Performing heritage

Research, practice and innovation in museum theatre and live interpretation

Edited by Anthony Jackson, Jenny Kidd

Publication date:

01 September 2012

Length of book:

297 pages

Publisher

Manchester University Press

Dimensions:

216x138mm

ISBN-13: 9780719089053

Performing Heritage is the first book to bring together the range of voices, debates and practices that constitute the fields of museum theatre and live interpretation. Inspiring and challenging in its scope and level of debate, Performing Heritage crosses the disciplines of performance and museum/heritage studies and offers remarkable and timely insights into the processes, outcomes and potential of this rich and rapidly developing practice - and in a variety of international contexts. The book productively brings together academic research and professional practice, and will be essential reading for all those interested in, and concerned with the future of, ‘heritage’ and its interpretation.

Introduction - Anthony Jackson and Jenny Kidd
1. Engaging the audience: negotiating performance in the museum - Anthony Jackson
2. ‘Watching me, watching you’: performance and performativity in the museum - Helen Rees Leahy
3. Creating heritage experiences through architecture - Alke Gröppel-Wegener
4. The space of museum theatre: a framework for performing heritage - Paul Johnson
5. The ‘Doing’ of Heritage: heritage as performance - Laurajane Smith
6. Intangible Heritage and the performance of identity - Marilena Alivizatou
7. Authenticity and metaphor: displaying Intangible Human Remains in museum theatre - Anna Farthing
8. Interpreting Msinsi: culture, tourism and story-telling in the Isimangaliso Wetland Park - Emma Durden and Nicky du Plessis
9. Nostalgia for the future of the past - Baz Kershaw
10. Performing Cultural Heritage: an analysis of ‘Weaving Paths’ - Royona Mitra
11. A la Ronde - eccentricity, heritage and the end of the world - Phil Smith
12. Triangle’s Immersive Museum Theatre: performativity, historical interpretation and research in-role - Richard Talbot and Norwood Andrews
13. Mirror Neurons and Simulation: the role of the spectator in museum theatre - Catherine Hughes
14. ‘The costume of openness’: participatory performance in heritage environments - Jenny Kidd
15. Performing Human Rights: engaging visitors in dialogue at two historic site Museums of Conscience - Joel Chalfen
16. “For a little road it is not. For it is a great road; it is long”: performing heritage for development in the Cape - Mark Fleishman
Appendix - The Performance, Learning and Heritage project

This collection both consolidates and moves forward the previously somewhat fragmented discussion on the relationship between heritage and performance.'
Stephen Bottoms, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 29/02/2012

'an exciting and worthwhile book.'
Jessica Nakamura, TDR: The Drama Review 57:2, Summer 2013

...the book successfully delivers a wide discourse on the definition and value of performance and heritage and relates them to the 'new museology', recognising the role of the audience/visitor in constructing their own meaning.