STAGING AN EMERGENCY
III.
While the implications of the innovative structure of this performance are undoubtedly
numerous, in this final section I will limit myself to three observations.
1. While “!” [Hollywood Blues] departs radically from the ways in which we are
accustomed to having disasters represented, what it does display an affinity
with are the emergency scenarios and Preparedness Exercises organised by
emergency response agencies. Preparedness Exercises often aim to simulate a
state of tension within which responders may rehearse their roles and
responsibilities. Using a range of narrative techniques, the exercise is specifically
designed to modulate the affective atmosphere encountered in an actual emergency.
These similarities raise interesting possibilities for an engagement between the
arts and emergency practitioners. How might theatre and performance studies
shed light on how rehearsal and memory are employed within preparedness
exercises? How might the arts be used to boost community resilience through
innovative applications of community theatre and other media?
2. “!” [Hollywood Blues] raises important methodological questions for those
working in a range of academic disciplines interested in the social and political
dimensions of crises and emergencies.
On the one hand, this performance should alert us to the multiple ways in
which an event may be represented and engaged. Methodologically, this might
provoke us to explore new methods for engaging with the complex dynamics of
an unfolding event: accounting for both the productive and destructive dynamics
at play, and tracing the confused non-linear processes of emergence underlying
those objects that we all too soon characterize as pre-formed in the social
sciences. Indeed, this may even require a new vocabulary, better equipped to
account for these complex processes – drawn as much from the arts as from
the sciences.
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