to astronautical, including exchanges with scientists, civil servants, and sex workers. The study is situated within the growing field of scholarship on immersive theatre and at the intersections of scientific and performance-based studies of the body. Drawing on these studies, with particular attention to "proxemic zones," the authors theorize how closeness in performance activates sensory relationships and experiences of intimate encounters. The book thus serves as both a study of performance proxemics as well as an "insider's" guide to intimate performance creation.
Studies in Theatre and Performance
No-one working in the fields of theatre and politics, applied theatre, theatre history, theatre a... more No-one working in the fields of theatre and politics, applied theatre, theatre history, theatre and performance theory, and transdisciplinary enquiry across the borders of theatre, society, ›development‹, sociology and social practice from the late twentieth century on can avoid the centrality of Augusto Boal’s theatre practice and methodology, its application and implications. This book seeks to outline a number of framing contexts which have shaped this work and to draw from them conclusions about its relevance beyond its original context. It aims to open up questions about Boal’s work in the following areas: Social and political: how do Boal’s practice and premises inflect how we might or should conceptualise and structure society, individuals, power relations, economies? Critical pedagogies: how does Boal’s work and its relational nexus, including for example Freire and Fals Borda, demonstrate and/or develop the understanding and application of practices of learning, understanding, growing and collaborating? The body: in which dimensions does Boal’s practice illuminate and open up somatic practices and aesthetic sensibilities which are crucial to social, political and environmental relationship for the 21st century? Thus it traces a trajectory from the roots of Augusto Boal’s work in revolutionary theatre praxis to the autopoietic theatre work of the 21st century. Birgit Fritz is a visiting tutor in transcultural theatre and theatre action research and a high-school teacher. She studied extensively with Boal, is part of the Jana Sanskriti Network and founded the CTO-Vienna, TdU-Wien. Her publications include the handbook "InExActArt – The Autopoietic Theatre of Augusto Boal", and translations into German of Augusto Boal’s autobiography "Hamlet and the Baker’s Son" and Sanjoy Ganguly’s book "Jana Sanskriti – Forum Theatre and Democracy in India". She lives and works near Vienna, Austria. Lana Sendzimir studied Social Sciences and Humanities before getting her Masters Degree in Theatre and Media for Development in the UK. She continued her studies in The Theatre of the Oppressed by training with Birgit Fritz, as well as many other practitioners in the field. Her work has lead her to study movement and bodywork in a variety of modalities, for a deeper exploration and awareness of the body and its healing through creative expression and touch. Ralph Yarrow is Emeritus Professor of Drama and Comparative Literature, University of East Anglia, Norwich UK. He taught French language/literature for 15 years, then retrained in drama practice and Indian theatre, later moving full-time to Drama. He has directed productions in the UK, India, South Africa and Germany. Books include "Improvisation in Drama, Theatre and Performance" (with Anthony Frost, Palgrave 1990, 2005, 2015); "Consciousness, Literature and Theatre" (with Peter Malekin); "Indian Theatre; and Sacred Theatre" (with Franc Chamberlain, Bill Haney, Carl Lavery and Peter Malekin).
Text and Performance Quarterly
Theatre Survey, 2016
It was a hot, sweaty day in Newport News, Virginia, in 1986. Cornerstone Theater's designer, ... more It was a hot, sweaty day in Newport News, Virginia, in 1986. Cornerstone Theater's designer, Lynn Jeffries, was building a set for the company's first community-based production, Our Town, cast in part with local participants. Three kids rode up on bikes and drawled, “What y'all doin’?” Jeffries responded that they were building a set for a play, noting that she felt like she was “speaking Chinese.” The boys sat for several more minutes. “Do you need help?” And that, according to Jeffries, was “where it all kicked in.”
Youth and Theatre of the Oppressed, 2010
Theatre, Facilitation, and Nation Formation in the Balkans and Middle East, 2009
Theatre, Facilitation, and Nation Formation in the Balkans and Middle East, 2009
Theatre, Facilitation, and Nation Formation in the Balkans and Middle East, 2009
Theatre, Facilitation, and Nation Formation in the Balkans and Middle East, 2009
Theatre, Facilitation, and Nation Formation in the Balkans and Middle East, 2009
Theatre, Facilitation, and Nation Formation in the Balkans and Middle East, 2009
... titles in this series: Hardback: 978-0-230-00249-4 Paperback: 978-0-230-00250-0 Theatre Studi... more ... titles in this series: Hardback: 978-0-230-00249-4 Paperback: 978-0-230-00250-0 Theatre StudiesKenneth Pickering, Founder ... FIRSTANNOUNCEMENT Howard Barker: Politics and Desire An Expository Study of His Drama and Poetry, 1969-87 David Ian Rabey, Professor of ...
The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, 1998
Ten years ago when I began a brief career as a professional dramaturg and Literary Manager, my jo... more Ten years ago when I began a brief career as a professional dramaturg and Literary Manager, my job centered on the text. I read hundreds of original scripts, worked with playwrights on the structure of their language, and offered rehearsal comments on what performance revealed about writing. Storytelling has always been the mainstay of western theatrical practice, and language and narrative tended to dominate my dramaturgical concerns. But theater also offers a language of presence, visceral experience, and live context that can vary the reception of the spoken word. Bert States notes that theater "is really a language whose words consist to an unusual degree of things that are what they seem to be." While every object on stage functions as a sign of something else, those objects are also things-in-themselves. Chairs maintain chair-ness even as they suggest a cafe, castle or bedroom. Similarly, human beings serve as embodied representations of characters. Yet, while bodies...
