Centre for Performance Research Publishes new book: A Performance Cosmology (Press Release)

Fri Oct 27 06:45:21 EDT 2006

PRESS RELEASE 27 October 2006

>From Wales: A Travellers Guide to the Performance Cosmos

A PERFORMANCE COSMOLOGY: 
Testimony from the Future, Evidence of the Past
(editors: Judie Christie; Richard Gough, Daniel Watt)

A speculation on the future of performance and an evocation of the history
of the Centre for Performance Research (CPR)

The Aberystwyth based Centre for Performance Research (CPR) concludes its
recent celebration of 30 years of work with the publication of the book, A
PERFORMANCE COSMOLOGY: Testimony from the Future, Evidence of the Past. 

CPR began as an experimental theatre company (Cardiff Laboratory Theatre,
founded by Mike Pearson in 1974) before evolving into the Centre for
Performance Research (founded by Richard Gough and Judie Christie in 1988),
a multi-faceted theatre organization located and rooted in Wales, working
nationally and internationally. Thriving on a broad curiosity in theatre and
performance, the organization has achieved an influence far beyond Wales,
with programmes combining cultural co-operation, collaboration and exchange,
practical training, education and research, performance, production and
promotion, documentation and publishing, information and resource. 

With a mission to develop and improve the knowledge, understanding and
practice of theatre, CPR and Cardiff Laboratory Theatre has pioneered in
Wales and the UK the presentation and exposition of a wide range of
acclaimed companies and artists from around the world such as: Jerzy
Grotowski and his Laboratorium and Gardzienice Theatre Association from
Poland; Eugenio Barbas Odin Teatret from Denmark; Beijing and Kunju Opera
from China; Enrique Vargas Taller Imagen Theatre from Columbia, Victoria
young peoples theatre from Belgium; Augusto Boals political theatre forms
from Brazil, to name but a few, as well as developing a diverse range of
training opportunities for artists in Wales and the UK.

 In A Performance Cosmology CPRs exploratory past and vigorous present is
charted through an illustrated chronology of thirty years contribution to
the field of theatre and performance studies. At its heart, the book also
explores the future challenges of performance and theatre through a diverse
and fascinating series of interviews, testimonies and perspectives from
leading international practitioners and academics. Contributors include:
Philip Auslander; Rustom Bharucha; Tim Etchells; Jane Goodall; Susan
Melrose; Alphonso Lingis; Mike Pearson; Richard Schechner; and  Edward
Scheer. A Performance Cosmology is structured as a travelogue through a
matrix of strategic, imaginary, interdisciplinary fieldstations. This
innovative framework enables non-linear readings and offer different forms
of thematic engagement, opening new vistas and speculation on the old, new,
and as yet unimagined, worlds of performance.

The book is edited by CPRs Artistic Director, Professor Richard Gough,
Executive Producer Judie Christie and former Research and Publications
Assistant Dr. Daniel Watt. A Performance Cosmology is published by leading
academic publishers Routledge, part of the Taylor and Francis group and is
designed printed and bound in Wales.

A Performance Cosmology is published as a large-format highly illustrated
336 page book, and is the result of an innovative arrangement with the
publisher, Routledge, Taylor and Francis, enabling CPR to control the design
and visual content working with the Cardiff-based designer, Steve Allison
(of Design Stage). The production of A Performance Cosmology has been
enabled by a grant from the Welsh Books Council.

Title: A Performance Cosmology: Testimony from the Future, Evidence of the
Past
List Price: £29.99
ISBN: 978-0-415-37258-9
Publisher: Routledge

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON THIS RELEASE, TO SEE AN ADVANCE COPY OR TO
ARRANGE INTERVIEWS WITH RICHARD GOUGH & JUDIE CHRISTIE PLEASE CONTACT:
ANTONY PICKTHALL ON 01970 622133 OR EMAIL: aop at aber.ac.uk

Buy-on-line from CPR now at
www.thecpr.org.uk/shop/books_detail.php?bookID=646 

www.thecpr.org.uk

Editors Notes:

