Bourdieu in the Studio: Decolonising and Decentering Actor Training Through Ludic Activism

This book explores how actor training can address unconscious biases by combining education and culture, using techniques such as Ludic Activism to facilitate critical consciousness and praxis. It trains actors from diverse backgrounds to use Bourdieu-inspired vocabulary and pedagogy, developing their social representations and reinforcing their positionality in performance.

Format: Hardback
Length: 240 pages
Publication date: 27 September 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This comprehensive book offers invaluable tools to address the growing and urgent interest in exposing and challenging unconscious biases in the studio. By leveraging the unique fusion of education and culture in actor training, it pioneers a practical and rigorous investigation into Pierre Bourdieu's notion that domination and inequality are embodied in subtle ways. This book adapts and develops techniques pioneered by Joan Littlewood and Ariane Mnouchkine, juxtaposing social concerns with comedic elements to theatricalize Bourdieuian concepts. It invites critical consciousness and critical praxis in the studio, fostering a creative intervention known as Ludic Activism. Actors from diverse training backgrounds were trained to employ Ludic Activism, co-investigating how the Bourdieu-inspired vocabulary and pedagogy can facilitate the acknowledgment and tackling of dispositions during theatre-making. Ludic Activism not only developed the participants' social representations but also transformed them into progressive and compassionate versions, reinforcing their understanding and use of positionality in performance through a series of authorial acting tasks.

This book serves as an advanced study for actors, directors, and teachers of acting, catering to both the training/rehearsal studio and research contexts. The methodology, account of the process, and evaluation of the creative intervention, including illustrations and selected videos accessible on the Routledge website, showcase a decolonizing and decentering trajectory for actor training. By embracing the power of theatre and the fusion of social and artistic elements, this book empowers actors to become agents of change, promoting diversity, equity, and inclusivity in the performing arts.

Weight: 630g
Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032306070