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Adaptation and resilience in the performing arts
The pandemic and beyond
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Edited by:
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2024
About this book
This book offers insights into some of the digital innovations, structural adaptations and analogue solutions that enabled live performance in the UK to survive through the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides evidence of values-led policies and practices that have improved the wellbeing of the creative workforce and have increased access to live performance. Through sections that address digital innovations, workforce resilience and programming live performances outdoors and in community settings, this book provides practical insights into the challenges live performance faced during the pandemic. It shows how, in order to survive, individuals and companies within the sector drew on the creativity and resourcefulness of its workforce, and on new and existing networks. In these accounts, the pandemic functioned as catalyst for technological innovations, stock-taking regarding exploitative industry structures, and a re-valuing of the role of live performance for community-building.
Reviews
‘Any scholars interested in thinking about COVID, its impact on a wide range of art forms and its possible long-term effects will find much of value in this book.’
Alison Jeffers, Senior Lecturer, University of Manchester
Adaptation and resilience in the performing arts shares important insights into the effects of the pandemic on live performance in the UK. Contributors reflect on what they discovered from working with practitioners and companies in the live performing arts, who rapidly adapted their working practices and the spaces in which they were able to connect safely with audiences, whether digital or outdoors. Chapters provide evidence of the impacts of digital innovations and telepresence technologies on artists and audiences, and shed light on how government discourses and the support structures within the industry affected the mental health of creative practitioners. Addressing policymakers and practitioners, others investigate how artists and local government events managers approached programming community-based work outdoors.
Throughout, chapters are infused with practical energy, inspired by the creativity and dedication of practitioners, and mindful of how the pandemic exacerbated the structural and financial precariousness of the workforce in live performing arts. They offer evidence-based reflections on values-led practices in the creative sector that model more inclusive, accessible and sustainable ways of working. Adaptation and resilience thus contributes to shaping our understanding of the challenges faced by live performing arts at a time of crisis – and how these may be overcome.
Alison Jeffers, Senior Lecturer, University of Manchester
Adaptation and resilience in the performing arts shares important insights into the effects of the pandemic on live performance in the UK. Contributors reflect on what they discovered from working with practitioners and companies in the live performing arts, who rapidly adapted their working practices and the spaces in which they were able to connect safely with audiences, whether digital or outdoors. Chapters provide evidence of the impacts of digital innovations and telepresence technologies on artists and audiences, and shed light on how government discourses and the support structures within the industry affected the mental health of creative practitioners. Addressing policymakers and practitioners, others investigate how artists and local government events managers approached programming community-based work outdoors.
Throughout, chapters are infused with practical energy, inspired by the creativity and dedication of practitioners, and mindful of how the pandemic exacerbated the structural and financial precariousness of the workforce in live performing arts. They offer evidence-based reflections on values-led practices in the creative sector that model more inclusive, accessible and sustainable ways of working. Adaptation and resilience thus contributes to shaping our understanding of the challenges faced by live performing arts at a time of crisis – and how these may be overcome.
Topics
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Front Matter
i -
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Contents
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Series preface
vii -
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List of figures
xxv -
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Contributors
xxviii -
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Acknowledgements
xxxii -
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Introduction
1 -
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I Digital adaptation
21 -
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1 The present and future of digital theatre
23 -
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2 Dancing into the metaverse
42 -
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3 Breaking the fifth wall
65 -
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II Crisis and the creative workforce
91 -
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4 Weariness, adaptability and challenging ‘viability’
93 -
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5 Reboot. Upskill. Rethink
114 -
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6 Once upon a pandemic
135 -
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III Reimagining the live event
159 -
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7 Reconfiguring dramaturgies of place
161 -
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8 Reinventing live events, reinventing communities
181 -
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Index
205
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
May 28, 2024
eBook ISBN:
9781526172426
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9781526172426
Keywords for this book
accessibility; COVID-19; Creative industries; Culture Recovery Fund; dance; digital; freelancers; performance; sustainability; theatre
Audience(s) for this book
For a non-specialist adult audience
