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Puppetry Training for Contemporary Live Theatre
No full textThis article discusses the development of formal puppetry training over the last century, commenting on the move from a technical and craft-based approach towards a sensibility focused on animation of multiple forms. The article notes the different and complementary approaches taken by European puppetry training institutions and the current emphasis on animism as an approach to animation. Within this approach, the puppet as character, previously paramount in puppet theatre, is discarded in favour of the animation of matter, objects, shadows and other forms, which are seen as ephemeral; the puppeteer is consequently required to move fluidly between different modes of performance, whilst retaining attention and focus outside the body
Archiving Culture, Archival Practices: Recording Black British Art, Theatre and Culture
No full textA roundtable discussion exploring how the work of black artists (in the fields of theatre, performance and visual art) and the experiences of black people living in Britain have been made available through artistic and archival practices
Aurality of Objects
No full textA discussion on an investigation into the production of objects in relation to the ‘aural waste’ expended during the fabrication process
Sound Design: The Scenography of Engagement and Distraction
No full textIn this previously unpublished essay, Ross Brown elaborates some of the key themes he first introduced in an article entitled "The Theatre Soundscape and the End of Noise" in the 'Performance Research' special edition "On technê" 10(4), 2005. While acknowledging the development of his ideas since the 2005 article was published, in this essay he also reiterates his earlier argument, that "the technologically crafted theatre soundscape" in one of the distinguishing features on contemporary scenography
Devising and Advocacy: The Red Room's 'Unstated'
No full textIt is difficult to faithfully record and disseminate the process of a company devising a piece of theatre, to excavate those 'ephemeral moments of devised performance' (Govan, Nicholson and Normington, 2007, p.9). It is impossible to watch the company in every minute of their process: you are not privy to their dreams; you are not with them as they overhear a conversation on a bus; you are outside fetching the tea at the very moment that they make a breakthrough in the devising process because a bird has flown through an open window, causing them to think of the next scene as a pair of wings fluttering hysterically. But it is possible to tell something of the truth if certain moments are allowed to encapsulate it, to stand as small parts of the larger metaphor that will act as a simulacrum of the reality of performance devising. Then it is possible to give an account of the difficult, delirious, funny, frustrating and joyful process that theatre and performance artists undergo as they make work. Rather than write the whole story of the making of 'Dead Wedding' I will look at certain significant moments, trusting that they contain and explain the fashion in which this remarkable performance came into being
Creating a Space for the Individual: Different Theatre and Performance-Based Approaches to Sexual Health Communication in South Africa
No full textSexually transmitted infections such as HIV are illnesses that affect both a person's physical health as well as their mental and social wellbeing. Yet, the global development of public health responses have, for the most part, remained focused on the physical wellbeing of people with little attention paid to the individual's emotional wellbeing. With the highest number of HIV positive people worldwide, South Africa requires a new and positive approach to the pandemic (Ross 2008). This article aims to bring attention to practice, in this instance, theatre and performance-based work, which considers the people and communities affected and afflicted by HIV, and other sexual health concerns, as individuals with individual thoughts and emotions, for greater inclusion in a more positive approach to tackling AIDS. This article will consider three examples of such practice, namely the Themba HIV/AIDS Organisation, the Etafeni Centre and our place, our stage (OPOS) project
Contemporary European Theatre Directors
No full textContemporary European Theatre Directors is an ambitious and unprecedented overview of many of the key directors working in European theatre over the past fifty years. It is a vivid account of the vast range of work undertaken in European theatre during this period, situated lucidly in its artistic, cultural and political context. The resulting study is a detailed guide to the generation of directors whose careers were forged and tempered in the changing Europe of the 1980s and 1990s
Queer Performance
No full textA round table discussion between solo artists whose work traverses performance art, cabaret and drag
Researching Theatre History and Historiography
No full textHow have theatre and performance research methods and methodologies engaged the expanding diversity of performing arts practices? How can students best combine performance/theatre research approaches in their projects? This book's 29 contributors provide hands-on answers to such questions. Challenging and debating received research wisdom and exploring innovative procedures for rigorous inquiry via archives, technology, practice-as-research, scenography, performer training, applied theatre/performance, body in performance and more, they create a focused compendium of future research options.
Key Features
Created in association with TaPRA, the leading UK Theatre and Performance Research organisation, with chapters produced by specialist groupings.
Provides many detailed project case studies and examples - including successful practice-based PhDs - plus analysis of dynamic couplings between methods, methodologies and skill-sets.
Introduction interrogates crucial qualities of performing arts research that constitute theatre and performance as, variously, single-, multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplinary.
Contributors include: Maggie B. Gale (Chair of Drama, University of Manchester); Steve Dixon (Professor of Digital Performance, Brunel University); Joanne 'Bob' Whalley and Lee Miller (University Lecturers and founders Fictional Dogshelf Theatre Company); Simon Ellis and Rosemary Lee (independent performance/dance makers); Roberta Mock (Professor of Performance, University of Plymouth)
How To Do Things With Jokes: Relocating the Political Dimension of Performance Comedy
No full textThis thesis examines the political dimension of comedy in performance through a practice-as-research project incorporating elements of stand-up comedy, relational art, and participatory performance. In the wake of the depoliticisation of live performance comedy in Britain after the incorporation into the mainstream of the agit-prop driven Alternative comedy of the 1980s, I question whether stand-up in particular can have a political efficacy greater than raising awareness or representing a political struggle. Satirical comedy, comedy of Carnival, and more recently, comedies of ‘transgression,’ are held as paradigmatic of comedy’s generic political dimension, and contemporary discourse celebrates the comedian’s ability to negotiate lines of offense or taste. Opposing this view, I argue that this ‘Canivalesque logic’ is incompatible with the ideological conditions of global capitalism. A ‘radical democratic’ comedy necessitates a focus on the relational and affective dimensions of comedy performance. Following from this theoretical framework, this thesis progresses through three phases of experimental practice. I begin by interrogating and expanding my existing practice as a ‘circuit comedian.’ Next, audience-performer relationships become the site of interrogation, and I engage in two projects influenced by participatory performance and relational aesthetics. The third phase returns to stand-up comedy, coloured by my previous experiments. This project results in a model of comic performance as embodied formalist critique of ideology. The results of this project contributes to a way of reading comedy performance, as well as to discourse about the politics of theatre and performance. It is also provides an exegesis of comic techniques and a sustained analysis of my practice as a comedian and artist. Overall, this project intends to escape the false choice faced by the politically-minded comedian today: to paraphrase a well-known Marx Brothers joke, when given the choice between commenting on the world or changing it, we should answer: ‘Yes, please!