Victorian College of the Arts - Research Publications

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    Pimp my Gauguin: Yuki Kihara's Paradise Camp (or Why Post Impressions Matter)
    Sequeira, D (Artlink Australia, 2022-11-18)
    David Sequeira's Review of New Zealand Pavilion, 59th La Biennale di Venezia 23 April — 27 November 2022 published in Artlink 18 November 2022
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    Effects of Mirror and Metronome Use on Spontaneous Dance Movements
    Brown, DD ; Bosga, J ; Meulenbroek, RGJ (HUMAN KINETICS PUBL INC, 2021-01)
    This study investigated effects of mirror and metronome use on spontaneous upper body movements by 10 preprofessional dancers in a motor task in which maximally diverse upper body movement patterns were targeted. Hand and trunk accelerations were digitally recorded utilizing accelerometers and analyzed using polar frequency distributions of the realized acceleration directions and sample entropy of the acceleration time. Acceleration directions were more variably used by the arms than by the torso, particularly so when participants monitored their performance via a mirror. Metronome use hardly affected the predictability of the acceleration time series. The findings underscore the intrinsic limitations that people experience when being asked to move randomly and reveal moderate effects of visual and acoustic constraints on doing so in dance.
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    Load and fatigue monitoring in musicians using an online app: A pilot study.
    McCrary, JM ; Ascenso, S ; Savvidou, P ; Schraft, S ; McAllister, L ; Redding, E ; Bastepe-Gray, S ; Altenmüller, E (Frontiers Media SA, 2022)
    BACKGROUND/AIMS: High occupational injury rates are reported in musicians, with a career prevalence of up to 89%. Fatigue and playing (over)load are identified as key risk factors for musicians' injuries. Self-report fatigue management strategies in sport have demonstrated preventive effects. A self-report fatigue management tool for musicians was developed based on a Delphi survey of international experts and hosted in an online app. The aims of this study are to evaluate the content validity and uptake of this new tool, and explore associations between collected performance quality, physical/psychological stress, pain, injury and fatigue data. METHODS: University and professional musicians were asked to provide entries into the online app twice per week for 1-6 months. Entries into the app were designed to take 2-3 min to complete and consisted of the following: 6 questions regarding playing load over the previous 72 h; 5 questions regarding current levels in key physical/psychological stress domains (sleep, recovery, overplaying, pain, fitness); one question self-rating of performance quality over the previous day; one question regarding current musculoskeletal symptoms; a reaction time task to evaluate psychomotor fatigue. RESULTS: N = 96 participants provided an average of 2 app entries (range 0-43). Increased playing time, rating of perceived exertion (RPE), and feelings of having to "play too much" were consistently associated with increased self-rated performance quality (p ≤ 0.004; 6.7 <| t |< 2148.5). Increased ratings of feeling fit and recovering well were consistently associated with reduced pain severity (p < 0.001; 3.8 <| t |< 20.4). Pain severity was increased (6.5/10 vs. 2.5/10; p < 0.001) in participants reporting playing-related musculoskeletal disorders (PRMDs; symptoms affecting playing). CONCLUSION: The prospective value of regular individual self-report playing load, stress, and performance data collection in musicians is clear. However, limited uptake of the online fatigue management app piloted in this study indicates that new approaches to the collection of these data are needed to realize their potential impact.
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    The First Provocation (film) & 02 BRIDGET (Shooting Script)
    Black, A (Australian Screen Production Education and Research Association, 2021)
    The First Provocation (2015) and the shooting script 02: BRIDGET combine to demonstrate practice-led research into how to expand on the process of crafting and capturing performance on film. The enquiry was framed by the question: How might it be possible to mediate a live performance work into a narrative fiction film to engage an audience beyond the intended performance audience of the original? What approaches can a director adopt to elicit spontaneous and intimate emotional responses that are captured for the screen? A close examination of the filmmaking processes used by Miranda July (live performance) and Mike Leigh (character-based improvisation) informed the production process undertaken for the creative practice. The single-shot film, The First Provocation, explores how to expand the realist form in an experimental approach to performance that merges unexpected live performance within a narrative fiction film.
