Repetition has become, it seems, an indispensable device for the contemporary choreographer. From the Judson circle's recursive invocations of pedestrian movement to Pina Bausch's incessant recapitulations, repetition is now an almost reassuringly familiar presence on the dance stage. In this new volume, Eirini Kartsaki immerses us in the processes and purposes of repetition in performance. Repeated gestures and sequences, Kartsaki tells us, induce us to look again, to revisit our initial interpretation of the movement, and to involve ourselves more deeply with the work on display. Indeed, this act of seeing again can equate seeing anew. Repetition thus demands to be noticed, and the inherent ephemerality of the live event can arguably be renegotiated through the act of repetition: a movement is not necessarily “lost” if we are permitted to see it again and again.

Kartsaki takes on a difficult task here as she seeks to verbalize the subtle and largely unconscious effects of repetition upon the theatrical spectator. This includes the potential for repetition to alienate as well as to stoke pleasure in the viewer, with Kartsaki suggesting in her introduction that this can be an “erotic force” (7). She illustrates her discussion with a diverse array of case studies, drawn not solely from dance and theater but also delving into the realms of literature and visual art. Repetition in Performance thus broadens and blurs the boundaries of the notion of performance, encompassing analysis of Francis Bacon's paintings, the writings of Gertrude Stein, and the theatrical “choreography” of Samuel Beckett as well as the more familiar terrain of Yvonne Rainer, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, and Pina Bausch (whose near-relentless use of repetition divided critical opinion over the course of her career). Kartsaki's is thus a resolutely postmodern analysis of performance practice, one that does not clearly delineate between forms, but deliberately blurs the terminology of “performance” and “theater.” In this respect, I would suggest that important methodological precedents lie in Hans-Thies Lehmann's seminal framing of postdramatic theatre (Reference Lehmann and Jurs-Munby2006) though curiously Kartsaki does not engage with his theorization.

Repetition tends to replace linear narrative with patterns of circularity and recursion. It seems appropriate, then, that in terms of its thematic structure, Repetition in Performance traces an equally nonlinear thread through its exploration of various facets of performance practice. Kartsaki opens her text with Gertrude Stein's 1925 novel The Making of Americans, an unexpected starting point for a book that purports to center upon performance. However, as Kartsaki begins to explain her method for making sense of this difficult (or, as she terms it, “unreadable”) novel, it becomes clear that the act of reading can be transformed into a performative gesture; by reading Stein's work aloud, Kartsaki argues that she becomes an active participant, and the static text is enlivened by this performative engagement with it. This becomes a recurring motif of Kartsaki's writing: Repetition in Performance sits somewhere between analytical and personal writing, with the presence of the writer never far from her discussion of case study works.

Kartsaki frames repetition as “a methodology that reveals the mechanism of the work and its structure,” and this provides the reader with an interesting key for unlocking aspects of seemingly abstracted performance practice (25–26). Her thoroughly interdisciplinary approach results in some innovative readings of well-known works. Regarding Yvonne Rainer's use of repetition, for example, Kartsaki suggests that here the device effectively solidifies or concretizes choreography, transmuting movement into something more akin to sculpture, thus making it “easier to see” (33–34). Her notion of the objectness of movement suggests an almost art historical approach to the subject matter, rereading dance as capable of assuming a static form; this is an ability conferred on it through the use of repetition, which stills the movement, encapsulates it for the audience to observe, and seems to negate or at least temporarily pause its inherent ephemerality. Accordingly, repetition not only narrows the gap between audience and performer but can, it appears, transform the work itself: Stein's text becomes a live act, just as Rainer's movements can be recorded and held in place.

