Performance Research Volume 25 Issue 5

On Diffraction

Issue editors: Annouchka Bayley

ISSN: 1352-8165 (2020) 25:5

‘On Diffraction’ is an invitation to explore the nuanced performativities of the quantum world in and for performance studies. This issue responds to Haraway and Barad’s call for creating urgent, new ways of thinking about the performance and performativity of phenomena that we often take for granted—the world of atoms and photons, waves and wavelengths, microbes and microscopes—that extend beyond human-centred ways of performing the world, in all its vibrancy. We will foreground the spooky, dynamic and subtle ways that diffraction impacts on our understanding of how matter comes to matter—on how all things emerge out of tiny indeterminacies that shape us and the world we live in. At the heart of this issue lies the redefining of political response-ability: how we might go about creating new, critical and performance-based investigations into what it is to perform and be performed within an entanglement of non/human agencies.

Diffraction for Performance Research : A new materialist approach to theory/practice

Annouchka C. Bayley

pp. 1 - 3

Notes from the Semiotic Chora : Theatre and performance as affective diffraction

Laura Hartnell

pp. 4 - 9

Diffracted Readings of the Future : Practices of ‘Differentiation-Entanglement’

Natalia Esling, Anna Jayne Kimmel, Azadeh Sharifi, Asher Warren, Asher Warren

pp. 10 - 16

Atmosphere and Intra-action : Feeling entangled agencies in theatre spaces

Sarah Lucie

pp. 17 - 23

Stumbling Matters : On memory as matter that matters

Per Roar

pp. 24 - 30

Diffraction, Mixture and Cut-Ups in Performing with Plants

Annette Arlander

pp. 31 - 38

The Diffraction of Cells : Places to (mis)carry [artist’s pages]

Joanne 'Bob' Whalley

pp. 39 - 44

The (Im)possibility of Communicating with Other Species

Christina Stadlbauer, Bartaku

pp. 45 - 48

Entangled Gestures and Technical Objects : Illuminating embodiment and digital experience through diffraction in performance

EL Putnam

pp. 49 - 55

Diffracted Temporalities : Trajal Harrell’s other dance histories

Daniela Perazzo Domm

pp. 56 - 62

Stranger Things, Secret Cinema and the Transmateriality of Touch

Annouchka C. Bayley

pp. 63 - 70

Diffraction and ‘In-Visible Light’ : A case study of vertical dance

Rosemary (Rosa) Cisneros, Kate Lawrence

pp. 71 - 76

Dancing Diffraction : Many bodies make light work in Sasha Milavic Davies and Lucy Railton’s everything that rises must dance (2018)

Jess McCormack

pp. 77 - 83

Diffracting the Politicized Spectale : Queering censorship in the Aichi Triennale

Kyoko Iwaki

pp. 84 - 91

Diffractive Co-conspiracy in Queer, Crip Live Art Production

Beck Tadman

pp. 92 - 100

Diffracting Virtual Realities : Towards an A-effected VR

Eleanor Dare

pp. 101 - 106

The Diffracting Light in Contemporary Theatre

Amy Chan

pp. 107 - 113

Diffractive Dramaturgy : A performance practice for complicated times

Jon Lee

pp. 114 - 121

Entangled Speech : Speaking through oral microbes

Klaus Spiess, Maximilian Hauptmann, Lucie Strecker

pp. 122 - 128

Performing Porosity : Is there some method?

JJ Chan

pp. 129 - 134

Cutting together-apart (une greffe)

Teoma J. Naccarato, John MacCallum

pp. 135 - 142

Web-Dance’s Era of Ecstasy [review]

Douglas Eacho

pp. 143 - 144

Productive Ruptures [review]

Diana Damian Martin

pp. 144 - 145

Productive Disorientation Towards a More-than-Human Attunement [review]

Sarah Lucie

pp. 145 - 146

Diffracting Cybernetic-Existentialism [review]

Taylor C. Black

pp. 146 - 147

Notes on Contributors

pp. 148 - 150