عنوان

Producing the Festival City :

Number

TLets775128

Title Proper

Producing the Festival City :

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Thomasson, Sarah

Title Proper by Another Author

place myths and the Festivals of Adelaide and Edinburgh

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

Queen Mary, University of London

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2015

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Body granting the degree

Queen Mary, University of London

Text preceding or following the note

2015

Text of Note

The Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) and the Adelaide Festival, and their associated Fringe Festivals, are large international multi-arts events that focus on artistic excellence and annually imbue their host cities with month-long festive atmospheres. They are also mobilised within tourism campaigns and urban governance strategies to promote these cities as great places to live, work, and visit. In an era of festivalisation, in which festivals have become a popular urban entrepreneurial strategy to promote economic growth, foster social cohesion and civic pride,and advertise positive images of the city, these festivals give Adelaide and Edinburgh a competitive advantage by underwriting their cultural, creative, and cosmopolitan credentials. I argue, however, that beyond a brand identity, these events provide the dominant 'set of core images' (Shields 1991, p. 60), or place myth, that is widely held and circulated about both places and characterises them as Festival Cities. This Festival City place myth has had important long-term cultural effects beyond its instrumentalisation within place promotion and creative cities discourses and is contested by different groups. This study therefore combines cultural geography and theatre and performance studies methodologies to explore how these festivals are necessarily shaped and produced by their host cities, and conversely, how the festivals materially and discursively produce the city in turn. By analysing the festivals of Adelaide and Edinburgh as theatrical events that can be read as performances of the city, I interrogate their conditions of production and reception in order to highlight the competing agendas involved and to contribute to understandings of place in performance. A detailed, comparative analysis of similar events in two diverse geographic, cultural, and socio-political locations, moreover, reveals how global trends intersect with local conditions and highlights the contribution of these events, which were once rare but are now ubiquitous, to the social, cultural, and political life of cities.

Cultural geography

Festivals

Performance Studies

Thomasson, Sarah

Queen Mary, University of London

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y