Commodity trailing contemporary performance: Sh!t Theatre’s DollyWould and Selina Thompson’s salt

Tyler, L. (2024) Commodity trailing contemporary performance: Sh!t Theatre’s DollyWould and Selina Thompson’s salt. Contemporary Theatre Review, 34 (2). pp. 133-151. ISSN 1477-2264 doi: 10.1080/10486801.2024.2334246

Abstract/Summary

This article puts into dialogue the field of theatre and the European and North American geographic tradition of ‘commodity trailing’, including its Marxist underpinning. In recent years, a number of performances have emerged that engage with the process and provenance of commodities. Such performances often present their makers on the trail of commodity origins, consumer experiences, and historic routes of trade. This article introduces a framework in which performances that dramaturgically engage with commodities and their trails can be identified and analysed. It commences with an overview of the geographic principles of commodity trailing, and how this approach might be deployed in theatre scholarship. It applies the framework of commodity trailing to two case studies: Sh!t Theatre’s DollyWould (2017) and Selina Thompson Production’s salt. (2017). In analysing these performances against the principles of commodity trailing, this article supports an enhanced understanding of how dramaturgies attend to commodities and, in so doing, contribute to emergent discourses on performance and political economy. Keywords: trail; commodity chain analysis; performance journeysdefetishization; decolonization

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/117814
Identification Number/DOI	10.1080/10486801.2024.2334246
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Arts and Communication Design > Film, Theatre & Television
Publisher	Routledge
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