American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education
TDR/The Drama Review
Holot Legislative Theatre (HLT) is a mixed group of African asylum seekers and Israeli allies. Th... more Holot Legislative Theatre (HLT) is a mixed group of African asylum seekers and Israeli allies. Through continuously evolving, modular, interactive performances, the ensemble presents social dilemmas created by Israeli state policy towards refugees and asylum seekers. Based on testimonies and personal stories, HLT offers a rereading of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.
TDR/The Drama Review
Artist-scholars Leslie Hill and Helen Paris are Curious. They are the inquisitive codirectors of ... more Artist-scholars Leslie Hill and Helen Paris are Curious. They are the inquisitive codirectors of Curious, a company whose intimately scaled performances in lifeboats, on country buses, and by seashores might seem odd to conventional theatrical spectators. Yet, that curiosity fuels their performances as well as their analyses; and they are particularly curious about how closeness impacts the audience/performer relationship. Performing Proximity offers an in-depth look into this encounter developed through research that ranges from the molecular to astronautical, including exchanges with scientists, civil servants, and sex workers. The study is situated within the growing field of scholarship on immersive theatre and at the intersections of scientific and performance-based studies of the body. Drawing on these studies, with particular attention to "proxemic zones," the authors theorize how closeness in performance activates sensory relationships and experiences of intimate encounters. The book thus serves as both a study of performance proxemics as well as an "insider's" guide to intimate performance creation.
Studies in Theatre and Performance
No-one working in the fields of theatre and politics, applied theatre, theatre history, theatre a... more No-one working in the fields of theatre and politics, applied theatre, theatre history, theatre and performance theory, and transdisciplinary enquiry across the borders of theatre, society, ›development‹, sociology and social practice from the late twentieth century on can avoid the centrality of Augusto Boal’s theatre practice and methodology, its application and implications. This book seeks to outline a number of framing contexts which have shaped this work and to draw from them conclusions about its relevance beyond its original context. It aims to open up questions about Boal’s work in the following areas: Social and political: how do Boal’s practice and premises inflect how we might or should conceptualise and structure society, individuals, power relations, economies? Critical pedagogies: how does Boal’s work and its relational nexus, including for example Freire and Fals Borda, demonstrate and/or develop the understanding and application of practices of learning, understanding, growing and collaborating? The body: in which dimensions does Boal’s practice illuminate and open up somatic practices and aesthetic sensibilities which are crucial to social, political and environmental relationship for the 21st century? Thus it traces a trajectory from the roots of Augusto Boal’s work in revolutionary theatre praxis to the autopoietic theatre work of the 21st century. Birgit Fritz is a visiting tutor in transcultural theatre and theatre action research and a high-school teacher. She studied extensively with Boal, is part of the Jana Sanskriti Network and founded the CTO-Vienna, TdU-Wien. Her publications include the handbook "InExActArt – The Autopoietic Theatre of Augusto Boal", and translations into German of Augusto Boal’s autobiography "Hamlet and the Baker’s Son" and Sanjoy Ganguly’s book "Jana Sanskriti – Forum Theatre and Democracy in India". She lives and works near Vienna, Austria. Lana Sendzimir studied Social Sciences and Humanities before getting her Masters Degree in Theatre and Media for Development in the UK. She continued her studies in The Theatre of the Oppressed by training with Birgit Fritz, as well as many other practitioners in the field. Her work has lead her to study movement and bodywork in a variety of modalities, for a deeper exploration and awareness of the body and its healing through creative expression and touch. Ralph Yarrow is Emeritus Professor of Drama and Comparative Literature, University of East Anglia, Norwich UK. He taught French language/literature for 15 years, then retrained in drama practice and Indian theatre, later moving full-time to Drama. He has directed productions in the UK, India, South Africa and Germany. Books include "Improvisation in Drama, Theatre and Performance" (with Anthony Frost, Palgrave 1990, 2005, 2015); "Consciousness, Literature and Theatre" (with Peter Malekin); "Indian Theatre; and Sacred Theatre" (with Franc Chamberlain, Bill Haney, Carl Lavery and Peter Malekin).
Text and Performance Quarterly
Theatre Survey, 2016
It was a hot, sweaty day in Newport News, Virginia, in 1986. Cornerstone Theater's designer, ... more It was a hot, sweaty day in Newport News, Virginia, in 1986. Cornerstone Theater's designer, Lynn Jeffries, was building a set for the company's first community-based production, Our Town, cast in part with local participants. Three kids rode up on bikes and drawled, “What y'all doin’?” Jeffries responded that they were building a set for a play, noting that she felt like she was “speaking Chinese.” The boys sat for several more minutes. “Do you need help?” And that, according to Jeffries, was “where it all kicked in.”
Youth and Theatre of the Oppressed, 2010
Theatre, Facilitation, and Nation Formation in the Balkans and Middle East, 2009
Theatre, Facilitation, and Nation Formation in the Balkans and Middle East, 2009
Theatre, Facilitation, and Nation Formation in the Balkans and Middle East, 2009
Theatre, Facilitation, and Nation Formation in the Balkans and Middle East, 2009
Theatre, Facilitation, and Nation Formation in the Balkans and Middle East, 2009
Theatre, Facilitation, and Nation Formation in the Balkans and Middle East, 2009
... titles in this series: Hardback: 978-0-230-00249-4 Paperback: 978-0-230-00250-0 Theatre Studi... more ... titles in this series: Hardback: 978-0-230-00249-4 Paperback: 978-0-230-00250-0 Theatre StudiesKenneth Pickering, Founder ... FIRSTANNOUNCEMENT Howard Barker: Politics and Desire An Expository Study of His Drama and Poetry, 1969-87 David Ian Rabey, Professor of ...