School of Performing Arts - Theses

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    Cueca, tradition and innovation: utilising the traditional Bolivian music form of Cueca as a generative tool in jazz based composition and improvisation
    Rojas Luna, Danilo ( 2019)
    The Cueca is an expression of Latin American culture in the forms of dance, poetry and music. This investigation examines the important elements of the Bolivian Cueca, its history, development and geographical journey alongside a creative element of practice-based research arising from an analysis of my first professional recordings of Cueca that explore African-American jazz-based improvisation leading to new compositions. For this purpose, I will undertake an ethnographic and musical analysis of the Bolivian Cueca (structure, rhythm, harmony, melody and improvisation) from the first pioneers and influential composers and interpreters Simeón Roncal (pianist, 1870-1953) and José Lavadenz (mandolinist, 1883-1967). This includes an autethnographic reflection of my relationship with my cultural identity as a composer, performer and son of the Bolivian composer Gilberto Rojas (1916-1983). My intention is to ground the rationale that integrates my later study of jazz-based improvisational studies within the Cueca tradition. I have included a phenomenological contextual analysis of my 2005 recording of “Chuquisaqueñita” in the CD/DVD “Lunar” and findings from my practice-led research which enabled my understanding of the hitherto unconscious elements that I had adopted from the aforementioned composers to then create and spontaneously engage jazz and improvisation techniques within the Cueca. My creative work includes Cuecas that I composed throughout this study, which was inspired by my personal understanding as a Bolivian currently living within a multicultural context in Melbourne, Australia, highlighting the development process of Australian jazz sensibilities alongside the cross cultural notions of agency we encounter as musicians within globalised jazz.
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    Choreographing time: temporality in choreography from the perspective of a solo improviser
    Vachananda, Nareeporn ( 2017)
    Choreographing Time is a practice-led research project exploring how the temporality of improvisational material can be articulated to affect the attention of the audience. The research investigates how the intersubjectivity between performer and audience affects the regulation of time in solo improvisation and contributes to the performance making process. Focusing on developing the performer’s capacity for attention, the two main areas of research underpinning this investigation are Noh theatre and BodyMind Centering® (BMC), a form of somatic practice. In addition, this research combines practical investigation with the theory of ‘self-other’ in neurophysiology and the phenomenological study of perceptual experience to inform the consideration of temporality in the performance of solo improvisation. The methodology includes practices drawn from Noh Theatre, in particular, the application of the temporal concept of jo-ha-kyū in improvisation, movement exploration derived from BMC, together with methods for critical experimentation and analysis of choreographic strategies including reflective writing, reportage and audience interviews. The theoretical and studio research resulted in the presentation of the new solo work "17 Square Brackets" with its improvisational score speculating on the conditions of the body to generate performative material. This research proposes further investigation that will seek to integrate fields of knowledge within Western and Eastern disciplines to impart new ways of approaching improvised performance making. This is aimed to enable a coherent experience, which is mutually shared between the performer and audience.
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    The embodied imagination: choreographic practice and dancing our way into being
    Lay, Paula ( 2016)
    ‘The Embodied Imagination: choreographic practice and dancing our way into being’ is a practice led research project completed between 2013 – 2016 at the Victorian College of the Arts. The thesis comprises a performance outcome and a dissertation. This dissertation examines the scope of the imagination and looks at the way we imagine which includes image making but is not exclusive to the realm of mental images. The premise is that the imagination is a vital synthesizing force that animates the world and which can be appropriated in choreographic practice. A wider definition is proposed that attempts to capture the totality of the imaginary as a continuously emerging potential. I will build towards a discussion on the interplay between the real and the imaginary and develop the idea that through performance we open the possibility of perceiving and imagining in new ways. Through this we create the possibility for tiny shifts in how we can be in the world.
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    Reframing tradition: renegotiating flamenco dance within contemporary contexts
    Arroquero, Thomas (Tomás) ( 2016)
    ‘Reframing Tradition: Renegotiating Flamenco Dance within Contemporary Contexts’, is a practice-led inquiry undertaken between 2014 – 2016 at the Victorian College of the Arts as a Master of Fine Arts (Dance) by research. There are two parts of the research: a creative performance work and a dissertation. ‘Fragmentos’ (58 min) was performed to a live audience from 9Th – 12Th December 2015 at the Grant Street Theatre, Southbank. A documented record of this event is complementary to this written dissertation. This practice-led research explores first hand the underlying qualities and values within a traditional embodied form and their presence and transformation in contemporary performance settings. Such a process references my individual perspective gained through my experience of dancing flamenco, together with the understanding I have acquired of the theoretical, ideological and historical values embedded in the dance aspect of the form. Alongside this I explore other multidisciplinary approaches to making work that includes foregrounding somatic practice and dramaturgical awareness. By setting up a middle ground where the potential of the transformative process of traditional form to contemporary adaption meet, the creative aspect explores the reflexive relationship and uncovers the latent and the unfulfilled potential of both. The written outcome reviews the convergence of these practices through the practitioner (self), and evaluates the potential of meaning that transpires from it. Coincidently this research has intersected with the impact of my father’s state of decline, diagnosed with the crippling disease of dementia that has ironically energised the essence of these investigations.
