The Twists and Turns of Peripeteia

The piece examines the status of digital performance as a type of peripeteia of contemporary theatre. Using Aristotle’s famous term describing a narrative fork in the road, a sudden plot twist or a fall from grace, it argues that digital technologies have exerted similarly seismic twists and turns in the directions and aesthetics of contemporary theatre productions. Technologies have always been heralded and celebrated, and feared and despised in equal measure, from the Luddites to contemporary digital naysayers, and the same is found to be true for performance practitioners.

Citation:
Dixon, Steve. ''The Twists and Turns of Peripeteia.'' NÉ QUI, NÉ ORA: PERIPEZIE MEDIALI DELLA PERFORMANCE CONTEMPORANEA [Neither Here, Nor Now: Medial Peripeteias of Contemporary Performance], edited by Ester Fuoco, Rome, Ledizioni, 2022, ISBN / ISSN: ISBN: 9788855267502.