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