Description
This edition of Performance Research dives into the murky realities that belie undercover and covert undertakings. From domestic engagements to clandestine settings (of which some appear to be one and the same) this issue tackles the ethics, challenges, moral pitfalls, gendered realities, moments of necessity and artistic qualities of undercover practices. Many are topics that fall within the categories of ‘performing ground’ (Levin), ‘not–not identities’ (Schneider), ‘intentional concealment’ (Bok) and ‘dark play’ (Schechner). With an array of international contributors, this issue moves beyond the traditional and popular conceptualization of ‘undercover’ to question how society understands the covert, clandestine and hidden, and where theatre and performance intersect with such undertakings. ‘Undercover’ draws back the curtain on otherwise unseen practices and knowledge and allows readers to glimpse the hidden worlds beneath and within.
READ THE EDITORIAL AND ARTICLE ABSTRACTS online
1 Editorial: Revealing undercover engagements
JAMES M. HARDING AND FRASER STEVENS
5 Performing under the Bedspread: Hysterical undercover
operations
JOHANNA BRAUN
15 Mutual Deception and Disguise: Iranian artists and censors
Q-MARS HAERI
24 Larvatus Prodeo: Covert seduction in Dora Garcia’s The
Romeos [artist pages]
THOMAS BÎRZAN
29 The Poetic Failure of Mata Hari: Espionage as performance
theatre
FRASER STEVENS
41 Unearth Not: Gestures of concealment and Zlato Paković’s
theatre of reveal in Post-Yugoslav Serbia
ŽELJANA TUNIĆ AND SNEŽANA STANKOVIĆ
52 Enstranglements: Undercover in Arts for Health [artist pages]
BECKY SHAW, ANTHONY SCHRAG, FRANCES WILLIAMS
AND SARAH (SMIZZ) SMITH
56 Spy House: Transformations in espionage performance
SARA BRADY
66 Microhistories of Jewish Clandestine Performance, Self-
Orientation and Survival during the Holocaust
ADELA M. KARSZNIA
76 (C)Overt Operations: Detective disguise and the threat of
deception
ISABEL STOWELL-KAPLAN
87 Watching the Detectives [artist pages]
ALEXANDER KELLY
91 Cover to Uncover: Masked performance and gender in Emmy
Hennings’ and Sophie Taeuber’s Dada dance
SOPHIE DOUTRELIGNE
101 Undercover Next Door: The Cold War aesthetics of truth and
deception in espionage theatre
JAMES M. HARDING
111 Unearthing Undercover: Intimations relating
campesinos, the more-than-human and the politically
disappeared in my art practice [artist pages]
LIVIA DAZA-PARIS
116 Hidden Archives, Closeted Desires, Postponed Utopias: Queer
ultra-nationalism in Turkish opera
RÜSTEM ERTUĞ ALTINAY
126 Fowl Play: Overtures in human–bird communication
NATALIE DOONAN
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REVIEWS
135 In Search of a Desi Drag Queen
AB BROWN
137 Predicting the Unpredictable
ALISON D’AMATO
138 The Transloca as Theoretical and Hermeneutical Model
SHANE T. MOREMAN
139 ‘Not knowable in advance’: Feeling brown with José Muñoz
PATRICIA YBARRA
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141 Notes on Contributors
