“My Games are … Unconventional”: Intersections of game and BDSM studies

This article examines connections between games and BDSM (consensual bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism), theoretically speaking (in their respective research areas) as well as in practice. A common grounding behind these connections is the consideration of play as a foundational component in games and game studies as well as in BDSM practices and the studies of BDSM as a cultural phenomenon. We identify five sets of relevant connections. First, there are direct comparisons between the two types of play. Second, several live-action role-playing games have been made about BDSM, or for BDSM. Third, many other games have borrowed ideas from BDSM, as well, as have some BDSM activities, in turn, from games and play. Fourth, queer game studies frequently discuss subversive and transgressive play practices, which provide a fruitful context for analyzing play elements in BDSM, and BDSM-inspired elements in games. And fifth, both games and BDSM are frequently discussed in the research contexts related to performance, theater, and rituals, which forms a potential bridge between these activities. Through this five-strand exploratory analysis, we show how deeply interconnected these two realms are, even if the connection is only rarely mentioned, and to this date, not fully recognized as a valid research topic.

Performance, Theater, Drama

This year saw the continued expansion of four vibrant conversations within the field of theater and performance studies. The first section of this review, ‘World Stages and Their Borders’, features scholarship that explores how theaters represent worlds beyond the nation’s territorial and symbolic boundaries. The second section, ‘Performing Critical Temporalities’, considers studies of minoritarian performance that engage with the lived experience of time. In the third section, ‘Theater After Liveness’, I discuss scholarship on modern drama that is in dialogue with theories of performance as a live event. A fourth section considers new works on the nineteenth-century theater, showing how ‘Celebrity, Publicity, and Amateurism’ are entwined. Finally, a brief concluding note outlines significant biographies and reference works released within the past year.

Afro-Paradise

This chapter analyzes the relationship between carnival and Afro-paradise through two genealogies: racial violence in the national legacy of the use of the black body as an ironic transfer point, a fulcrum for constructing the Brazilian nation, specifically at the site of the pelourinho—the place where enslaved Africans were publically whipped in Brazilian colonial society; and black Brazilians' use of performance (theater and dramatic play) to disrupt and refract this process of violence. For generations, the theater has been a key political space for radical black Brazilians to denounce the myth of racial democracy and declare this myth genocidal. The chapter considers these two interlocking genealogies through a look at race, space, and violence in Bahian carnival, the historical relationship between Afro-paradise and the black body in pain, and the relationship between these two contexts and contemporary black political performance in Salvador.

Representasi Betara Kala dalam Pertunjukan Teater Kontemporer Kalamanungsa

Representation of Batara Kala in Contemporar Theater of Kalamanungsa. This Kalamanungsa theater tellshumanitarian issues, the journey of human life, human beings who have characters that need to fi nd a way out forthe better life. Starting from the myth Betara Kala that was born not intentionally emerges a wide range of results.Kalamanungsa will show something different. Existence Betara Kala, Kala Betara existence presented, and the mythof the birth of stalling and Betara Kala is an inspiring creation performance theater Kalamanungsa. Kalamanungsaraised the issue of modern society life with invented characters, with burdened by the dialogues that contain philosophy,poetry, with strong musical aspect. Kalamanungsa is showed with a modern theatrical approach, by presentingthe symbols to express meaning and emotion, using multimedia, projector/LCD, with music that is processed ona computer elaborated with a variety of traditional and modern musical instruments as the stage spectacle which isintentionally presented to give specifi c meaning. Theater performance Kalamanungsa tries to explain all elements ofart in a show, like music art, dance art, lighting and other art media with hope that Kalamanungsa will attend as ashow of modern theater.