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    Hurdy-gurdy: new articulations
    Nowotnik, Piotr ( 2016)
    The purpose of this thesis is to expand existing literature concerning the hurdy-gurdy as a contemporary musical instrument. Notably, it addresses the lack of hurdy-gurdy literature in the context of contemporary composition and performance. Research into this subject has been triggered by the author’s experience as a hurdy-gurdy performer and composer and the importance of investigating and documenting the hurdy-gurdy as an instrument capable of performing well outside the idioms of traditional music. This thesis consists of a collection of new works for hurdy-gurdy and investigation of existing literature including reference to the author’s personal experience as a hurdy-gurdy composer and performer. It will catalogue and systematically document a selection of hurdy-gurdy techniques and extended performance techniques, and demonstrate these within the practical context of new music compositions created by the author. This creative work and technique investigation and documentation is a valuable resource for those seeking deeper practical and academic understanding of the hurdy-gurdy within the context of contemporary music making.
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    Performer as medium: connecting past and present in improvisation
    Hoe, Janette Fui Yin ( 2016)
    ‘Performer as Medium: Connecting Past and Present in Improvisation’, is a practice-led research project undertaken between 2013-2016 at the Victorian College of the Arts as a Master of Fine Arts (Dance) by research. There are two components of the research: a performance outcome and an exegesis. ‘Moths are Calling’ (38min) was performed and documented in July 2014, and is available for perusal via video format. It is accompanied by this exegesis of 20,000 words. This practice-led inquiry explores performer as medium, and more broadly, performance as a practice connecting past already lived experience, and the present. It is centred in the experience of my solo performance practice that is philosophically concerned with the ontology of the everyday and the ordinary. The inquiry adopts an experiential approach in which the creative and performance practice is sustained, while strategically adopting phenomenological, autobiographic, and ethnographic stances to interrupt, problematize and inform the creative work. This bricolleur approach to methods has a characteristically emergent implication, allowing for unfolding, a degree of plasticity and adaption that is further and continuously informed by an on-going survey of relevant practitioners and literature.
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    Writing and dancing the body: from contradiction to complementarity
    Bendall, Susan Elizabeth ( 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.
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    Pulse: a physical approach to staging text
    GERSTLE, TANYA ( 2008)
    This exegesis articulates the evolution of an improvisational training and rehearsal methodology called Pulse and discusses the outcomes of a practice-based research project where Pulse was applied to the screenplay of Yes by Sally Potter. Pulse is an approach to performance creation, where an ensemble of performers trains to kinaesthetically embed and integrate a selection of performance and compositional principles enabling them to improvise together. This research involved working with a trained ensemble to explore how Pulse could be used to create spatial and visual imagery that would illuminate a narrative text; to create physical theatre based on the spoken word. I used the language of a screenplay for the generative material, as it was not written for the stage. A visceral, physical and aural landscape therefore would have to be created so an audience could experience the different worlds of the narrative outside its realistic, filmic context. The Pulse process demands that the actor thinks with the body and does not work from the mind. This allows for surprising meetings on the rehearsal floor as the body of the actor responds to suggestions of lust, desire, power and conflict implicit in a narrative. I found that the restrained emotional landscape of unspoken feelings in Sally Potter’s film text emerged through action creating a physicalisation of deep undercurrents. The character’s emotional inner world was revealed through physical metaphor. The performer was able to create a score of non-behavioural physical imagery which when staged could run parallel to the spoken word. Where the original medium may have relegated the importance of the body, the Pulse physical translation process prioritised the body in the live experience. The actor’s body painted the space through direct physical experience and memory. The body was content, image and witness. As a consequence our adapted, staged version told a different story to that of the film. This research involved instigating and tracking the investigation and this exegesis describes and analyses the form that emerged.
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    Naked peel: 12 twelve hours later: shedding intoxications through durational embodiment
    Linou, Christos ( 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.
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    Integrating space, composition and performance: an investigation into the musical relationship between the instrument and the space
    Wiesner, Benjamin James ( 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.