School of Performing Arts - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 4 of 4
-
ItemWriting and dancing the body: from contradiction to complementarity( 2015)Mine is an experiential account of writing’s relationship to dance and dancing. I locate some of the relationships between dance writer, the act of dancing and dance performance by displacing the writer into the space usually occupied by the dancer and maker thereby creating ‘episodes of exposure’. Hence I am investigating the complements and antagonisms inherent between these two languages and attempting to locate some of their interstices. I also consider how my participation in the one informs my production of the other. My methodologies include creating parallel written and danced texts, which read together, serve to reveal many of the dispositions underlying my writing on dance. I also directly dance elements of my own text and attempt to physically inhabit the words I have written. Finally, in a dance installation, I seek to synthesise and resolve elements of research and practice, combining live text and movement with video documentation of practice. Conceptually, I refer to the acts of both writing about dance and dancing itself as potentially dialogic in nature; possessing a multiplicity of ‘voices’ that may intersect or clash but which finally explicate one another. For this I look to Mikhail Bakhtin and others. I further argue that the fixity of language and the evaluative nature of some dance writing can be released via a sensing through movement.
-
ItemNaked peel: 12 twelve hours later: shedding intoxications through durational embodiment( 2015)This practice led research explored the nature of durational performances using a heuristic, self-as-artist approach, with a relationship to the spectator as a central consideration. It investigated multiple states of embodiment in the extended performance and explored how entrancement, gazing, drifting and inattentional blindness could be part of the affective experience. It focused on the corporeal as a site for understanding pre-coded body information, trauma and one’s immanent desires. By using my own experience, I investigated the historical accumulation of coded information through the body’s memory, dreams and lived experiences. I located these as an embodied cultural mythos, the presence of which lies within the body. The solo performer was used as a conduit for somatic methodologies to collect materials based on chance discoveries for solo investigations, for collaboration, and for three live durational performances. Performances of six, eight and twelve hours were drawn from the research, specifically crafted for an art gallery space, an adult night club and a theatre space, to explore the differences in engaging self and audience over extended periods of time. The theatre work consisted of two parts with a seven-hour improvisational performance leading up to a one-hour crafted performance. The research is based on these three performances and the stages of practical experimentation. Theorist Elizabeth Behnke influenced discussions in this inquiry, with findings from psychologist Linda Holler and the references to one’s physical sensations influenced by neurologist Antonio Damasio. This dissertation reports and reflects upon the findings from my practice.
-
Item(K)rap(p): voice as gaze in the mundane( 2015)(K)rap(p): Voice as Gaze in the Mundane examines ekphrasis - the “telling of vision” - in contemporary art. Between the scenario of Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape; unorthodox voice recordings by Konstantin Raudive, recorded interviews and archived material relating to my deceased parents’ involvement in the Communist Party of Australia during the 1950s; a type of proletarianisation of the gaze, an ekphrastic dematerialisation and re-materialisation of vision is interrogated into political and uncanny dimensions. The ekphrastic relation to art is that of viewing and articulating, visually rendering an articulation as an inversion of ekphrasis. The sonorous act of verbalizing becomes visual representation, therefore art. Paradoxically the notion of what constitutes art is complicated by its own description. The research begins with the examination of art and voice in relation to ekphrasis, hypothesising whether ekphrasis might be made visible as art through its inversion and concludes with voice in relation to the spectral, invisible in both social and political terms, made visible through the unification of sound (voice recordings) and image (archival and artefact), in which selected audio and visual material are manipulated to form artwork. The exhibition created for this project was an accumulation of these manipulations, found and fabricated artworks in the form of photography, voice recordings and collated archival material including original documents regarding the Communist Party between 1948 and 1960. The selected material was presented with archaic voice recording equipment as part of the Installation project exhibited at the Margret Lawrence Gallery in February 2015. The exhibition was not just a product of research into the Communist Party of Australia, but of voice in the broader sense. Voice has been examined from multiple facets, in its many incarnations and it is through Samuel Beckett’s work and Raudive recordings that voice as a subject of the gaze has highlighted the uncanny potential of voice as gaze.
-
ItemIntegrating space, composition and performance: an investigation into the musical relationship between the instrument and the space( 2015)Integrating Space, Composition and Performance: An investigation into the musical relationship between the instrument and the space, is a discussion of the processes and outcomes of this project, as is required for the Master of Sound Design by Research. Room acoustics are proven to have significant impact on musical performance outcomes in different environments. However, aural recognition of acoustic qualities in music education is largely sidelined. This research investigates the relationship between the musical performer (drummer) and the space in which they perform in order to develop a method to identify and incorporate acoustic qualities of different environments into music composition and performance. It first outlines an historical context of the relationship between acoustics and musical composition and performance, identifies gaps in pedagogy and argues the need to broaden listening. It then examines the process used to investigate this project, and discusses the validity of alternative processes and provides a detailed analysis and results of testing undertaken. First an overview of each performance space is presented, including dimensions, auditory and visual observations. Next, the results of an acoustic analysis of each space is presented and discussed. Finally, it examines how the individual parts of the drum kit respond in each space, and what affect this may have on performances. Integrating Space, Composition and Performance: An investigation into the musical relationship between the instrument and the space then discusses how the results were used to develop three studies, and presents and discusses three finished studies as performed and recorded in each space. The investigation resulted in the development of three different approaches presented as studies that were undertaken and recorded in four different spaces. By undertaking these studies I developed a new awareness of the space influenced my approach to performing in a specific environment; it caused me to make choices based on a more critical focus on the sound of the instrument as a part of the performance. This resulted in changing tempos, modifying dynamics and modifying timbre choices through performance techniques.