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Description
Devising Theatre and Performance is a hands-on guide for artists, students and teachers of performance at any stage of their practice. It offers a wide range of creative prompts and pathways enriched with critical thinking tools and questions, a hybrid approach Hill and Paris call ‘Curious Methods’.
This is a welcome addition to the field, created and curated by two experienced artists who have operated at the international interface of academia and professional practice for over three decades.
The collection is packed with fun, creative, thoughtful exercises distilled from over twenty years of running interdisciplinary artist workshops and teaching both devising and performance making. As well providing numerous exercises and suggestions for devising, composing and editing original works, this book offers tools for giving and receiving feedback, critical reflection and framing artistic work within academic research contexts.
Readers can choose to dip in and out, to follow the book as a course or to work section by section, focusing on organizing principles such as working from the body, working with site, working with objects or performance activism. The book includes a detailed production workbook and a practice-based research workbook you can tailor to your own projects. The 'Curious Methods' approach encourages users to take the time and space their practice deserves while offering tools, nourishment and encouragement and inviting them to take risks beyond their comfort zones. The exercises are carefully described so that they can easily be tested out by readers, and are well contextualized in relation to vivid examples from contemporary performance practice and relevant political contexts. This compelling approach goes beyond many other books on theatre devising, which merely provide performance recipes; they do so by repeatedly highlighting the vital cultural relevance and potential personal impact of the experiments that they invite us to undertake.
The primary audience for this important new book will be academics, instructors and students in courses on devised theatre, improvisation, performance art, experimental performance and practice-based research. It will be essential for classroom use, for students of theatre and performance and live art – undergraduate, postgraduate and Ph.D., teachers and all those needing strategies for getting started.
It will also appeal to readers from the broader arts, humanities and social sciences who are seeking resources for integrating creative methods into their research.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
1. Curious Methods
2. Pep Talk
Daily Practice
Outfoxing the Censor
Freewriting
A Time and a Place
Failing Better
3. Working from the Body
Arrivals and Departures
Begin Again
Tongue-Tied
Body Map
Body Memory
Invisible
The Sense of Smell
Homesick
Olfactory Portraits
Fight Flight Freeze
Gut Feelings
Secret Duets
Inheritance Tracks
Family Traits and Mannerisms
Persona
Walk This Way
Building a Persona
4. Working with Objects
Tactile Memory
Exquisite and Mundane
Inherited Objects
Box Stories
‘The Lovers’
Suitcase
5. Working with Site
Give and Take
Ghost Library
Ghost Duets
In Search of a Gesture
You Are Here
Map Making, Three Ways
Blurring Time and Place
Things ain’t what they used to be
Best Foot Forward
Marks and Scars
Dancing Place and Space
Private, Keep Out!
Taking Up Residence
Infinitesimal Detail
Fifteen Quick Freewrites on Place
Autotopographically Speaking
Silent Stroll
Closing Thoughts
6. Working with Pairings
Failure & Text
Desire & Proximity
Ritual & Object
7. Activism
Manifestos
Impulse Manifesto
Make Manifest
Lending and Borrowing
Signs
Wear Your Heart on Your Sleeve
On Location
Stand Up, Speak Out
Living Newspaper
Ripped from the Headlines
Re-Enactment
Choose Your Battles
Verbatim Theatre
Explosive Material – a Journalistic Exercise
Explosive Compounds – an Ethnographic Exercise
One-Minute Plays
Mix Tape
Produce, Adapt or Devise?
A Moment in History
Cross That Line
Closed Border
Open Border
Tactical Toolkit
Make a Spectacle
Reflections
8. Production Workbook
Operating Instructions
Kick-Starting Process
Realm of Concern
I’ve always wanted to be able to …
Feathering the Nest
Look Book
Composition
Space and Composition
Dream Island
Fleshing It Out
Dancing the Dynamics
Workshopping
Index Card Storyboard
Dear Dead Darlings
Remember the Audience
Dear Audience
Feedback
Three Adjectives
Performance Response
Brief Hauntings
Companion Piece
Invited Guests
Bespoke
Cartomancy
Documentation
Pen Pal
Favourite Performance You Never Saw
9. A Practice-Based Research Workbook
Performing Knowledges
Back Stage
Escape Velocity
Glorious Manifestations
Generative Research
Mapping Your Practice
Diagrammatic Praxis
Secret Fear
Abstractions on Secret Fears
Defining Your Dramaturgy
Signatures of Practice
Art-I-Facts
Love Letter
Artist-Scholar Family Album
Methodologies
Phenomenology
Doing a Phenomenology
Phenomenological Journal
Autoethnography
Project Descriptions in 1st and 3rd
Specialist Knowledge
Autoethnographic Journal
Keeping a Lab Notebook
Designing Bespoke PBR Exercises – Two Case Studies
Gut Feelings
UpRoot
Sowing from Seed
PBR Evaluation and Critique
Bespoke Evaluation Rubric
Amalgamated Evaluation Rubric
Bibliography and Further Reading
Index
Sujets
Informations
Publié par | Intellect Books |
Date de parution | 26 juillet 2021 |
Nombre de lectures | 0 |
EAN13 | 9781789384734 |
Langue | English |
Poids de l'ouvrage | 9 Mo |
Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1300€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.
