Contemporary Street Arts in Europe : Aesthetics and Politics

Street theatre invades a public space, shakes it up and disappears, but the memory of the disruption haunts the site for audiences who experience it. This book looks at how the dynamic interrelationship of performance, participant and place creates a politicized aesthetic of public space that enables the public to rehearse democratic practices.

Street theatre invades a public space, shakes it up and disappears, but the memory of the disruption haunts the site for audiences who experience it. The artists seek to interrupt daily life, startle onlookers with an inversion of a familiar place and quotidian activities, and test the limits of what they can do in public and what they can encourage the public to do. Street theatre does more than offer outdoor entertainment; it frames the public space and the everyday with art. This book questions whether street arts acquire a socio-political significance as they offer the public the opportunity to view daily life through a lens of art and to re-evaluate the meaning and function of quotidian activities and urban spaces. It asks whether the dynamic interrelationship of performance, participant and place creates a unique politicized aesthetic of public space that, in turn, enables the public to rehearse democratic practices.