Translation in the Performing Arts: Embodiment, Materiality, and Inclusion

This innovative collection showcases the interconnectedness of translation and the performing arts, drawing on examples spanning languages, eras, and modes of performance to argue for the importance of re-envisioning translation beyond writing.

Featuring contributions from established and emerging scholars, the volume builds on recent epistemological shifts from a genre-based view of translation toward a material-based approach interested in how performance and embodiment shape translation. Chapters highlight the ways in which, in the nexus of translation and performing arts, we can situate the cross-cultural encounters and transnational exchanges that underpin translation beyond the ideology of print, and help us to better understand the international circulation of performative works. The volume covers a wide range of embodied practices from immersive theatre and intercultural opera to dance and sign language performance, while also incorporating key perspectives from interviews with active practitioners. Taken together, the collection makes the case for a more nuanced understanding of translation, one which accounts for the relationships between translation and the myriad forms of performance that permeate daily life.

This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in translation studies, visual culture, theatre translation, performing arts, literary studies, media studies, and reception studies.