Sensing the story: structure and improvisation in writing for performance

doi:10.1386/JWCP.2.2.231/1

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Sensing the story: structure and improvisation in writing for performance

Journal Article•DOI•

Sensing the story: structure and improvisation in writing for performance

01 Jul 2009-Journal of Writing in Creative Practice (Intellect)-Vol. 2, Iss: 2, pp 231-249

TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the process of writing through devising in performance and report on the processes of writing in action, the writing and performing as lived experience and how the writing emerged from the spaces in between.

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Abstract: This article discusses the process of writing through devising in performance. It takes as a case study Apart of and A Part From in which muscle and sense memory – touch, smell, taste, sound and sight – were the points of departure for a contemporary performance piece on migration and identity. This was a practice-as-research project aimed to better understand the artist’s body (myself) in improvisation with memory fragments. Working from a non-verbal frame the writing experience began as actions in space, then new memories in my body, to maps on paper, to key word and some staging patterns, to systematic capturing of the textual, rhythmic and spatial structures in the emerging 30-minute performance. Various objects were incorporated to give aesthetic coherence of the piece. The article reports on the processes of writing in action, the writing and performing as lived experience and how the writing emerged from the spaces in between – self and other, self and object, self and space, present self and past self.

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Dissertation•DOI•

Doing language together : collaborative writing practice for design teams in higher education

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Julia Lockheart

31 May 2016

TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a practice-centred teaching method for collaborative writing for design teams at M-level in higher education (HE) by using Approaches, Practices and Tools (APTs) across three case study workshops.

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Abstract: This thesis offers and evaluates collaborative writing practices for teams of Design students at M-Level in Higher Education (HE). The research begins by asking why writing is included in current art and design HE, and identifies an assumption about the role of writing across the sector derived from a misreading of the 1960 and 1970 Coldstream Reports. As a result, drawing on recommendations that were made in the Reports for non-studio studies to be complementary to art and design practice in HE, I focus on how teams of design students can complement their design skills with collaborative writing. Some studies for addressing how design students learn from writing in HE already exist, but none have established a practice-centred teaching method for collaborative writing for design teams at M-level. My research captures the effects of my Approaches, Practices and Tools (APTs) across three case study workshops. I compare these with the most common writing model in HE designed for text-based study in the humanities. My APTs use participants' designerly strengths to redesign how they can use writing to complement their practice. This provides learners with a means of identifying and creating their own situated writing structures and practices. I document how my practice-centred APTs position collaborative writing practices as a designerly mode of communication between design practitioners working in teams. I show it to be more complementary to practice and so more effective in comparison to models imported from the humanities. My explorations are carried out through two thesis sections. Section One is an in-depth literature-based rationale that critically informs my investigations. Section Two presents my methodologies and reports three case studies, in which I explore the emergent data collected through a range of qualitative methods, mapping and evaluative techniques. The findings are of importance to those teaching M-Level design courses.

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24 citations

Cites background from "Sensing the story: structure and im..."

