School of Performing Arts - Theses

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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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    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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    Choreographic imagination
    ROBINSON, PHOEBE ( 2014)
    This research explores the role of the imagination in choreographic practice. More specifically, the research has looked at how imagination contributes to the creation, performance and memorisation of movement in ‘set’ choreography. Drawing from established discourses between dance and somatic practices, philosophy, anatomy, visual perception and the moving image, this research explores the imagination as a phenomenon that is anchored in the body’s sensations and perceptions.
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    Half - Living between two worlds
    RANDALL, MARGARET ( 2014)
    Half – Living between two worlds is a practice-led inquiry into the term ‘half-caste’. Through an investigation of personal and intergenerational lived experiences the research aspires to interrogate the authorship of stereotypical perceptions of Aboriginality. Connecting to dance, song and community the research seeks to emphasise the diversity of Australia’s Aboriginal peoples in the 21st century.
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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.
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    Connections: nothing exists in isolation
    Viggers, Elisabeth ( 2011)
    Connections: Nothing Exists in Isolation explores interrelationships between performance and computer-based technologies, investigating connections between the past and the present. Research concentrates on the evolution of music/sound design, particularly as seen from a Western perspective, and its relationship to modern computer technology. Using music as the focus, Connections: Nothing Exists in Isolation integrates aspects of modern computer-based technologies with more traditional elements of performance, such as mime and dance. Often, computer-based works give precedence to technology in their presentation. However, Connections: Nothing Exists in Isolation seeks to give a more subtle role to the technology, making it one facet of the whole presentation, rather than the dominant feature.