66.056 - Deleuze, Artaud, and the Bard: Performing a Shakespearean Theater Yet to Come

Session Type: Demonstration/Performance

Abstract

Gilles Deleuze, drawing from Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, proposed a radical change to our conception of the performing arts, envisioning the theatre as a factory, the actor as a contr-dieu (anti-God), and artistic expression itself as a means for the generation and preservation of affects. This “minor theatre” replaces the stable elements of power and representation—author, text, structure, conflict, setting—with a theatre of pure, immanent expression. As the patron-saint of majoritarian theatre, Shakespeare is a productive site for this transformation, and for exploration of nonrepresentational performance techniques. This demonstration of Shakespeare-turned-minor bears profound implications for the future of Shakespearean performance education.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Arts and Inquiry in the Visual and Performing Arts in Education

Chair

• Joy Gaulden Bertling, The University of Tennessee - Knoxville

Papers

• Deleuze, Artaud, and the Bard: Performing a Shakespearean Theater Yet to Come - Evan Crump, The George Washington University