...10 Writing through the body: The body through writing Rea Dennis (2009) writes, her body is “central to writing for performance” (2009:231) and she writes through every muscle and sense....
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...… … 127 3.12 Possibilities rather than argument … … … 131 3.13 Problematizing thinking … … … 132 3.14 Thinking writing … … … 134 3.15 Language and collective thought … … … 135 3.16 Designing language: Languaging as a cognitive tool … … 137 3.17 Framing the workshops: Framing language through Approaches, Practices and Tools (APTs) … … … 142 3.18 The cultural power of the language tool … … … 145 3.19 Framing workshop play … … … 147 3.20 Conclusions and further recommendations … … 151 Chapter 4: Finding Opportunities: A Contextualising Review 4.1 Introduction … … … 154 4.1.1 The shape of the contextualising review… … … 154 4.1.2 Interpretive approaches: Mapping practices, finding themes … 155 4.1.3 Interpretive approaches: Précis review… … … 157 4.1.4 Interpretive approaches: Dialogic mirroring … … 158 4.1.5 Interpretive approaches: Thematic section headings … … 159 4.1.6 Interpretive approaches: Common elements … … 159 4.2 Writing-PAD context (2000-2007) … … 160 4.3 Mapping Editorials: Evolving practices JWCP 1:1-3 (2007-8) … 164 4.3.1 Thinking-through-writing: Writing-through-thinking … … 164 4.3.1.1 Common elements … … … 166 4.3.2 Writing as design tool: Design as writing tool … … 167 4.3.2.1 Common elements … … … 169 4.3.3 Writing as practice: Practice as writing … … … 169 4.3.3.1 Common elements … … … 171 4.3.4 Writing as speech: Speech as writing … … … 172 4.3.4.1 Common elements … … … 173 4.3.5 Reading as practice: Practice as reading … … 173 8 4.3.5.1 Common elements … … … 174 4.3.6 Situated writing: Writing situated … … … 174 4.3.6.1 Common elements … … … 175 4.3.7 Writing as reflection: Reflection as writing … … 176 4.3.7.1 Common elements … … … 177 4.3.8 Writing as Collaboration: Collaboration through writing… … 178 4.3.8.1 Common elements … … … 178 4.3.9 Diversity of approaches: Approaches to diversity … … 179 4.3.9.1 Common elements … … … 179 4.3.10 Writing as research: Research as writing … … 180 4.3.10.1 Common elements … … … 181 4.3.11 Summary … … … 182 4.3.12 Quantifiable recurrent themes … … … 182 4.3.13 Representing emergent relationships … … … 182 4.4 Mapping Editorials: Evolving practices JWCP 2:1-3 (2009) … 185 4.4.1 Writing as practice: Practice as writing… … … 186 4.4.1.1 Common elements … … … 188 4.4.2 Writing as research: Research as writing … … 188 4.4.2.1 Common elements … … … 189 4.4.3 Reading as practice: Practice as reading … … 189 4.4.3.1 Common elements … … … 189 4.4.4....
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...1 Common elements The focus on the practice of walking, taking step after step in a rhythmic flow, creates underlying links in Dennis’ (2009) text to Practice as writing: Writing as practice....
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Out of the Subaltern: Making Material Thought. (Review Essay)

[...]

P Florence

01 Jan 2005

13 citations

Dissertation•

The place from which I see : a practice-led investigation into the role of vision in understanding solo performance improvisation as a form of composition

[...]

Hilary Elliott¹•Institutions (1)

University of Huddersfield¹

01 Jan 2013

TL;DR: The Place From Which I See as discussed by the authors is a practice-led investigation into performance improvisation in which the question of "What is the role of vision in understanding solo performance improvation as a form of composition?" is asked.

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Abstract: The Place From Which I See is a practice-led investigation into performance improvisation in which I have asked the question: ‘What is the role of vision in understanding solo performance improvisation as a form of composition?’ The research is encompassed and presented in two different, but interwoven, modalities, which function as a total thesis. These are: (1) a written thesis, which is divided into the four main chapters outlined in the Introduction and (2) a sharing of studio-based investigations and performances - included on the accompanying DVD - and a live performance. This sharing of practical work is designed to illuminate how the practice has functioned as a methodology for research and as a means of embodying and making public the research outcomes. Together, it is intended that these different articulations form a clear and useful prism through which the practical and theoretical terrain of the project can be distilled. In this thesis I argue that working pragmatically and creatively with vision within the specificity of the immediate space and situation of performance can function as an efficacious means of understanding solo improvised performance as a form of composition, and the research offers five strategies that collectively function as a template of approaches for generating and shaping improvisational material. The strategies have been developed through instigating a practice/theory feedback loop with the phenomenology and artistic paradigm offered by French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. I introduce his model of painterly composition as a particular rubric of what I call vision/action responsiveness against which I situate my own compositional approaches. I also outline five of the key ideas that infuse both this rubric and his phenomenology more generally - the significance of the entwining of a ‘questioning’ vision with movement; the chiasm; the visible; the ‘invisible’ and the ‘I can’ - and illuminate the way in which the practice has been developed and refined through a pragmatic interaction with these ideas. The thesis also outlines how these aspects of the phenomenological discourse have been re-framed through this interaction with the practical investigations and I situate my working of Merleau-Ponty’s ideas within the context of other treatments within both dance and theatre. More broadly, I relate this doctorate’s methodological approach and aesthetic concern with vision as a core compositional tool in and for performance to the compositional strategies, aesthetics, methodologies and philosophies of a range of other practitioners, locating the research within the wider field of improvisational performance. As an outcome, this research offers the template of strategies, layered with my particular re-framings of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, as an original contribution to the practice and discourse of solo performance improvisation.

