Viewers in Distress

Conventional notions of avant-garde art suggest innovative artists rebelling against artistic convention and social propriety, shocking unwilling audiences into new ways of seeing and living. Viewers in Distress tells a different story. Beginning in the tumultuous 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin...

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التفاصيل البيبلوغرافية
المؤلف الرئيسي: Mihaylova, Stefka
التنسيق: Online
اللغة:الإنجليزية
منشور في: University of Michigan Press 2023
الموضوعات:
الوصول للمادة أونلاين:ONIX_20230605_9780472903702_12
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author Mihaylova, Stefka
author_browse Mihaylova, Stefka
author_facet Mihaylova, Stefka
author_sort Mihaylova, Stefka
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description Conventional notions of avant-garde art suggest innovative artists rebelling against artistic convention and social propriety, shocking unwilling audiences into new ways of seeing and living. Viewers in Distress tells a different story. Beginning in the tumultuous 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and in the wake of the Los Angeles riots, rebellious spectators in American and British theaters broke with theater decorum and voiced their radical interpretations of shows that were not meant to be radical. In doing so, audiences tried to understand the complex racial, gender, and religious politics of their times, while insisting that liberal societies fulfill their promise of dignity for all. Stefka Mihaylova argues that such non-conforming viewing amounts to an avant-garde of its own: a bold reimagining of how we live together and tell stories of our lives together, aimed to achieve liberalism’s promise. In telling this story, she analyzes the production and reception politics of works by Susan-Lori Parks, Sarah Kane, Forced Entertainment, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, and Young Jean Lee, as well as non-theatrical controversies such as the conflict over Halloween costumes at Yale in 2015. At the core of spectators’ discontent, this book suggests, is an effort to figure out how to get along with people different from ourselves in the diverse U.S. and British societies in which we live.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-1004542025-02-04T09:15:10Z Viewers in Distress Mihaylova, Stefka Performing arts thema EDItEUR::A The Arts::AT Performing arts::ATD Theatre studies Conventional notions of avant-garde art suggest innovative artists rebelling against artistic convention and social propriety, shocking unwilling audiences into new ways of seeing and living. Viewers in Distress tells a different story. Beginning in the tumultuous 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and in the wake of the Los Angeles riots, rebellious spectators in American and British theaters broke with theater decorum and voiced their radical interpretations of shows that were not meant to be radical. In doing so, audiences tried to understand the complex racial, gender, and religious politics of their times, while insisting that liberal societies fulfill their promise of dignity for all. Stefka Mihaylova argues that such non-conforming viewing amounts to an avant-garde of its own: a bold reimagining of how we live together and tell stories of our lives together, aimed to achieve liberalism’s promise. In telling this story, she analyzes the production and reception politics of works by Susan-Lori Parks, Sarah Kane, Forced Entertainment, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, and Young Jean Lee, as well as non-theatrical controversies such as the conflict over Halloween costumes at Yale in 2015. At the core of spectators’ discontent, this book suggests, is an effort to figure out how to get along with people different from ourselves in the diverse U.S. and British societies in which we live. 2023-06-05T15:31:28Z 2023-06-05T15:31:28Z 2023 book ONIX_20230605_9780472903702_12 9780472903702 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/100454 eng image/jpeg n/a https://muse.jhu.edu/book/112250 University of Michigan Press 10.1353/book.112250 10.1353/book.112250 b7359529-e5f7-4510-a59f-d7dafa1d4d17 9780472903702 open access
spellingShingle Performing arts
thema EDItEUR::A The Arts::AT Performing arts::ATD Theatre studies
Mihaylova, Stefka
Viewers in Distress
title Viewers in Distress
title_full Viewers in Distress
title_fullStr Viewers in Distress
title_full_unstemmed Viewers in Distress
title_short Viewers in Distress
title_sort viewers in distress
topic Performing arts
thema EDItEUR::A The Arts::AT Performing arts::ATD Theatre studies
topic_facet Performing arts
thema EDItEUR::A The Arts::AT Performing arts::ATD Theatre studies
url ONIX_20230605_9780472903702_12
work_keys_str_mv AT mihaylovastefka viewersindistress