Modernist and Avant-Garde Performance

This textbook introduces you to modernist avant-garde theatre. It clearly explains the key terms as well as the major movements, including Expressionism, Dadaism, Futurism, Workers’ theatres, Constructivism and the Living Newspaper, and Mass Performance, using a case study approach.

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The first detailed, student-focused introduction to modernist avant-garde performance


This textbook introduces the reader to modernist avant-garde theatre. It clearly explains the key terms as well as the major movements, including Expressionism, Dadaism, Futurism, Workers’ theatres, Constructivism and the Living Newspaper, and Mass Performance, using a case study approach. It introduces the important innovations of the modernist avant-garde, reassesses theatrical techniques, and provides examples of plays and performances from across Europe and America. There are also chapters on The Modernist Body and on Interdisciplinary Performance. The book approaches the modernist avant-garde both as an area of academic study and as potential raw material for contemporary performance.


Key Features:
• The first introductory guide to the modernist theatrical avant-garde
• Includes case studies, practical exercises at the end of each chapter, an annotated bibliography and a glossary of performance terms
• Includes links to performance-based explorations of theatrical techniques
• Provides a springboard for further independent study, both theoretical and practical


Claire Warden is Senior Lecturer in Drama at the University of Lincoln. Her research focuses primarily on constructing new, fluid narratives for modernist performance. She is the author of British Avant-Garde Theatre (Palgrave MacMillan 2012), and multiple journal articles and book chapters on modernism, interdisciplinarity, theatre, art and cultural studies.