Performance Making and the Archive

This book investigates theories and practices shaped by a performance’s relationship to the archive. The contributions in the volume examine how the changing nature of performance practices has made it imperative to understand how the archive and archival practices could add to the performance work. They explore a variety of themes, including artistic engagement with the archive in both conceptual and material terms; physical, virtual and digital forms; publicly and privately collected; oral, written and digital ways; or organized and unorganized collections. Finally, the volume examines how archives are modelled on existing structure and the ways in which they can be brought into discourses and practices of performance making through engagement and contestation. A novel approach to performance theory, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of performance studies, media and culture studies, studies of technology and art as also literature and literary criticism.

Foreword: Performance, Memory and Absence Sundar Sarukkai Introduction Sharmistha Saha and Ashutosh Potdar PART I: Concepts, histories and performances 1. Archive and Performance; Madness and revolution: On Marat, Sade and Theroigne de Mericourt Soumyabrata Choudhury 2. Interpreting Material Ashutosh Potdar 3. Performance, its archive and historicity: notes on intercultural critique Sharmistha Saha 4. Invisible Histories: Tracing displacement, bondage and resistance through adivasi songs and performance practices in Wayanad Devika N Menon 5. Materialising Site Nela Milic 6. From Oblivion to Acceptance: Sadir dancer Muthukannamal's presence as a challenge to representations A.P. Rajaram 7. Archiving for New Emerging Disciplines Samik Bandyopadhyay PART II: Dramaturgical shaping and re-shaping 8. The Dramaturgy of the Archive: An interview Freddie Rokem 9. Rehearsing the Witness-The Bhawal Court Case Zuleikha Allana 10. Documentary theatre and my performance practice Anuja Ghosalkar 11. Archiving Tamasha and Lavani through Performance Sharvari Sastry and Savitri Medhatul 12. Narratives of Existence: Witnessing Lived and Imagined Realities Hina Siddiqui PART III: Design and directorial methods of creation 13. C’EST LA CEPT: ARCHIVING THE ARCHIVE Ishita Jain and Gavin Keeney 14. INSIDE OUT Aram Lee, Anais Borie and Ottonie von Roeder 15. The Performance Archives Itself Amitesh Grover 16. On Aaydaan Sushama Deshpande 17. Conversation with Sunil Shanbag PART IV: Many methods, multiple archives 18. Archiving Performing Arts in India: An overview Shubha Choudhury 19. Filming the River. Notes and thoughts from The Chronic Life film edition. Chiara Crupi 20. No Context: Curatorial Writing, Contemporary Dance and The Archive Victoria Mohr-Blakeney 21. 30 Minutes About Mumbai’s Theatre History Ramu Ramanathan

Ashutosh Potdar is a scholar and creative writer writing in Marathi and English. He is Associate Professor at FLAME University, Pune, India. Sharmistha Saha is a theatre practitioner and researcher based in Mumbai. She is Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India.