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    Editorial: Queer Performance
    Bollen, J ; Campbell, A ; Syron, L-M (Australasian Drama Studies, 2022)
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    An HIV Love Story: Jacob Boehme's Blood on the Dance Floor's Queer and Indigenous Revolt
    Boehme, J ; Campbell, A ; Graffam, J (Australasian Drama Studies, 2022)
    This article is part of an ongoing conversation between Jacob Boehme, Alyson Campbell and Jonathan Graffam about Boehme's play 'Blood on the Dance Floor' (Melbourne and Sydney, 2016; Australia and Canada tour, 2019), and we see it now as a kind of queer collaborative musing that we are doing together to think through how the production works. While we have published some of our thinking on the play before, we realised that none of us was finished trying to articulate how it was created (Boehme), and the impact it had on us as spectators (Campbell and Graffam) and, indeed, that there was still so much to unravel in terms of its place in the context of queer performance in Australasia. In this article, we focus on key decisions made during the dramaturgical process of composing two sequences from the production, 'Sandridge Beach' and 'Anthony'. In examining the production's 'dramaturgy', we refer both to the structure and content of the piece and the processes of decision-making that are key to composing the work. While the term 'dramaturgy' is used to describe the selection of material in crafting and organising new work, on another level it seeks to make explicit the relationship between the artistic composition and the socio-political and cultural context in which the work is staged. There are multiple ways to approach any framing of 'Blood on the Dance Floor (BOTDF)' - Indigenous identity, queerness and HIV - and, though we start from the perspective of queerness for this special issue, they are as inextricably interwoven and inseparable as the double helix of DNA. In our conversations for this article, what emerged most strongly from Jacob were ideas of love, the complexity - or, perhaps more precisely, absence - of Indigenous sexual lives from stage and other representational forms, and queer kinship.
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    Professional Pathways for Musicians with Disability in Victoria, Australia
    Skinner, A ; Thompson, G ; McFerran, KS (ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2022-01-02)
    The work of disabled musicians has become the focus on of an increasingly large body of academic work; however, existing literature rarely provides details about the educational experiences of these musicians, or how disability impacted these experiences. This study interviewed eleven performing musicians living with disability in Australia to elucidate the barriers and enablers that they faced in their music educations and careers. We developed a ‘nested model’ based on a qualitative narrative analysis which identified barriers and enablers coming from ‘the musician’, ‘the self’, ‘other people’, and ‘the system’. We used this model to draw out further themes and counter-themes across the interviews to begin to illuminate the barriers. Each of our participants was able to identify numerous barriers to access, which they had experienced during their musical careers. Despite this, ten of our eleven participants continued to find ways to participate and express their creativity in musical activities, and they provided many practical suggestions for improving access. Future studies that seek perspectives from disabled music students, or those who are in the early stages of their careers, may provide further insights to better understand barriers and enablers.
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    Corrigendum: What young people think about music, rhythm and trauma: An action research study.
    McFerran, K ; Crooke, A ; Kalenderidis, Z ; Stokes, H ; Teggelove, K (Frontiers Media SA, 2022)
    [This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.905418.].
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    Motion Perfection: An agile tool for the visualisation, analysis, annotation, and record of motor practice
    Gallo, V ; Zhou, X ; Absallah, D ; Angioi, M ; Redding, E ; Ackroyd, B ; Calvan, C ; Versace, E (Elsevier, 2022)
    Instructional experts and practitioners in sports, dance and rehabilitation need to assess and provide feedback on motor practice. To visualise, analyse and annotate motor practice, we have developed the user-friendly application MotionPerfection. Using just a single camera video recordings and a computer, MotionPerfection enables users to compare a focal user with a model reference, to assess and annotate the performance. We illustrate the software structure and functionality from video acquisition to feedback annotation. Researchers, instructors, clinicians and practitioners can use MotionPerfection to simplify, automate and standardise the analysis and feedback of motor routines in remote and face-to-face settings, in the laboratory and in the field, without the need of specialised equipment.
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    What Young People Think About Music, Rhythm and Trauma: An Action Research Study
    McFerran, K ; Crooke, A ; Kalenderidis, Z ; Stokes, H ; Teggelove, K (FRONTIERS MEDIA SA, 2022-06-14)
    A number of popular theories about trauma have suggested rhythm has potential as a mechanism for regulating arousal levels. However, there is very little literature examining this proposal from the perspective of the young people who might benefit. This action research project addresses this gap by collaborating with four groups of children in the out-of-home-care system to discover what they wanted from music therapists who brought a strong focus on rhythm-based activities. The four music therapy groups took place over a 12 month period and each cycle of action and reflection led to adjustments in what activities were offered, as well as exploring different levels of structure and ways of building relationships in the groups. The initial group incorporated a strong emphasis on highly structured rhythm-based activities, but young people found the format difficult to engage with. The second cycle included more opportunities for creativity and self-direction within semi-structured activities which children reported enjoying, but too much freedom also became overwhelming at times. The two groups in the third cycle seemed to balance structure and responsiveness successfully but were also influenced by the introduction of individual sessions prior to group commencement, which was designed to contribute to safety and trust building. Final reflections on the role of rhythm in supporting young people who have had adverse experiences were centred around the ideas of co-regulation. This was qualitatively different to our expectations that practicing rhythm-based activities would lead to an expanded window of tolerance that resulted in less time being spent in either hypo-arousal or hyper-arousal. Instead of entraining to an external rhythm, young people felt safe when their rhythms were matched, even if they were irregular, out of time and unpredictable. The small moments of co-regulation resulted in pleasure, comfort, satisfaction and peace and these moments were highly valued by the young people, who described just wanting to be relaxed and happy. Although not as rhythm-specific as the literature might suggest, music making with trusted adults helped the young people in this study feel more content.