ABSTRACT
The transition to online life has characterised every step of this project. Prior to our collaboration as editors, we had not met one another in person. Brought together via email by a mutual acquaintance, we had several phone conversations about our overlapping interests and our respective, embryonic research forays into the impact of COVID-19 on performance practice. As we reach the end of the process, we have still never met ‘in real life’ – the editing of this book has been conducted at a distance, sometimes meeting via Zoom or, more frequently, speaking over the phone. We have met only a few of our authors, who participated in an online panel event (‘Performance in a Pandemic’) which opened the Present Futures digital festival in February 2021. Thus, as with most creative endeavours produced during the pandemic, this book has been composed remotely, digitally, and across various geographic locations. Our intention was to capture something of this moment, in an effort to more clearly understand the impact of COVID-19 on our artforms. Yet even since the inception of this book project, the situation has evolved, adapted, collapsed, and emerged at an unprecedented rate.
