Date of Award

2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Myhill, Nova

Area of Concentration

Literature

Abstract

This thesis is divided into three parts. In the first, I posit the existence of two cultural trends, or “vectors”: the establishment and the anti-establishment, or corrective. At their intersections I argue are points of constructive conflict, manifesting in experimental progression in the medium of live performance, which recently includes Waiting for Godot in New Orleans, a cross-platform initiative. I argue that the 2007 performance continues the anti-establishment vector of avant-garde, politically charged, community minded manifestations. The second part is an exploration and exaltation of Paul Chan’s published performance archive, Waiting for Godot in New Orleans: A Field Guide, in which I argue that Chan has given the discipline of performance studies not only an indismissable cultural artifact and rough model of what I believe to be a new imagining of performance preservation, but also a standalone political text which takes into full account and exposes the specific histories of the playtext and the site of performance, commenting on New Orleans’ relationship with the United States in a national scope. I argue that A Field Guide is a living, performative continuation of the discrete performance which complicates the relationship between live performance and its mediatized extensions. The third section is my own creative meditation on the current state of live theatre, accessibility, community-centric performance, and the continuing project of the historic avant-garde.

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