Introduction

contesting performance in an age of globalization

Jon McKenzie

Heike Roms

CJW-L Wee

pp. 1-22

in: Jon McKenzie, Heike Roms, CJW-L Wee (eds), Contesting performance, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010

Abstract

Performance research has gone global. By this we refer not so much to the cultural phenomena studied — which, it is clear, have long been located around the world — but to the locations of researchers themselves. These locations have steadily expanded over the past two decades, whether it be in terms of individual researchers working alone or in small groups on different continents. This expansion is mirrored by the emergence of performance research and study programs in different countries. While the United States continues to host many influential scholars and programs, the United Kingdom in particular has seen an increase in performance scholarship and in university courses of study that carry the term "performance" in their names, and important research projects and academic departments have emerged in locales as diverse as Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Singapore, Slovenia, and South Africa. In addition, a number of transnational scholarly organizations have formed — some with a regional focus, notably the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics and the Asian Performance Studies Research Group, and others with an international scope, such as Performance Studies international (PSi) and the performance-focused working groups of the International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR).