\u201cIntroduction: \u2018Should we poke it with a stick?\u2019: Approaches to Fantastic Performance\u201d
\nJen Gunnels and Isabella van Elferen<\/p>\n
Performance and the fantastic have had an ongoing, fruitful relationship for several millennia. The fantastic has inspired theatrical performances ranging in history and type from the Abydos Passion Play shown on the Ikhernofret Stone (1868 B.C.E.) to the ritual dances and dithyrambs leading to Greek tragedy (according to Aristotle\u2019s Poetics<\/em> c. 335-323 B.C.E) to Mozart\u2019s Magic Flute<\/em> (1791) and contemporary stagings of Klingon narratives (Gunnels 2012). Moreover, fantastic performance is not limited to the theatrical stage, extending to genres like musical performance, dance, and public life, such as Dia de los Muertos parades. Thus, while the cultural significance of \u201cfantastic performance\u201d is evident from the historical entwinement of both genres, it is hard to find a clear definition for it. Performance itself, of course, is a messy category. It\u2019s a gooey amalgam of arts in various combinations and emphases\u2014an organic, cohesive, ephemeral whole which is always in the process of passing into oblivion. The fantastic also defies unambivalent categorization, and it, too, is comprised of a messy conglomerate of genres and styles, borrowing from and coupling with one another to produce more work that shuns definition.<\/p>\n Traditionally the term \u201cperformance\u201d is used to signify a theatrical event being studied like \u201ca performance of Swan Lake.\u201d However, such events really are meta-texts made up of multiple, specialized discourses (music, light, movement, set, costumes, etc.) of which a literary text may not be a part, or if it is, that particular text is one of many and not always the most informative at that. The \u201ctext\u201d of, or in, a performance, therefore, can signify a script, a score, sound, lights, costume, and many other forms of multimedial discourse\u2014on their own or in multiple combinations, on the stage or in the public space. Performance evades and elides definitions, which gives it an interdisciplinary commonality with the fantastic. This makes any study of performance messy by default, since the subject matter itself cannot be neatly nailed down with definitive analysis.<\/p>\n When discussed in critical terms, performance therefore often becomes even more messy and fraught. As Hans-Thies Lehmann notes, modern performances have moved past traditional notions of script (among other elements), and critics in the field have difficulty finding a way to define and uniformly discuss new kinds of performance and the elements that comprise them. More importantly, with the advent of new technology utilized in productions, recordings, and remote audiences the old stand-by definition of performance as outlined by Eric Bentley in The Life of the Drama<\/em>\u2014A (performer) does B (some character\/some kind of activity) for C (spectator) in X (a space for the performance)\u2014doesn\u2019t hold anymore. Does A have to be a human or even be alive? Is B a character if there is no longer a reliance on a linear dramatic script? Does C have to be physically present at the time of the performance? Does the venue, X, have to be a physical space? Part of what performance analysis has struggled with over the past two decades is the question of whether or not performance can be situated in organic \u201cliveness\u201d (Auslander). The academic debate, too, expands over the borders of theatrical performance: as the advent of recording technology, for instance, has radically changed the ways in which we experience musical liveness, the same problems have been addressed in the study of music (Sexton).<\/p>\n The articles in this special issue of JFA<\/em> demonstrate the ways in which the study of the fantastic\u2014which, despite its multivalent entanglements with performance, is still primarily analyzed through literary and cinematic approaches\u2014can benefit from methodologies and viewpoints generated in performance criticism and analysis. Since the \u201cperformative turn\u201d in the 1990s (Parker and Kosofsky Sedgwick), the appropriation of performative methods of inquiry into fields such as literary and cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, and psychology has led to new insights in complex cultural phenomena such as identity, gender, communication, and creation. In which ways can the analysis of the fantastic\u2014in all its fantasy, science fictional, Gothic, and horror forms and shapes\u2014similarly lead to new insights in that genre and its cultural manifestations and significance? Just because fantastic performance is a messy category, in other words, that doesn\u2019t preclude a rigorous methodological approach. This JFA<\/em> issue brings together a range of possible methodologies for the study of this genre.<\/p>\n The authors in this issue discuss multiple forms of fantastic performance and performativity with methodologies originating from multi-disciplinary backgrounds, from theatre studies to musicology, film studies, and critical theory. Our issue begins in the theatre with articles by Graham Wolfe and Robert Lublin. Wolfe examines Irish playwright Conor McPherson\u2019s play, The Shining City<\/em>, to reveal how performed specters foreground the ghostly aspects of the characters\u2019, and by extension our own, lives. Lublin engages with recent productions of the Faust mythos and illustrates how these reflect a more postmodern idea, \u201cthe death of man,\u201d using a fantastic mirror. Moving from theatre to dance, Adam Guzkowski\u2019s article focuses on the political potential of dance and dance imagery in theatre, studying the ways in which this potential is mobilized within two science fiction texts, Stardance<\/em> and The Merro Tree. <\/em>Moving from choreographic to cinematic uses of music, James Wierzbicki proposes a musical reading of James Whale\u2019s 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein<\/em>. He examines how and why Frankenstein\u2019s monster, by means of early adaptations of the novel for the stage, came to be portrayed as an overtly expressive music lover. The next article by Tanya Dean similarly proposes a musical reading, but this time of a theatrical performance, David Greenspan and Stephin Merritt\u2019s musical adaptation of Neil Gaiman\u2019s Coraline<\/em>. Dean explores the ways in which theatre can serve as a catalyst for active fantastic creation. Joshua Hjalmer Lind\u2019s article takes the performative dimension of music to the level of critical theory. Combining methodologies from psychoanalysis and Gothic criticism, Lind argues that the \u201cghost-Father\u201d that haunts contemporary Gothic is present in the lyrics and musical setting of three heavy metal albums. Pawel Frelik delves into metal music as well, taking a broad survey of the music\u2019s relationship with science fiction through its use of alien conspiracies, cyber-rupture, space black metal, and sf concept albums.<\/p>\n What we have gathered here barely scratches the surface of what can be done and what is possible in utilizing performance criticism and theory for various fantastic media. Like the slippery, multi-faceted subject matter of fantastic performance itself, the methodologies offered here for its analysis are necessarily cross-disciplinary, hybrid, and flexible. Amalgamating analytical principles from various performative theories, the analyses in this special issue invite readers to think over the borders of their own discipline: to think of theatre in terms of sf virtual reality, of film in terms of musical horror, or of songs in terms of ghostly performance. No uniform analytical approach for fantastic performance can\u2014or should\u2014be prescribed: instead, the utility of a pluriform methodology lies in both its plasticity and its co-option into multiple disciplines\u2014a sonic screwdriver offering multiple types of tools for opening and analyzing fantastic performance in innovative ways.<\/p>\n Works Cited<\/p>\n Auslander, Philip. Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture<\/em>. London: Routledge, 1999. Print. Bently, Eric. The Life of the Drama<\/em>. New York: Atheneum. 1964. Print.<\/p>\n Chapple, Freda and Chiel Kattenbelt. \u201cKey Issues in Intermediality in Theater and Performance.\u201d Intermediality in Theatre and Performance<\/em>. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006. 11-25. Print.<\/p>\n Introduction: \u201cShould we poke it with a stick?\u201d: Approaches to Fantastic Performance Staging Everyday Ghosts: Conor McPherson\u2019s Shining City Faust and the \u201cDeath of Man\u201d Movements in Space: Science Fiction, Dance, and the Politics of Performance How Frankenstein\u2019s Monster Became a Music Lover Piano Guts and Other Mothers: Staging Fantasy in David Greenspan and Stephin Merritt\u2019s Musical Adaptation of Neil Gaiman\u2019s Coraline Tanya Dean<\/p>\n The Ghost-Father in 1980s Heavy Metal Dark Matters: Mapping Science Fiction on the Extreme Metal Continuum Angela M. Smith\u2019s Hideous Progeny: Disability, Eugenics, and Classic Horror Cinema Emily E. Auger\u2019s Tech-Noir Film: A Theory of the Development of Popular Genres Anne Morey\u2019s Genre, Reception, and Adaptation in the \u201cTwilight\u201d Series Bruce Thomas Boehrer\u2019s Animal Characters: Nonhuman Beings in Early Modern Literature Elton Honores\u2019s Mundos imposibles: lo fant\u00e1stico en la narrativa peruana Thomas M. Sipos\u2019s Horror Film Aesthetics: Creating the Visual Language of Fear Grace L. Dillon\u2019s Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction John Cheng\u2019s Astounding Wonder: Imagining Science and Science Fiction in Interwar America Tom Tyler\u2019s CIFERAE: A Bestiary in Five Fingers Katherine A. Fowkes\u2019s The Fantasy Film Asa Simon Mittman and Peter J. Dendle\u2019s The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous Lawrence R. Samuel\u2019s Supernatural America: A Cultural History Kenneth B. Kidd\u2019s Freud in Oz: At the Intersections of Psychoanalysis and Children\u2019s Literature<\/em> Aviva Briefel and Sam J. Miller\u2019s Horror After 9\/11: World of Fear, Cinema of Terror Kimberley McMahon-Coleman and Roslyn Weaver\u2019s Werewolves and Other Shapeshifters in Popular Culture: A Thematic Analysis of Recent Depictions John C. Tibbetts\u2019s The Gothic Imagination: Conversations on Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction in the Media Gary Westfahl\u2019s The Spacesuit Film: A History, 1918-1969 Dean A. Kowalski and S. Evan Kreider\u2019s The Philosophy of Joss Whedon W. Sullivan III\u2019s Heinlein\u2019s Juvenile Novels: A Cultural Destiny Leigh Ronald Grossman\u2019s Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction Robert W. Fenton\u2019s Edgar Rice Burroughs and Tarzan: A Biography of the Author and His Creation Editor\u2019s Introduction \u201cIntroduction: \u2018Should we poke it with a stick?\u2019: Approaches to Fantastic Performance\u201d Jen Gunnels and Isabella van Elferen Performance and the fantastic have had an ongoing, fruitful relationship for several millennia. The fantastic has inspired theatrical performances ranging in history and type from the Abydos Passion Play shown on the Ikhernofret Stone (1868 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-726","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":727,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/726\/revisions\/727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Articles<\/h3>\n
\nJen Gunnels and Isabella van Elferen<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Graham Wolfe<\/p>\n
\nRobert Lublin<\/p>\n
\nAdam Guzkowski<\/p>\n
\nJames Wierzbicki<\/p>\n
\nJoshua Hjalmer Lind<\/p>\n
\nPawe\u0142 Frelik<\/p>\nReviews<\/h3>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Kathryn Allan<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Angela Chiang<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Melissa A. Click<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Suanna H. Davis<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Aaron Dziubinskyj<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Perin Gurel<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Adam Guzkowski<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Andrea Krafft<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Sha LaBare<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Emily Midkiff<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by T. S. Miller<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by John W. Morehead<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Gretchen Papazian<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Emily Lauren Putnam<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Amy J. Ransom<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Joshua Richardson<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Don Riggs<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Joseph Michael Sommers<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by A. Bowdoin Van Riper<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Jason P. Vest<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Matt Yockey<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"