In analyzing a multiplicity of repetitions, Kartsaki is quick to remind her reader that repetition is not always invoked for the purpose of eliciting pleasure. Certainly, repetition can aid in satisfying the spectator's desire to see something again in order to reexperience the initial sense of pleasure drawn from first viewing. Yet repetition is equally capable of causing discomfort, bordering on anxiety, for the theatergoer hoping for clearer progression of the action or a sense of resolution. The choreographer who plays with repetition is inevitably aware of this blurry binary, as Kartsaki acknowledges:

Repetition encourages the viewer to continually return to a performance; repetition thus breeds repetition. Kartsaki proposes that this recursion provides the reader with a new methodological lens, standing in opposition to the notion of performance as inherently transient. Within this seemingly ephemeral form, repetition can function as an anchor that enables us to pause and engage with the work on a deeper level. A particularly strong section of this hypothesis lies in Kartsaki's analysis of Lone Twin Theatre's unsettling work, Daniel Hit By A Train (2008), which serves to illustrate the emotive impact of repetition.

Throughout this text, Kartsaki continually underlines the transformative potential of repetition in performance. Its effect on the viewer can, she proposes, adopt a physical form: watching a movement repeated multiple times begins to “seduce” the viewer, who unconsciously desires to experience the repetitions for themselves. Turning to Bausch's oeuvre, where repetition would become a defining characteristic, Kartsaki explores the motif of falling that forms a well-known section of the 1978 piece, Café Müller. She discusses the manner in which she herself experiences these falls through watching them played out onstage, an occurrence she calls “intensely physical” (53). With each repetition, the space between audience and performer narrows, and passive spectatorship gradually transforms into a desire for active participation, for the viewer to become part of the work taking place. Kartsaki tells us:

Repetition in Performance is a volume that is equally concerned with the writer's engagement with performance as it is her experience of, and struggles with, the act of writing. This slim text projects a distinctive, lyrical voice and at times reads rather like a personal address. Kartsaki's style aids in capturing some of the intensity of the live, incessantly repeating performances she describes; her hypnotic account of layered repetition within Steve Reich's music and de Keersmaeker's choreographic practice, for example, underlines the sense of urgency inherent in their respective oeuvres. There is a sense of intimacy conveyed by Kartsaki's writing, as if she is speaking directly to the reader about her individual experience of each of these works. This is a feature she acknowledges in the book's introduction, explaining that, while using a framework that seems to be comprised of the voices of male writers, it is her voice that provides the analytical reading here. That is, Kartsaki's analysis emerges not just from academic analysis but comes her physical and emotional response to the works cited.

Kartsaki writes from a dual perspective of performer and scholar, weaving these distinct voices together as she cycles through her selected case studies. The result of this antilinear, almost oneiric discussion is somewhat uneven, however. Kartsaki's writing is more convincing in discussion of Beckett's deeply performative work than in her references to Bacon's paintings, for example. On a structural level, the text is occasionally rather difficult to follow, shifting from one work to the next in a stream of consciousness style. The same approach applies to her treatment of theoretical voices; she shifts from one to the next without much coherent framing for the reader or rigorous engagement with the sources cited.

Repetition in Performance requests that its reader engage with the text itself much in the way it proposes we engage with the performative event. Kartsaki asks us to pause and to take our time with her text, providing us with a flowing, recursive framework of reference points in order to reflect upon her reading of repetition. Hers is a text that will, most likely, benefit from repeated reading and reconsideration. This structure does create moments of frustration, however, especially when key works materialize and then vanish from the narrative without Kartsaki delving into further analysis of their content. It is a text that is haunted by the spectral figures of theater makers, choreographers, and writers, but their voices are only faintly heard. This is a curious reflection of Kartsaki's observation, as she builds toward her conclusion that “repetition haunts me” (127).

This sense of haunting, like the patterns of repetition she invokes throughout the text, left me desiring a deeper engagement with the works cited and a clearer sense of where pathways of artistic influence might be detected. This perhaps goes against the grain of Kartsaki's intention; her central thesis that performance can be reimagined and reframed through the lens of repetition applies as much to her own experience of writing as to the case studies she cites. Indeed, Repetition in Performance makes for a fairly convincing argument that performance and writing are interlinked experiences; the act of writing is enlivened, and the act of performing is temporarily immobilized. Understanding the text through this framework transforms the experience of a second reading, something that, I feel, may have been the author's intention from the beginning.