Digital Theatre Routledge Performance Archive Launched

After two years of dedicated research and development, Digital Theatre and Routledge today (6 September 2012) launch the Routledge Performance Archive - an unparalleled international performing arts archive of video, audio and text for educational institutions around the world.

The Routledge/Digital Theatre partnership provides unique access to a world-class archive of primary audio-visual materials by some of the world’s greatest practitioners. This fully searchable, contextualised and cross-referenced resource includes over 40 hours of material brought together for the first time from a number of private archives and will continue to grow, with additional material added every three months. 

Highlights in the Routledge Performance Archive include interviews with Stanislavski’s translator, the late Jean Benedetti, and a 1993 workshop by Mike Pearson, co-director of the recent Royal Shakespeare Company/National Theatre Wales production of Coriolanus for the World Shakespeare Festival.

Also included is a full-length video of Ecole Lecoq teacher Jos Houben’s current production The Art of Laughter, Antonio Fava’s classic piece on Commedia dell’arte which demonstrates techniques dating back to the 16^th century, and unique material by Chicago-based Goat Island and Guillermo Gomez-Pena of La Pocha Nostra, all now available to view online.

Featuring the classics alongside the contemporary, the archive also includes pieces, sourced separately, featuring Rena Mirecka, one of Jerzy Grotowski’s key collaborators - The Dream (2009) and Acting Therapy from 1976. The pair of assets is just one example of how the Routledge Performance Archive allows such content to be digitally juxtaposed for the first time.

A fully translated Russian documentary on the work of Michael Chekhov, never before seen in the West, a full-length Kathakali production from Kerala, a workshop on Amerta Movement from Java, and a collection of material from renowned intercultural theatre ensemble Odin Teatret.

Other international practitioners included in the Routledge Performance Archive include Michael Craig, Niamh Dowling, Andrei Droznin, Avner Eisenberg, Gardzienice, Alexei Levinsky, Bella Merlin, Zygmunt Molik, Iben Nagel Rasmussen, Katharina Seyferth, Anatoly Smeiliansky, Suprapto Suryodarmo, Phillip Zarrilli and David Zinder.

Co-Founder and CEO of Digital Theatre, Robert Delamere, said: "In our work alongside Routledge we are able to harness the expertise we have developed, distributing high quality theatre online for almost three years. Just as Digital Theatre brings the best of British theatre to the world, the Routledge Performance Archive is a world-class digital education tool that is available to a global audience."

Talia Rodgers, Publisher, Theatre and Performance Studies: "The Routledge Performance Archive gathers audio-visual documentation directly from practitioners and contextualises and supplies it for the teachers and students who most need it. This will help bridge the theory-practice divide, which so haunts the discipline. We are thrilled to be collaborating with Digital Theatre on such a vital resource."

www.routledgeperformancearchive.com