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7 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

“I forget who I am while I remember who I was so I can perform who I am”: memory, embodied practice, and thing-power in theater-making

[...]

Rea Dennis¹, Kate Hunter¹, Magda Miranda¹•Institutions (1)

Deakin University¹

07 Sep 2021-Text and Performance Quarterly

TL;DR: The theater affords us a way to think. It holds, inflects, and problematizes memory, and opens an alternate space within which to interrogate memory as an individual experience and a shared collectivity as mentioned in this paper.

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Abstract: The theater affords us a way to think. It holds, inflects, and problematizes memory, and opens an alternate space within which to interrogate memory as an individual experience and a shared collect...

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2 citations

References

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Open Access

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Journal Article•DOI•

Towards the Poor Theatre

[...]

Jerzy Grotowski

01 Jan 1967

TL;DR: Grotowski's Theatre Laboratory Company was first seen in Britain at the Edinburgh Festival in 1968 and went on to international fame as discussed by the authors, and became one of the most potent sources of information for modern actors and directors.

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Abstract: "One of the century's most impressive theatrical manifestos" - Irving Wardle Jerzy Grotowski created the Theatre Laboratory in Opole, South-West Poland, in 1959. His work since then, with a small permanent company, became one of the most potent sources of information for modern actors and directors. This is a record of the ideas that motivated the work of the Theatre Laboratory, and of the company's methods and discoveries.In his Preface Peter Brook writes: "Grotowski is unique. Why? Because no one else in the world, to my knowledge no one since Stanislavski, has investigated the nature of acting, its phenomenon, its meaning, the nature and science of its mental-physical-emotional processes as deeply and completely as Grotowski."Grotowski's Theatre Laboratory Company was first seen in Britain at the Edinburgh Festival in 1968 and went on to international fame.

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618 citations

Book•

Towards a poor theatre

[...]

Jerzy Grotowski

01 Jan 1968

...read moreread less

486 citations

Book•

Making a Performance: Devising Histories and Contemporary Practices

[...]

Emma Govan, Helen Nicholson, Katie Normington¹•Institutions (1)

Royal Holloway, University of London¹

14 May 2007

107 citations

Book•

Drama/theatre/performance

[...]

Simon Shepherd, Mick Wallis

01 Jan 2004

TL;DR: Shepherd and Wallis as discussed by the authors examined the history and use of the terms "drama", "theatre" and "performance" and investigated the different philosophies, politics, languages and institutions with which they are associated.

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Abstract: What is implied when we refer to the study of performing arts as 'drama', 'theatre' or 'performance'? Each term identifies a different tradition of thought and offers different possibilities to the student or practitioner. This book examines the history and use of the terms and investigates the different philosophies, politics, languages and institutions with which they are associated. Simon Shepherd and Mick Wallis: * analyze attitudes to drama, theatre and performance at different historical junctures * trace a range of political interventions into the field(s) * explore and contextualise the institutionalisation of drama and theatre as university subjects, then the emergence of 'performance' as practice, theory and academic disciplines * guide readers through major approaches to drama, theatre and performance, from theatre history, through theories of ritual or play, to the idea of performance as paradigm for a postmodern age * discuss crucial terms such as action, alienation, catharsis, character, empathy, interculturalism, mimesis, presence or representation in a substantial 'keywords' section. Continually linking their analysis to wider cultural concerns, the authors here offer the most wide-ranging and authoritative guide available to a vibrant, fast-moving field and vigorous debates about its nature, purpose and place in the academy.

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66 citations

Book•

Theatre/Archaeology: Disciplinary Dialogues

[...]

Mike Pearson, Michael Shanks

01 Jan 2001

TL;DR: Pearson, Mike, Shanks, Michael, Theatre/Archaeology (London: Routledge, 2001), pp.xviii+215 RAE2008 as mentioned in this paper, p.

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Abstract: Pearson, Mike, Shanks, Michael, Theatre/Archaeology (London: Routledge, 2001), pp.xviii+215 RAE2008

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54 citations