Palgrave Studies in Performance and Migration

With the arrival of over a million refugees into Europe in 2015 and millions of displaced Ukrainians in 2022, the topic of migration has become a major source of public concern and discussion. However, migration is not a new or a local issue. From earliest recorded time, individuals and populations all over the world have migrated to achieve a better life or escape subjection and the threat of violence. The theatre has continually addressed this theme both in its dramaturgy and in its performance practices. Theatre artists have always striven to find new audiences, and the stories they have told have regularly dealt with the theme of migration. Through the centuries peripatetic artists have taken their work on the road in a variety of forms and manifestations such as pageant wagons, commedia dell’arte, touring shows, puppetry, opera, circus, dance, legitimate theatre and mixed media; while playwrights worldwide explored the pathos of the homeless, the excluded and the forcibly displaced to question the meaning of life. This series brings together a range of scholarship focusing on many eras of performance, as well as numerous geographical and social conditions to offer an understanding of the complexities of theatre and migration.