Extrait
Devising Theatre and Performance
Curious Methods
LESLIE HILL AND HELEN PARIS
First published in the UK in 2021 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2021 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Published in collaboration with Live Art Development Agency
Copyright © 2021 Intellect
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover image: Helen Paris, Claudia Barton and the Discovery Tree, Curious Retreat, Big Trees State Park, California, photo Leslie Hill.
Copy-editing: Newgen
Cover and book design: Kathy Barber and Gorm Ashurst at Bullet Creative
Production editing: Jelena Stanovnik
ISBN: 9781789384710
epub ISBN: 9781789384734
ePDF ISBN: 9781789384727
Printed and bound by Severn, UK.
This is a peer-reviewed publication.
To find out about all our publications, please visit www.intellectbooks.com .
There, you can subscribe to our e-newsletter, browse or download our current catalogue and buy any titles that are in print.
to our students with love
Contents
Acknowledgements
Illustrations
1 . Curious Methods
2 . Pep Talk
Daily Practice
Daily Creative Practice Time
Outfoxing the Censor
Freewriting
A Time and a Place
Failing Better
3 . Working from the Body
Arrivals and Departures
Begin Again
Tongue- tied
Body Map
Body Memory
Invisible
The Sense of Smell
Homesick
Olfactory Portraits
Fight, Flight, Freeze
Gut Feelings
Secret Duets
Inheritance Tracks
Family Traits and Mannerisms
Persona
Building a Persona
Ideas / Reflections / Sketches
4 . Working with Objects
Tactile Memory
Exquisite and Mundane
Inherited Objects
Box Stories
‘ The Lovers’
Suitcase
5 . Working with Site
Give and Take
Ghost Library
Ghost Duets
In Search of a Gesture
You Are Here
Map Making, Three Ways
Blurring Time and Place
Things Ain’t What They Used to Be
Best Foot Forward
Marks and Scars
Dancing Place and Space
Private, Keep Out!
Taking Up Residence
Infinitesimal Detail
Fifteen Quick Freewrites on Place
Autotopographically Speaking
Silent Stroll
Closing Thoughts
Ideas / Reflections / Sketches
6 . Working with Pairings
Failure & Text
Desire & Proximity
Ritual & Object
Ideas / Reflections / Sketches
7 . Activism
Manifestos
Impulse Manifesto
Make Manifest
Lending and Borrowing
Signs
Wear your Heart on your Sleeve
On Location
Stand Up, Speak Out
Living Newspaper
Ripped from the Headlines
Re- enactment
Choose your Battles
Verbatim Theatre
Explosive Material – a journalistic exercise
Explosive Compounds – an ethnographic exercise
One- Minute Plays
Mix Tape
Produce, Adapt or Devise?
A Moment in History
Cross That Line
Closed Border
Open Border
Tactical Toolkit - Jessi Piggott
Make a Spectacle
Reflections
Ideas / Reflections / Sketches
8 . Production Workbook
Operating Instructions
Kick- Starting Process
Realm of Concern
I’ve always wanted to be able to …
Feathering the Nest
Look Book
Composition
Space and Composition
Dream Island
Fleshing it Out
Dancing the Dynamics
Workshopping
Index Card Storyboard
Dear Dead Darlings
Enter The Audience
Dear Audience
Feedback
Three Adjectives
Performance Response
Brief Hauntings - Ryan Tacata
Brief Hauntings
Companion Piece
Invited Guests
Bespoke
Cartomancy
Documentation
Favourite Performance You Never Saw
9 . A Practice-Based Research Workbook
Performing Knowledges
Back Stage
Escape Velocity
Glorious Manifestations
Generative Research – Lois Weaver
Mapping your Practice
Diagrammatic Praxis - Sher Doruff
Secret Fear
Abstractions on Secret Fears
Defining Your Dramaturgy
Signatures of Practice – Gretchen Schiller
Methodologies
Phenomenology
Doing a Phenomenology – Susan Kozel
Phenomenological Journal
Autoethnography
Project Descriptions in First and Third
Specialist Knowledge
Autoethnographic Journal
Keeping a Lab Notebook
Designing Bespoke PBR Exercises
Sowing from Seed
PBR Evaluation and Critique
Bespoke Evaluation Rubric
Amalgamated Evaluation Rubric
Bibliography and Further Reading
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, thanks to all the brilliant student and professional artists we have worked with over the years in classes and workshops, during retreats and residencies, for all the inspiration, laughs and love you’ve given us.
