Masterclass: “New Media Dramaturgy: Performing Matter and the Ecological Question” – Prof. Peter Eckersall

Offered by the Centre for the Humanities and Transmission in Motion, in collaboration with NICA and SPRING Performing Arts Festival. 

In this masterclass, Prof. Peter Eckersall (CUNY, New York) will consider the theory and practice of new media dramaturgy.  As developed his recent book (co-authored with Edward Scheer and Helena Grehan), new media dramaturgy (NMD) considers the rise of new materialism in theatre and performance.  It examines how live performance has been transforming – compositionally and aesthetically – by a renewed attention to material objects, atmospheres and affective states, all broadly defined as new media.  In light of the on-going need for the arts to address climate and ecological crisis, NMD is an approach that calls for considering the performative sensibilities of objects and materials in connection with thinking informed by eco-criticism and writings on the Anthropocene.  It is intended to be both theoretical and activating, hence, the focus on dramaturgy as a creative process that is between thinking and doing.  The masterclass will include an introductory lecture and then branch into discussion and the workshopping of ideas and responses.

Credits: RMA Students can acquire 1 EC if they actively participate in the masterclass, complete the readings and write a blogpost (750-1000 words) about the subject of the masterclass.

Registration: Please send an email to nica-fgw@uva.nl,  including your affiliation (RMA/PhD Programme).

Readings:

• Peter Eckersall, Helena Grehan, and Edward Scheer, New Media Dramaturgy: Performance Media and New-Materialism (co-authored with Helena Grehan and Edward Scheer). Basingstoke & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. (read the introduction).
• Peter Eckersall, ‘On Dramaturgy to Make Visible’, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, 23: 4-5, 241-243, 2018.

Peter Eckersall is Professor of Theatre Studies in the PhD Program in Theatre and Performance at the Graduate Center, CUNY and Honorary Professorial Fellow in the Department of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne. His research interests include Japanese performance, dramaturgy and theatre and politics. His recent publications include: The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Politics, co-edited with Helena Grehan (Routledge, 2019), New Media Dramaturgy: Performance, Media and New-materialism, co-authored with Helena Grehan and Ed Scheer, (Palgrave 2017) and The Dumb Type Reader, coedited with Edward Scheer and Shintarô Fujii (Museum Tusculanum Press, 2017).  He has worked as a dramaturg for more than 20 years and is the co-founder of the Not Yet It’s Difficult performance group based in Melbourne.