New groundbreaking book on costume
We are very excited about the upcoming book Performance Costume - New Perspectives and Methods, eds Sofia Pantouvaki & Peter McNeil, Bloomsbury 2020. This is a much needed comprehensive overview of costume theory and methods to understand costume agency, firmly based in new costume theory and case studies. Viveka is happy to contribute to the anthology with a research example about Knut Ström's costume sketches for August Strindberg's A Dream-Play, and the interplay between fashion, costume and body in early 20th century visual culture.
Costume is an active agent for performance-making; it is a material object that embodies ideas shaped through collaborative creative work. A new focus in recent years on research in the area of costume has connected this practice in vital and new ways with theories of the body and embodiment, design practices, artistic and other forms of collaboration. Costume, like fashion and dress, is now viewed as an area of dynamic social significance and not simply as passive reflector of a pre-conceived social state or practice. This book offers new approaches to the study of costume, as well as fresh insights into the better-understood frames of historical, theoretical, practice-based and archival research into costume for performance.This anthology draws on the experience of a global group of established researchers as well as emerging voices. Below is a list of just some of the things it achieves:
1. Introduces diverse perspectives, innovative new research methods and
approaches for researching design and the costumed body in performance.
2. Contributes towards a new understanding of how costume actually 'performs'
in time and space.
3. Offers new insights into existing practices, as well as creating a space of
connection between practitioners and researchers from design, the humanities
and social sciences.
