The transformative / transcendental power of experiencing a theatrical / dance production is a universal phenomenon that spans over 2500 years of human history.  Theater as a form of historical representation, collective memory and staging of traumatic memory has a unique role in the larger purpose of inquiry and conversation about genocide and prevention.  Dance as a form of spatial and kinetic movement driven “creative geopolitics” and “place-responsive choreography” can deepen understanding of  the relationship between trauma and the body, historical staging and contemporary experience.  This section  will outline resources that explore methods and questions of performative “re-presentation” of collective historical processes and the shared experience of mass violence through the performance arts of acting and dance.  

History, Memory, Performance is one volume of the Studies in International Performance Series at Palgrave MacMillan Publishing.  This edited volume reflects on the processes by which we make sense of the past, with history as a form of performance.  How do artists and historians negotiate the “distance between past and present?”   For the authors: “memory acts as a shared crucible of discovery and a distorting lens through which history and theater engage with the past” The volume brings together academics and practitioners in history, public history, memory studies, theater studies and performance studies “to discuss issues that are central to the convergence of historical practices that are aware of their own performativity and theatrical practices that are aware of the complexities inherent in performing “the real”.

The Theater of Genocide: This anthology, written in 2008 is an early and pioneering collection of four plays narrating the genocides in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia and Armenia.  The perspectives analyzed in this critique focus on the roles of form and style within theatrical productions,  genres and historical collective memory as discourse between reality and memory, conscious and subconscious, realism and surrealism.     

Studies in International Performance Series:  “Culture and performance cross borders constantly, and not just the borders that define nations. In this series, scholars of performance produce interactions between and among nations and cultures as well as genres, identities, and imaginations. Inter-national in the largest sense, the books collected here display a range of historical, theoretical, and critical approaches to the panoply of performances that make up the global surround. The Series embraces “Culture” which is institutional as well as improvised, underground, or alternate, and analyzes “Performance” as either intercultural or transnational as well as intracultural within nations.” (Palgrave MacMillan)     

Theater and Event:   “In the beginning of the 21st century, European theatre-makers have sought to consider the disastrous events of the 20th century as the unfinished business of the contemporary. In this book, Kear argues that by thinking through the logic of the event, contemporary performance offers an affective interrogation of ‘the event’ of the European century.:In the beginning of the 21st century,” (Palgrave MacMillan)  

Performance, Politics and Activism:  “Considering both making political performance and making performance politically, this collection explores engagements of political resistance, public practice and performance media, on various scales of production within structures of neo-liberal and liberal government and power.” (Palgrave MacMillan)

Theatre of the Real:   “This book proposes a new way to consider theatre and performance that claims a special relationship to reality, truth and authenticity. It documents innovations in devising and staging theatre and performance that takes reality as its subject, cultural shifts that have generated theatre of the real, some of its problems and some possibilities.” (Palgrave MacMillan)      

  Dramaturgy of the Real on the World Stage:  “The Dramaturgy of the Real brings together an incredible range of international theatre thinking, plays and performance texts, many published here for the first time, that ask questions about how we have come to understand reality and truth in the twenty-first century and analyze the presentation of non-fiction on the international stage.” (Palgrave MacMillan)    

Performance, Ethics and Spectatorship in a Global Age:  “This book takes performance studies in exciting new directions, exploring the ways in which ethics can be used to understand the complex questions facing contemporary spectators. Engaging with five key performances, the book reflects on the emotional and intellectual impacts of politically inflected performance on spectators, critics and theorists.” (Palgrave MacMillan)

 Violence Performed:  “This topical collection explores the relationship between violence and performance. The authors offer fresh theoretical perspectives and examine media as diverse as street theatre, performance art, photography and cinema in locations as diverse as Korea and South Africa to India and Israel.” (Palgrave MacMillan)