The ephemerality of the performing arts, which exist in a here and now of participatory communion, is well expressed in the evocation made by the countless images that have survived or that we insist on tenaciously producing against oblivion.

If Western culture has made the power of the written word hegemonic as a form of knowledge of theatrical art, the truth is that in order to resist its fatal fading, theatre has sought to convert itself into images since its beginnings.

The international colloquium featured in this book brought together those who study theatre, those who capture it through photography and those who think about the status of the image in Western culture. The (re)knowledge of theatrical practices through the image, the contribution of the image as a record or invention of theatre, the photographer’s gaze, the resistance of theatrical material and the historian’s dream are some of the guidelines of the debate.