Performance Research Volume 8 Issue 3

On Smell

Issue editors: Richard Gough & Judie Christie

ISBN: 978-0-415-32132

In western culture, smell is the most undervalued of all the senses, as evidenced not least by the linguistic adoption of sensorial terms for commendation or compliment as opposed to the mainly derogatory examples that use smell – with the exception, perhaps, of the slightly ambivalent ‘fragrant’. The demotion of smell in western cultures in line with the advances of rationalism and sanitation, would appear to be concurrent with a similar ‘deodorization of theatre’ that occurs with Naturalism. Smell is enjoying a renaissance in both theatre and scientific research. The relationships between smell and performance are diverse, as are its historical precedents. On Smell investigates the olfactory in performance as an aesthetic or representational strategy, as a potential for new performance work, as well as in its performative aspects in daily life, and in discourses about smell, especially in regard to identity, commodification, psychology, neurology, medicine, therapy and environmentalism.

Editorial

Richard Gough, Judie Christie

pp. 1 - 2

Winter Day - in the month of February, in the year of 2003, somewhere near the Canada/USA border

Millie Chen

pp. 3 - 10

Smelling Voices: Cooking in the Theatre

Eleanor Margolies

pp. 11 - 22

What Remains [artist's pages]

Sophia New

pp. 23 - 28

Trafficking in Air

Jim Drobnick

pp. 29 - 43

Nosing Around: A Singapore scent trail

Paul Rae, Low Kee Hong

pp. 44 - 54

From the Hideous to the Sublime: Olfactory processes, performance texts and sensory episteme

Zachar Laskewicz

pp. 55 - 65

On the Scent [artist's pages]

Leslie Hill, Helen Paris

pp. 66 - 72

Writing the Olfactory in the Live Performance Review

Matthew Reason

pp. 73 - 84

Sniffable Media

Scott de Lahunta

pp. 85 - 86

Smellbytes: The smells of my imagination

Jenny Marketou

pp. 87 - 89

Living Flacons: Fragrant performance - performing fragrance by women in Sanaa (Yemen)

Dinah Jung

pp. 90 - 93

Finding Oneself through the Perfumes of Memory: An interview with Enrique Vargas

Richard Gough, Judie Christie

pp. 94 - 103

Olfactory Translations and Interpretations

Raewyn Turner

pp. 104 - 112

Becoming Carnival: Performing a postmodern identity

Ted Hiebert

pp. 113 - 125

Excerpts from 'Brownout! Part 2'

Guillermo Gómez-Peña

pp. 126 - 135

Performance Review: Estuary Language

Robert Ayers

pp. 136 - 138

Book Review: Recuperating the Marginalized

Sarah Parry

pp. 138 - 140

Notes on Contributors

pp. 141 - 142