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357 Benefit Street
Providence, RI 02903
401/863-1177

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Box 1880
Brown University
Providence RI 02912

For questions related to the Center or web site, please contact Steven_Lubar@brown.edu.

Guides & Bibliographies

Site-Specific Performance at Historical Sites:
Resources, Bibliographies and Examples

Prepared by Katie Chavez

August 2005

This web resource investigates the ways that site-specific performance can provide a new dimension to the curating of historic sites. While historic sites have a long history of using performative techniques to bring the visitor experientially closer to a specific historical site, event, or community (the “living history museums” and Colonial Williamsburg and Plimoth Plantation come to mind), these traditional techniques only scratch the surface of performance in museum curation. This site draws on the discipline of performance studies to suggest some of the ways that performance theory can inform museum work. We hope that it will be valuable to individuals to those interested in using performance in museums and at historic sites and in bringing performance theories into the classroom.

 

A Selected Compilation of Historic House Museum Resources

Prepared by Ron M. Potvin and Malgorzata Rymsza-Pawlowska

July 2008

In recent years, museum professionals, preservationists, and cultural agencies have observed a decline in attendance and revenues of historic house museums and sites. This bibliography captures the written resources that have emerged in response to this downward trend. The majority of the sources cited appeared in the past ten years and represent the most recent scholarship and opinion on the problems and challenges faced by historic house museums and sites. The intent of this guide is to provide the most recent advice about interpretation, including the creation of furnishing and interpretation plans and innovative techniques such as site specific performance, and to enable stewards of historic sites to study the problem from their own perspective.