Performing Remains: Art and War in Times of Theatrical Reenactment

by Rebecca Schneider

'At last, the past has arrived! Performing Remains is Rebecca Schneider's authoritative statement on a major topic of interest to the field of theatre and performance studies. It extends and consolidates her pioneering contributions to the field through its interdisciplinary method, vivid writing, and stimulating polemic. Performing Remains has been eagerly awaited, and will be appreciated now and in the future for its rigorous investigations into the aesthetic and political potential of reenactments.' - Tavia Nyong'o, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University 'I have often wondered where the big, important, paradigm-changing book about re-enactment Schneider’s book seems to me to be that book. Her work is challenging, thoughtful and innovative and will set the agenda for study in a number of areas for the next decade.' - Jerome de Groot, University of Manchester Performing Remains is a dazzling new study exploring the role of the fake, the false and the faux in contemporary performance. Rebecca Schneider argues passionately that performance can be engaged as what remains, rather than what disappears. Across seven essays, Schneider presents a forensic and unique examination of both contemporary and historical performance, drawing on a variety of elucidating sources including the "America" plays of Linda Mussmann and Suzan-Lori Parks, performances of Marina Abramovic´ and Allison Smith, and the continued popular appeal of Civil War reenactments. Performing Remains questions the importance of representation throughout history and today, while boldly reassessing the ritual value of failure to recapture the past and recreate the "original."

Genres: Academic, Nonfiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2011

Reviews

[Phillip · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the first part of this book really interesting and then the second half less useful (and therefore less interesting). In the first half, which largely focused on Civil War reenacting as a method of preserving/engaging/doing history and/through performance, Schneider develops ideas about performance and reenactment as moving both backward and forward in history by collapsing the temporal distinctions maintained by an Enlightenment ideology of linear time and progress. She argues that through the re-inscription of history on bodies in contemporary performance/reenactment that we get a temporal distortion, or a temporal uncanny--that the past simultaneously plays itself out in the ghostliness of a present that is an is not past, and that this play is oriented toward the future, building an archive of performance, gesture, pose, and image that simultaneously works to document past, present, and anticipated future.

[spoon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 4.5 maybe? I was between four and five stars. Super great, and some parts intervened with an urgency in places that I learned about for the first time, so maybe I didn't feel the weight or brilliance of the claim. In short: I wasn't completely feeling it. Amazing book.

[Matin Moors · Rating 4 out of 5]

this nearly killed me. But it's cool and useful unfortunately, but yea ive read all of it. Maybe I'll reread it, or reenactment my original reading whilst my thought bubble has it's cloudy text shift and reform

[Bella]

My dissertation is so cheery!

[kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worth the wait. From civil war reenactments to making me think twice (and thrice and) about more recent Wooster group performances, this book provides endless cycles of fodder for thought. I've already returned to many of my numerous highlighted passages in the months since finishing it and am sure I will continue to. A must-read for those interested in contemporary performance and theory, thinking about the remains of history, and those who just wonder why humans are so invested in repeating the past.

[tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

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