Performance Medicine And The Human Alex Mermikides by Alex Mermikides 9781350022157, 9781350022188, 1350022152, 1350022187 instant download after payment.

This book explores parallels between two ancient practices – performance and medicine – that are currently coming together in unprecedented ways on theatre stages, in arts and health initiatives, in healthcare education and in medical settings. This convergence sheds new light on what it means to be human at a time when the ‘concept of the human’ is being ‘exploded’ (Braidotti, 2013).
It studies performance through the lens of medicine, revealing how theatre, like medicine, puts the body on display in order to understand and alleviate human suffering.And it examines medicine as a sort of theatre in which doctors, nurses and patients perform. A wide range of medical performances serve to illustrate the discussion: main stage productions such as Jack Thorne’s adaption of Woycek starring John Boyega, Clod Ensemble’s Placebo and Bryony Kimmings and Brian Lobel’s the Pacifists Guide on the War Against Cancer, but also scenes enacted in a hospital ward, a pathology lab, medical school classrooms, a simulation suite and rehearsal studios.
Written from the perspective of a theatre and performance scholar, the book draws on the multiple perspectives enabled by this reciprocal exploration. Through this it addresses recent radical shifts, often provoked by advances in biomedical science, relating to human corporeality, embodiment, subject-hood and subjectivity; and it investigates resulting debates about our humanism and humaneness.