Introduction to the Symposium
Abstract
The paper will identify emerging themes from the four International Mumming Unconvention symposia held in Bath (2011 and 2012) and Gloucester (2013 and 2014). The conference series has encouraged contemporary mumming performers to describe their own 'embodied ethnography' and I draw on these to illustrate a wider co-existence of ideas, beliefs, intentions and performance practices than usually acknowledged. Last year I described these trends and tensions as creative plagiarism and home spun mutations; traditions, revivals and polite evolutions; migrations; performative antecedents, blurring's, printed histories and exemplar texts. The paper will continue to examine the interplay of the 'folklore' dimension - from morris to mumming; the 'theatre' dimension - theatre history and reconstruction, street theatre technique and popular traditions and the current rediscovery of 'located' performance.
About the author
Professor in Drama at the University of Chester and currently Senior Pro-Vice Chancellor. He gained his degrees in Drama, Education and Folklore at the University of Leeds (Ph.D. 1980 "The Performance of English Folk Plays: A Study in Dramatic Form and Social Function") and previously taught theatre arts at the University of Addis Ababa (1980 - 1985) and Bretton Hall (1985 - 1996). He has published in Lore and Language; Folk Life: A Journal of Ethnological Studies; Studies in Theatre and Performance; Performance Research; Popular Entertainment Studies and Contemporary Theatre Review.
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