Visualizing Medieval Performance

Taking a fresh look at the interconnections between medieval images, texts, theater, and practices of viewing, reading and listening, this explicitly interdisciplinary volume explores various manifestations of performance and meanings of performativity in the Middle Ages. The contributors - from their various perspectives as scholars of art history, religion, history, literary studies, theater studies, music and dance - combine their resources to reassess the complexity of expressions and definitions of medieval performance in a variety of different media. Among the topics considered are interconnections between ritual and theater; dynamics of performative readings of illuminated manuscripts, buildings and sculptures; linguistic performances of identity; performative models of medieval spirituality; social and political spectacles encoded in ceremonies; junctures between spatial configurations of the medieval stage and mnemonic practices used for meditation; performances of late medieval music that raise questions about the issues of historicity, authenticity, and historical correctness in performance; and tensions inherent in the very notion of a medieval dance performance. Contents: Introduction: the spectrum of performances, Elina Gertsman; Part I Visual Performance: Word, Image, Body: Performance and church exterior in medieval Armenia, Christina Maranci; Framing the Apocalypse: the performance of John's Life in the Trinity Apocalypse, Richard K. Emmerson; Performing the illustrated manuscript: great reckonings in little books, Pamela Sheingorn; Performing birth, enacting death: unstable bodies in late medieval devotion, Elina Gertsman. Part II Devotional Performance: Preaching, Prayer, Vision: Performing the Gospel stories: Hildegard of Bingen's dramatic exegesis in the Expositiones Euangeliorum, Beverly Mayne Kienzle; Performance of the Passion: the enactment of devotion in the later Middle Ages, Carolyn Muessig; Women's texts and performances in the medieval Southern Low Countries, Mary Suydam; The space of Christic performance: Theresa of Avila through the lens of Michel de Certeau, Mary Frohlich. Part III Social Performance: Identity, Language, Authority: The hidden exilarch: power and performance in a medieval Jewish ceremony, Jonathan Decter; Desire, deception and display: linguistic performance in Jehan de Saintré, Daisy Delogu; Points of tension: performing Je in Jean Bouchet's Jugement Poetic de l'Honneur Femenin (1538), Helen Swift; 'Taken by night from its tomb': triumph, dissent, and danse macabre in early modern France, Rebecca Zorach. Part IV Lived Performance: Theater, Dance, Music: The medieval religious plays - ritual or theatre?, Erika Fischer-Lichte; Framing the Passion: mansion staging as visual mnemonic, Glenn Ehrstine; Performing our practices: between music and musicology, Yossi Maurey; Dance performance in the late Middle Ages: a contested space, Jennifer Nevile; Bibliography; Index.