School of Performing Arts - Theses

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Dancing the threshold: liminal space and subjectivity in practice and performance

Ferris, Michelle ( 2013)

‘Dancing the threshold: Liminal space and subjectivity in practice and performance’, is a practice-led research project undertaken between 2011-2013 at the Victorian College of the Arts as a Master of Animateuring by research. There are two components of the research: a performance outcome and an exegesis. ‘The Blue Hour’ (30min) was performed in December 2011 and documented in July 2012, and is available for perusal via video format. It is accompanied by this exegesis of 15,000 words. The practice-led inquiry seeks to illuminate the relationship between vivid imagining and the dancing body and to determine how liminal spaces can act as sites for the emergence of character states whereby fixed notions of identity are transcended. The inquiry incorporates both a personal account of practice through dancing and writing and a critical reflection on the relationship of the research material to the fields of anthropology, psychology and psychoanalysis. Rather than critically analysing the content of these writings I instead reflect on the connection they have to the studio practice and how they may extend the depth of meaning that emerges from it.