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: Into the Rose Garden  Part 1: Intimate Conversations: Ways of
Working with the Centre for Performance Research  1.1 Tools for Conviviality
1.2 Eight Things I Know Now that I Didnt Know Before  1.3 Eye and Ear, Foot
and Mouth: Mapping Performance in Three Journeys and One Withdrawal  1.4
Express Trains: Working at CPR  1.5 Singing Praise  1.6 Ten Things I Love
about You  1.7 A Little Big Boots: On Participating in Summer Shift 2004
1.8 Performances of Truth  1.9 Pro-Found and Impossible  1.10 A Memory or
Two Before I Know it
  1.11 The Nature and Culture of Performance  1.12 Ten
Fragments  1.13 The Courage to Create: Food, Alchemy, Objects and
Performance: Selected Interviews with Richard Gough  Part 2: Testimony from
the Future  Richard Schechner Interviewed by Richard Gough.  A River of
Senses and a Touch of Otherness.  Declaration of Poetic Disobedience.
Interactive Environments and Digital Perception.  AnimalCam: Ocularcentrism
and Non-Human Performance.  Global Feeling: (Almost) All You Need is Love.
Writing (After) the Event: Notes on Appearance, Passage and Hope.  The
Scribes of Merlin.  'An Obscure Lecture'.  What I Can't Recall.  Stones in
the Mind.  Marking Time.  Aporias of Ekphrasis: The Performance Archive -
Archiving the Performance.  Legwork - Thinking Showing Doing. Who Knows -
and Who Cares - About Performance Mastery?  Incomplete Alphabet.  Hounded
Buildings: Site, Performance and Traumatic Memory.  The Memory of Promise:
Theatre and the Ethic of the Future.  Open Wounds.  Ramblers  Associations.
Witnessing the Witness.  The Effect Produced.  Dear Friends and Family.  The
Writing of the Event.  An Untenable Identity Formation: Eleutheria in 8
Parts.  Eleutheromania: Performance Art and the War on Terror.  Time, Space,
Topography.  Arrested Life: A Sadness Without an Object.  Delirium:
Nostalgia, Theatre and Public Space.  Why There is Wind.  Rustom Bharucha
Interviewed by Richard Gough  Part 3: Evidence of the Past  3.1 From the
Laboratory to the Centre: History, Training, the Academy and the Book -
Selected Interviews with Richard Gough  3.2 Perfect Time: Imperfect Tense.
An Object Exercise in Conditional Remembrance  3.3 Bibliophobia  3.4
Chronology of 30 Years of Productions, Festivals, Conferences, Workshops and
Publications

ABOUT THE CENTRE FOR PERFORMANCE RESEARCH

The Centre for Performance Research (CPR) is a pioneering and multi-faceted
theatre organisation located and rooted in Wales, working nationally and
internationally. CPR produces innovative performance work: arranges
workshops, conferences, lectures and masterclasses (for the professional,
the amateur and the curious); curates and produces festivals, expositions
and exchanges with theatre companies from around the world; publishes and
distributes theatre books, as well as the journal Performance Research, and
houses a resource centre and library that specializes in world theatre and
performance and maintains an archive on contemporary Welsh performance. 

CPR aims to develop and improve the knowledge, understanding and practice of
theatre in its broadest sense, to affect change through investigation,
sharing and discovery and to make this process as widely available as
possible. Its programmes of work combine cultural co-operation,
collaboration and exchange practical training, education and research,
performance, production and promotion, documentation and publishing,
information and resource.

CPR gratefully acknowledged the support and continued investment of the Arts
Council of Wales and the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

The Centre for Performance Research at Aberystwyth is a joint venture of
University of Wales, Aberystwyth and Centre for Performance Research Ltd,
working in close association with UWA Department of Theatre, Film and
Television Studies.

RICHARD GOUGH, Artistic Director, CPR 
(ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: Cardiff Laboratory Theatre, 1980 1987, DIRECTOR/
PERFORMER Cardiff Laboratory Theatre, 1974-1979)
Richard Gough is Artistic Director of the Centre for Performance Research
(CPR) and Professor of Performance Practice in the Department of Theatre,
Film and Television Studies at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. As
Artistic Director of CPR and its predecessor Cardiff Laboratory Theatre he
has curated and organised numerous international theatre projects over the
last 20 years including conferences, summer schools, workshop festivals and
he has produced nationwide tours of  experimental theatre   and traditional
dance/ theatre ensembles from around the world. He has directed over seventy
productions many of which have toured Europe and he has lectured and led
workshops throughout Europe and in China, Japan, Colombia and Brazil. He
edited The Secret Art of the Performer (London: Routledge, 1990) was a
contributing editor to TDR (Journal of Performance Studies)  and is the
general editor of the Routledge  publication, Performance Research (Journal
of Performance Research).

JUDIE CHRISTIE. Executive Producer / Director CPR
Judie Christie is Executive Producer/Director of CPR, she has an MA in
Theatre Studies and Fine Art from Glasgow University, and is a postgraduate
in Theatre Studies, University of Wales, Cardiff. Judie joined Cardiff
Laboratory Theatre as project co-ordinator for Peking Opera Explorations and
the first Magdalena International Festival. In 1988, she co-founded the
Centre for Performance Research with Richard Gough and as co-directors they
have curated numerous international theatre projects including conferences,
summer schools, workshop festivals and has co-produced nationwide tours of
experimental theatre and traditional dance/ theatre ensembles from around
the world. Former Directorships include: the International Workshop Festival
(London); the Board of Governors of Welsh College of Music and Drama, and
the Magdalena Project, and a member of the Independent Theatre Councils
Equal Opportunities Committee. 

DR. DANIEL WATT, Lecturer, Loughborough University
Daniel Watt is a lecturer in English and Drama at Loughborough University.
His research interests include fragmentary writing, ethics and literature,
and philosophical and literary influences on theatre and performance in the
twentieth century. He has published articles in The Oxford Literary Review,
Performance Research and Wormwood: writings about fantasy, supernatural and
decadent literature.

Antony Pickthall
Marketing & Development Director
Centre for Performance Research (CPR)
6, Science Park
Aberystwyth
SY23 3AH
Wales, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1970 622133
Fax: +44 (0)1970 622132
Web: www.thecpr.org.uk 

"LOCATED IN WALES
Working nationally and internationally
FOR THE CURIOUS
opening worlds of performance"

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