Street Theatre and the Production of Postindustrial Space : Working Memories

Street theatre and the production of postindustrial space explores how street theatre transforms industrial space into postindustrial space. Deindustrializing communities have increasingly turned to cultural projects to commemorate industrial heritage while simultaneously generating surplus value and jobs in a changing economy. Through analysis of French street theatre companies working out of converted industrial sites, this book reveals how theatre and performance more generally participate in and make historical sense of ongoing urban and economic change. The book argues, firstly, that deindustrialization and redevelopment rely on the spatial and temporal logics of theatre and performance. Redevelopment requires theatrical events and performative acts that revise, resituate, and re-embody particular pasts. The book proposes working memory as a central metaphor for these processes. The book argues, secondly, that in contemporary France street theatre has emerged as working memory's privileged artistic form. If the transition from industrial to postindustrial space relies on theatrical logics, those logics will manifest differently depending on geographic context. The book links the proliferation of street theatre in France since the 1970s to the crisis in Fordist-Taylorist modernity. How have street theatre companies converted spaces of manufacturing into spaces of theatrical production? How do these companies (with municipal governments and developers) connect their work to the work that occurred in these spaces in the past? How do those connections manifest in theatrical events, and how do such events give shape and meaning to redevelopment? Street theatre’s function is both economic and historiographic. It makes the past intelligible as past and useful to the present. This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. Deindustrialising communities have called upon street theatre companies to re-animate public space and commemorate industrial heritage. How have these companies converted derelict factories into spaces of theatrical production? How do they connect their work to the industrial work that once occurred there? How do those connections manifest in theatrical events, and how do such events give shape and meaning to ongoing redevelopment projects? This book develops an understanding of the relationship between theatre and redevelopment that goes beyond accusations of gentrification or celebrations of radical resistance. Ultimately, Calder argues that deindustrialisation and redevelopment depend on theatrical events and performative acts to make ongoing change intelligible and navigable. Working memories brings together some of current theatre scholarship's fundamental concerns while demonstrating the significance of those concerns to an interdisciplinary readership. Front matter Contents List of figures Acknowledgements Introduction: working memory Theatre in ruins: street and theatre at the end of Fordism Reincorporation: putting the countryside back to work Excavation: the imaginary archaeology of redevelopment Resurfacing: continuous theatre for a creative city Recuperation: alternative pasts, sustainable futures Bibliography Index Working memories explores how street theatre transforms industrial space into postindustrial space.