Thanks to our first ever Solo Performance students at Arizona State University back in 1997 for helping us become teachers; my (Helen’s) Brunel University students whose professional work I now audience with pride; my (Leslie’s) interdisciplinary Ph.D. students at UEL SMARTlab for all your pioneering practice-based research and for the tri-annual jam sessions; our beloved and bereft Stanford students who organized a sort of living wake for us before we moved back to the United Kingdom – we were speechless; and my (Leslie’s) Roehampton students who managed to produce their 2020 theatre degree shows on Zoom from their lockdown bedrooms – I will always treasure your creativity in the face of challenges we could never have imagined.
To all our Curious workshop participants from the NRLA Winter School in Glasgow to LADA-sponsored DIY workshops in London, Time Place Space in Wagga Wagga Australia and the Taiwan Women Theatre Festival in Taipei to name but a few – we’ve had so much fun working with you and keeping in touch with you and your work over the years!
Thanks to our wonderful colleagues at Roehampton University London and Canterbury Christ Church University. We would particularly like to thank Gretchen Schiller, Structure Fédérative de Recherche-Création at the University of Grenoble Alps, for our fantastic experiences at the interdisciplinary ‘Arts in the Alps’ summer schools in 2017 and 2019 developing some of this material and Chloé Déchery at l’Université de Paris 8 and Studio-théâtre de Vitry, Paris, for the invitation to try out some of the ideas in this book, particularly the PBR workbook, with an incredibly talented group of artist-scholars in 2019.
The Back Stage exercise is an adaptation of a workshop we developed for elderly groups with Lois Weaver as part of ‘Getting On: A Backstage Tour’, funded by a Stanford Community Engagement grant in 2013. Thanks also to Stanford University for funding our PBR in the Arts MOOC with a teaching innovation award and to the 5,000-plus artists who participated and our peers who contributed. Thank you to Artsadmin, particularly Judith Knight, Gill Lloyd, Cheryl Pierce and Cat Harrison, for producing and managing so many workshop events over the past twenty years alongside all the performances. Thanks also to our beloved Curious board – Philippa Barr, Theresa Beattie, CJ Mitchell, Jen Parker Starbuck – for steadfast support and advice.
Thank you to Arts Council England, the Wellcome Trust, Live Art Development Agency DIY, Home Live Art, Arnolfini, Battersea Arts Centre and countless venues and festivals for funding and facilitating artist workshops over the years. Thank you to the Woods Institute for the Environment for funding the UpRoot workshops.
Immense thanks to Lois Keidan, CJ Mitchell and Megan Vaughan at Live Art Development Agency and Jelena Stanovnik and the team at Intellect for believing in this book and helping us bring it to fruition. Massive thanks to the anonymous peer reviewers for their suggestions. Huge thanks to Kathy Barber and Gorm Ashurst at Bullet Creative for your super collaboration on the design.
Illustrations
Cover image: Helen Paris, Claudia Barton and the Discovery Tree * , Curious Retreat, Wild Longings , Big Trees State Park, California, photo Leslie Hill.
1 . Claudia Barton, Helen Paris and Leslie Hill, UpRoot , photo Hugo Glendinning.
2 . Helen Paris, Best Before End , photo Hugo Glendinning.
3 . Helen Paris, Best Before End , photo Hugo Glendinning.
4 . Best Before End , photo Richard Davenport.
5 . San Francisco cast, Out of Water ** , photo Jamie Lyons
6 . Geoff McGary and Rene Newby, the moment I saw you I knew I could love you , photo Hugo Glendinning.
7 . Leslie Hill, Claudia Barton and Helen Paris, Wild Longings , photo Elliot Frank.
8 . Helen Paris, Best Before End , photo Richard Davenport.
9 . Leslie Hill, On the Scent , photo Hugo Glendinning.
Inside back cover: Leslie Hill, UpRoot , photo Hugo Glendinning
* The ‘ Discovery Tree’ , now ‘ the Big Stump ’ was felled in 1853, an act of destruction that helped spark environmental activism and the establishment of National Parks across the USA.
** Created by Caroline Wright and Helen Paris, music by Jocelyn Pook
1.
Curious Methods
Curious Methods
“Research is formalized curiosity.”
(Zora Neale Hurston 1942: 143)
In this book we offer a smorgasbord of creative prompts and pathways enriched with critical thinking tools and questions, a hybrid approach we call ‘Curious Methods’. Curious Methods derives from the name of our performance company Curious and from the artist-scholar/research-creation cultures we work in. When we formed our company, we called ourselves Curious because all our project ideas started with a question, for example, ‘what is the relationship between the sense of smell and memory?’ In pursuit of answers to that particular question, we worked with a group of scientists at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, researching connections between the olfactory and memory as part of the process of creating our performance piece ‘On the Scent’. We lived among the scientists on the campus for a couple of weeks, taking meals toget