Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Opening night for popular performance text
The Twentieth-Century Performance Reader, edited by Teresa Brayshaw and Emeritus Professor Noel Witts at Leeds Metropolitan University, has been revised and updated to include contributions from over 50 practitioners, critics and theorists from the fields of drama, dance, music, theatre and live art.
Teresa Brayshaw, Director of Performing Arts at Leeds Met, commented: "This book was originally created in 1996 by Michael Huxley and Noel Witts, who described it as coming from a need to support students on the BA Performing Arts degree at the then Leicester Polytechnic. Having been one of those students in the mid-1980s I feel involved in the reason for its creation and was pleased to be asked to co-edit the new edition.
"Rather than theorising, we profile and privilege the work of the artists in their own voices, reflecting the key voices from the 20th Century, including Bobby Baker, Gertrude Stein, Karen Finley, Philip Glass and Lloyd Newson."
The launch event was introduced by Professor Jonathan Pitches of the University of Leeds, who spoke about the book's major contribution to the field, and included a specifically-commissioned performance of some of the book's texts by Masters students at Leeds Met and directed by Senior Lecturer, Oliver Bray. A second book launch also took place at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb, Croatia. Additional launches are also set to take place in Sibiu, Romania and Thrissur, India.
The academic team has now been commissioned by Routledge to produce The Twenty First Century Performance Reader, examining the next generation of practitioners, which is set to be even more global and diverse a publication.