Colligan, Courtney
(2022)
"Freedom is a Practice”: The Praxis of Postcarceral Performance in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
This dissertation theorizes postcarceral performance as a response to the violence of incarceration in the United Kingdom and the United States. Postcarceral performance consists of three core components: time, space, and praxis. Through its analysis of postcarceral performance, this project considers the role of community-building, the dialectical tension between hope and disappointment, alternative epistemologies of time, and carceral recovery spaces in enacting abolitionist ideologies. Diverging from cohesive applied theatre and prison theatre practices, this project broadly examines how organizations across theatre, art, and educational worlds rewrite carceral narratives by centering those harmed by the carceral state.
Within the past decade, theatre organizations and similar performance non-profits have cultivated new employment-based art programs to attend to this marginalized population of people formerly incarcerated (in addition to incarcerated individuals). These programs not only support a reconceptualizing of the self post-incarceration but also assists in developing methodologies for eventual abolition. Following a critical examination of institutionality and the work of the Donmar Shakespeare Trilogy, this project investigates the postcarceral performance organizations of Clean Break, Let’s Get Free, and the Unit Literacy Group. This project hopes to invigorate the dialogue around prison theatre by displaying abolitionist possibilities of performance and expanding the structure and praxis of reform-centered arts organizations. Ultimately, I argue that building performance structures led by or alongside incarcerated/formerly incarcerated peoples offers new pathways to a world without prisons. Organizations and individuals having the courage to question the sheer existence and practice of incarceration provides an empathetic visual network to process the trauma of prisons, respond to contemporary acts of state-sponsored violence, and imagine collectivist futures.
Share
| Citation/Export: |
|
| Social Networking: |
|
Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
|
| ETD Committee: |
|
| Date: |
13 August 2022 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
25 July 2022 |
| Approval Date: |
19 November 2024 |
| Submission Date: |
14 August 2022 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
293 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Theater Arts |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
performance, abolition, theatre |
| Date Deposited: |
19 Nov 2024 16:38 |
| Last Modified: |
20 Nov 2024 17:02 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/43617 |
Metrics
Monthly Views for the past 3 years
Plum Analytics
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
![[feed]](/images/feed-icon-32x32.png){kind=icon}