Dangerous shores and disoriented penguins in beyond the Utmost Bound: A Performance about Antarctic Exploration

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-2-2016

Abstract

This essay describes Beyond the Utmost Bound: A Performance about Antarctic Exploration, which retold the story of Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova expedition of 1911-1913. The performance interwove scenes adapted from Apsley Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the World with scenes that provided contemporary reflections on representing Antarctica in art, photography, and literature, with narration staged as a dialogue between a contemporary and a heroic age explorer. The performance argued thematically for the value of research that may not necessarily be connected directly to immediate gain, locating the ultimate value of exploration not in the "bagging of the pole" nor in the heroics of its narratives, but in Terra Novas scientific work and in the camaraderie that forms among researchers.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Text and Performance Quarterly

First Page

34

Last Page

56

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