Performance Affects: Applied Theatre and the End of Effect

by James Thompson

Performance Affects explores performance projects in disaster and war zones to argue that joy, beauty and celebration should be the inspiration for the politics of community-based or participatory performance practice, seeking to realign the field of Applied Theatre away from effects towards an affective role, connected to sensations of pleasure.

218 pages

First published April 28, 2009

About the author

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James Thompson is the Project Director of In Place of War and a Professor of Applied and Social Theatre in the Department of Drama at the University of Manchester.

In Place of War came out of his work in Sri Lanka, where in 2000 he was invited by UNICEF to run training courses for practitioners working with young people affected by conflict. During these sessions, James was impressed by the extensive use of theatre in response to the 20 year long civil war, which in turn, led to many of the research questions addressed by In Place of War.

James specialises in performance in conflict and disaster zones, theatre with offenders, theatre and development and Sri Lankan theatre. He has documented theatre practice in Sri Lanka, Democratic Republic of Congo, Banda Aceh and the UK.

Reviews

[Kari Barclay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raises a lot of interesting questions about the ethics of applied theatre. Thompson calls attention to the aesthetic needs of applied theatre and writes about the creation of beauty as an act of social change. My biggest critique is that the work can seem disorganized and piecemeal.