Book Launch: Theatre, Performance and Commemoration: Staging Crisis, Memory and Nationhood

The theatre section of the ICOG Research Centre for Arts in Society, University of Groningen is delighted to announce the online book launch by Dr Miriam Haughton (University of Galway), Dr Alinne Balduino P. Fernandes (Federal University of Santa Catarina) and Dr Pieter Verstraete (University of Groningen) as part of the SPOT ON series, of their edited volume:

Theatre, Performance and Commemoration: Staging Crisis, Memory and Nationhood

(Bloomsbury/Methuen Drama 2023) ISBN 9781350306769

Hybrid

Wednesday November 22, 2023, 16:00-18:00 (CET)

Oude Boteringestraat 34, 9712 GK Groningen, Room 002

followed by drinks

For online participation, please use this link, password: 0911

How does the act of performance speak to the concept of commemoration? How and why does commemorative theatre operate as a conceptual, historical and political site from which to interrogate ideas of nationalism and nationhood? This volume explores how theatre and performance create a stage for acts of commemoration, considering crises of hate, nationalism and migration, as well as political, racial and religious bigotry. It features case studies drawn from across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America.

During the book launch, the editors will first highlight key insights and backgrounds of this volume. Dr Pieter Verstraete will then present his chapter on Turkey’s Kurdish Question in European opera by means of the first Kurdish opera adaptation of Puccini’s Tosca by Theater RAST and Diyarbakir City Theatre, which premiered at ITA in 2019. The chapter explores music theatre’s role in ‘mnemonic socialization’ and the making of ‘inoperative’ communities in culturally heterogeneous audiences. He will question the risk of such critical commemorative music theatre practices of falling into the traps of creating new myths for the sake of propaganda and a memory industry in the wake of crises of nationalism. Finally, there will be room for a Q&A and a celebration of the book with some of its contributors.

Find out more at: SPOT ON-Book Launch Invitation