Dominic Symonds

‘Our Lincolnshire’ (2015-16) was devised as a robust, multi-vocally informed exploration of the attitudes of residents and visitors in Lincolnshire to the county’s heritage and the ways in which they engage with it. The context for this was the recognition amongst the county heritage sector of a disconnect between citizens of Lincolnshire and heritage beyond the city of Lincoln which presents challenges when the purpose and function of museums and heritage services need to be reviewed, especially when funding issues are impacting on this process. Understanding attitudes and re-connecting the various audiences in Lincolnshire with their rural heritage in a meaningful and creative way is thus required to ensure the continued collection, curation and presentation of heritage assets is effective in caring for heritage now and for future generations and ensuring the heritage resource reflects, meets and advances the interests, needs and aspirations of Lincolnshire’s residents and visitors today. This volume outlines the methods, data, outcomes and recommendations that generated from this multi-dimensional and innovative research and engagement process.

In their previous book, Economies of Collaboration in Performance, Savage and Symonds explored the economy as a metaphor for understanding collaborative practices in the arts. This book, Ecologies of Community in Performance, continues to explore arts practices, focusing on communities and turning to the language of ecology to understand the complexities and working dynamics of arts communities. The book provides a thoughtful analysis of how communities work as ecologies, offering case studies of community processes by way of illustrating the main discussion. In doing so it reveals how the triangulation of ecology, community, and performance allows for a deeper understanding of dynamic relations in the arts, enabling scholars, practitioners and policy-makers to better conceptualise ecological thinking in relation to 21st century arts practices.

This is a book about collaboration in the arts, which explores how working together seems to achieve more than the sum of the parts. It introduces ideas from economics to conceptualize notions of externalities, complementarity, and emergence, and playfully explores collaborative structures such as the swarm, the crowd, the flock, and the network. It uses up-to-date thinking about Wikinomics, Postcapitalism, and Biopolitics, underpinned by ideas from Foucault, Bourriaud, and Hardt and Negri. In a series of thought-provoking case studies, the authors consider creative practices in theatre, music and film. They explore work by artists such as Gob Squad, Eric Whitacre, Dries Verhoeven, Pete Wyer, and Tino Seghal, and encounter both live and online collaborative possibilities in fascinating discussions of Craigslist and crowdfunding at the Edinburgh Festival. What is revealed is that the introduction of Web 2.0 has enabled a new paradigm of artistic practice to emerge, in which participatory encounters, collaboration, and online dialogue become key creative drivers. Written itself as a collaborative project between Karen Savage and Dominic Symonds, this is a strikingly original take on the economics of working together.

This is a book about collaboration in the arts, which explores how working together seems to achieve more than the sum of the parts. It introduces ideas from economics to conceptualize notions of externalities, complementarity, and emergence, and playfully explores collaborative structures such as the swarm, the crowd, the flock, and the network. It uses up-to-date thinking about Wikinomics, Postcapitalism, and Biopolitics, underpinned by ideas from Foucault, Bourriaud, and Hardt and Negri. In a series of thought-provoking case studies, the authors consider creative practices in theatre, music and film. They explore work by artists such as Gob Squad, Eric Whitacre, Dries Verhoeven, Pete Wyer, and Tino Seghal, and encounter both live and online collaborative possibilities in fascinating discussions of Craigslist and crowdfunding at the Edinburgh Festival. What is revealed is that the introduction of Web 2.0 has enabled a new paradigm of artistic practice to emerge, in which participatory encounters, collaboration, and online dialogue become key creative drivers. Written itself as a collaborative project between Karen Savage and Dominic Symonds, this is a strikingly original take on the economics of working together.

Broadway Rhythm is a guide to Manhattan like nothing you've ever read. Author Dominic Symonds calls it a performance cartography, and argues that the city of New York maps its iconicity in the music of the Broadway songbook. A series of walking tours takes the reader through the landscape of Manhattan, clambering over rooftops, riding the subway, and flying over skyscrapers. Symonds argues that Broadway's songs can themselves be used as maps to better understand the city though identifiable patterns in the visual graphics of the score, the auditory experience of the music, and the embodied articulation of performance, recognizing in all of these patterns, corollaries inscribed in the terrain, geography, and architecture of the city. Through musicological analyses of works by Gershwin, Bernstein, Copland, Sondheim and others, the author proposes that performance cartography is a versatile methodology for urban theory, and establishes a methodological approach that uses the idea of the map in three ways: as an impetus, a metaphor, and a tool for exploring the city.

This lively textbook provides a comprehensive overview of the history, theory and practice of this popular theatre form. Bringing critical theory and musical theatre together, Millie Taylor and Dominic Symonds explore the musical stage from a broad range of theoretical perspectives. Part 1 focuses on the way we understand musicals as texts and Part 2 then looks at how musical theatre negotiates its position in the wider world. Part 3 recognises the affiliations of various communities with the musical stage, and finally part 4 unravels the musical’s relationship with time, space, intertextuality and entertainment. Written by leading experts in Musical Theatre and Drama, Taylor and Symonds utilise their wealth of knowledge to engage and educate the reader on this diverse subject. With its accessible and extensive content, this text is the ideal accompaniment to any study of musical theatre internationally: an essential tool for students of all levels, lecturers, practitioners and enthusiasts alike.

The ideal accompaniment to any study of musical theatre, this lively textbook provides a comprehensive overview of the history, theory and practice of this popular theatre form. Bringing critical theory and musical theatre together, it focuses on a diverse range of key shows - from HMS Pinafore (1878) to Mamma Mia (1999) and Imago (2013).