Digital Spoken Word Theatre in the UK: Navigating the Theatre Screen with Rose Condo’s The Geography of Me

Autor(en)
Shefali Banerji
Abstrakt

Spoken word theatre appeared on the scene of British poetry performance in the 1990 s. The art form privileges the (hyper-)visibility of the poet-performer where practitioners present their work in their customary style in a long form live show. In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, several previously on-site shows moved to the domain of the digital. In this article, I explore four types of such virtual adaptations by women practitioners with emphasis on performance strategies and the politics of visibility. I then engage in an in-depth analysis of The Geography of Me by UK-based Canadian poet Rose Condo to study the salient features and discontents of digital spoken word theatre and Condo’s use of pre-recorded material. I also examine how this strategy negotiates the expectation of visibility of a gendered body in spoken word theatre. I argue that the use of pre-recorded material helps control the unpredictability of online performance conditions and mitigates the risks associated with performing traumatic narratives.

Organisation(en)
Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik
Journal
Journal of Contemporary Drama in English
Band
13
Seiten
108-126
Anzahl der Seiten
19
ISSN
2195-0156
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1515/jcde-2025-2007
Publikationsdatum
04-2025
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
602008 Anglistik, 604006 Darstellende Kunst, 602003 Allgemeine Literaturwissenschaft
Schlagwörter
Link zum Portal
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/80f61387-791a-414e-b835-d5b52cf95d8a