Speaker at Trent Park

Thursday, 21 January 2010

Maria Shevtsova (Professor of Drama and Theatre Arts, Director of
Research, Goldsmiths College, University of London)
Title: A Trajectory for the Sociology of Theatre and Performance
Venue; Orangery, Trent Part
Time: 4.30pm-6pm

This presentation concerns Prof Shevtsova's development of the sociology
of theatre and performance as a distinct interdisciplinary trajectory
and/or composite 'discipline'. An introduction to her ongoing research
and its methodologies involves some discussion of the key concepts -
i.e. 'Field', 'Habitus', 'Art' and 'Incarnation' - and how they may be
appropriated, critically placed and extended for the study of theatre
and performance, not least dance. These foundational reflections lead to
observations on the current direction of her thinking in respect of the
formation of social-artistic groups and groupings. The focus here is the
emergence of the studio/laboratory theatre in Russia at the beginning of
the twentieth century and its various synergetic manifestations as group
practice at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the
twenty-first.