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Upon Awakening: Addiction, Performance, and Aesthetics of Authenticity

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Risk, Participation, and Performance Practice

Abstract

This chapter explores the complex relationships between addiction, performance, and aesthetics. In particular, it attempts to conceive what we might call “risky aesthetics” in participatory theatre practices by way of an exploration of particular aspects of the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari—namely, notions of “becoming” and practices of “experimentation” as set out in Mille Plateaux (1987). This chapter argues that there is a strong affiliation between risk taking in drug addiction and risk taking in performance making. To this end, it proposes that participation in performance can provide a platform from which to encourage an affirmative yet creatively challenging form of risk taking, and in so doing to produce a generative aesthetic praxis for performers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, UK

    Zoe Zontou

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  1. Zoe Zontou
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Correspondence to Zoe Zontou .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

    Alice O'Grady

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Zontou, Z. (2017). Upon Awakening: Addiction, Performance, and Aesthetics of Authenticity. In: O'Grady, A. (eds) Risk, Participation, and Performance Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63242-1_9

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