Performance and medicine are now converging in unprecedented ways.
London's theatres reveal an appetite for medical themes – John
Boyega is subjected to medical experiments in Jack Thorne's _Woycek,_
while Royal National Theatre produces a novel musical about cancer. At
the same time, performance-makers seek to improve our health, using
dance to increase mobility for those living with Parkinson's disease
or performance magic as physiotherapy for children with paraplegia.
_Performance, Medicine and the Human_ surveys this emerging field,
providing case studies based on the author's own experience of
devising medical performances in collaboration with cancer patients,
biomedical scientists and healthcare educators.
Examining contemporary medical performance reveals an ancient
preoccupation, evident in the practices of both theatre and healing,
with the human. Like medicine, theatre puts the human on display in
order to understand and, perhaps, alleviate the suffering inherent to
the human condition. Medical practice constitutes a sort of theatre in
which doctors, nurses and patients perform their humaneness and
humanity. This insight has much to offer at a time when established
notions of the human are being radically rethought, partly in response
to emerging biomedical knowledge. _Performance, Medicine and the Human
_argues that contemporary medical performance can shed new light on
what it means to be human – and what we mean by the human, the
humane, humanism and the humanities – at a time when these notions
are being fundamentally rethought. Its insights are relevant to
scholars in performance studies, the medical humanities, healthcare
education and beyond.
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Product details
ISBN
9781350022171
Published
2020
Edition
1. edition
Publisher
Bloomsbury UK
Language
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Author