"Diana Looser. Moving islands: Contemporary Performance and the Global Pacific"

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Authors

Byrnes, Vanessa

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Grantor

Date

2023

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Type

Journal Article

Ngā Upoko Tukutuku (Māori subject headings)

Keyword

Pasifika
performing arts
Pasifika Islanders
cultural identity
creative practice in cultural identity

Citation

Byrnes, V.K. (2023) "Diana Looser. Moving islands: Contemporary Performance and the Global Pacific" [Book review]. Recherche littéraire / Literary research. Automne/Fall, 39, 341-348 https://hdl.handle.net/10652/6399

Abstract

[INTRODUCTION] Adding significantly to the vital canon of literature and discourse on Pacific Theatre, Performance, Art, and Cultural Praxis – and the rich, variegated domain of Oceanic Studies – Diana Looser’s Moving Islands: Contemporary Performance and the Global Pacific provides an excellent map for literal and metaphorical travellers of all kinds. The book subtly unravels developing tropes about “international and intercultural connections within contemporary performance from Oceania, focusing on theater [sic], performance art, art installations, dance, film, and activist performance in sites throughout Oceania and in Australia, Asia, North America, and Europe” (Looser). It’s a big task, but this fine piece of scholarship distils a mammoth discussion of interdisciplinary, intercultural, and intermodal performance with confidence and respect, while simultaneously taking its reader on a journey framed by essential artistic, geographic, cultural, social, political, and economic backdrops. To my mind, the book’s most successful contribution is the elegant way that specific case studies provide lenses through which to see the navigation of Pasifika identities in performance contexts, and its assertion that the Pacific is a vital region of global significance with so much to offer the rest of the planet as we move into the future.

Publisher

Peter Lang

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DOI

Copyright holder

Peter Lang

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CC BY-ND Attribution-NoDerivs 4.0 International

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