Nomadic Theatre

Abstract

Fluid stages, morphing theatre spaces, ambulant spectators, and occasionally disappearing performers: these are some of the key ingredients of Nomadic Theatre. They are also theatre’s response to life in the 21st century, which is increasingly marked by the mobility of people, information, technologies and services. While examining how contemporary theatre exposes and queries this ‘mobile turn’ in society, Liesbeth Groot Nibbelink introduces the concept of ‘nomadic theatre’ as a vital tool for analyzing the manifold ways in which movement and mobility effect and implicate the theatre, how physical movements in the theatre are stepping stones for theorizing mobility at large, and how contemporary performance uses movement and mobility to make way for local operations and lived spaces. This book examines how ambulatory performances and performative installations stage movement and in turn mobilize the stage. Through a detailed analysis of contemporary performance practices by leading European artists such as Rimini Protokoll, Dries Verhoeven, Ontroerend Goed, and Signa, Nomadic Theatre demonstrates how mobile performances radically rethink the conditions of the stage and alter our understanding of spectatorship. Nomadic Theatre takes an integrated approach to theory and practice, instigates connections across disciplinary fields, and feeds dramaturgical analysis with insights derived from media theory, urban philosophy, cartography, architecture, and game studies. It demonstrates how concepts assist in the performance of analysis and how contemporary theatre, as a material form of thought, creatively and critically engages with mobile existence both on the stage and in society.