Theory/History: Applied Theatre | Avant-garde Theatre & Performance | Global Theatre & Performance | Critical Theory | Performance Studies | Intelligence Studies | Theatre History
Artistic: Devised Theatre | Site-Specific Performance | Directing | Experimental Performance | Acting Theories | Digital Theatre | Scenogra
Throughout history theatre and performance have been utilized to subvert authority and enable activities that seek to remain undetected. Within scholarship the concepts of ‘performing ground’ (Levin 2014), ‘not-not Identities’ (Schneider 2008: 29) and ‘dark play’ (Schechner 2006: 119) represent just a few of the many ideas and areas of investigation that branch out to the world of undercover work. This issue of Performance Research looks to uncover instances of performance that would otherwise remain undercover, which may also be identified as ‘covert operations’, ‘clandestine theatres’ and ‘deceptive practice’
Weaving together previous scholarship on applied theatre, surveillance, camouflage, and wartime espionage, this article will investigate Augusto Boal's Invisible Theatre as it is reflected in undercover work. Drawing comparison between left-wing and right-wing activists, and historical case-studies, this work will explore the ethics of these deceptive practices and how such undertakings rely on a close-loop cycle of moral justification.
This article focuses on the performative qualities of covert landscapes. Utilizing the training base Camp X as a case study, this publication weaves together theories on cultural landscape, theatre/archeology, site-specific performance and heterotopias to interrogate the multi-layered quality of landscapces that are meant to remain hidden.
In 1940 the SOE was founded to conduct sabotage and reconnaissance and to help local resistance movements in Axis occupied countries. Because this necessitated a presence in foreign countries, potential spies needed to assume new identities and to make these "masks" impenetrable. How this was acheived is the focus on this chapter.
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