Butoh, as Heard by a Dancer

This monograph explores the origins of Butoh in post-war Japan through orality and transmission, in conjunction with an embodied research approach. The book is a gathering of seminal artistic voices – Yoshito Ohno, Natsu Nakajima, Yukio Waguri, Moe Yamamoto, Masaki Iwana, Ko Murobushi, Yukio Suzuki, Takao Kawaguchi, Yuko Kaseki, and the philosopher, Kuniichi Uno. These conversations happened during an extended research trip I made to Japan to understand the context and circumstances that engendered Butoh. Alongside these exchanges are my reflections on Butoh’s complex history. These are primarily informed by my pedagogical and performance encounters with the artists I met during this time, rather than a theoretical analysis. Through the words of these dancers, I investigate Butoh’s tendency to evade categorization. Butoh’s artistic legacy of bodily rebellion, plurality of authorship, and fluidity of form seems prescient and feels more relevant in contemporary times than ever before. This book is intended as a practitioner's guide for dancers, artists, students, and scholars with an interest in non-Western dance and dance history, postmodern performance, and Japanese arts and culture

Towards a minor sociology of futures: Shifting futures in Mass Observation accounts of the COVID-19 pandemic

This article argues for a ‘minor sociology of futures’, which focuses on the significance of futures in and to everyday life by attending to minor shifts in temporal rhythms and patterns that illuminate how futures are imagined and made. We draw on Deleuze and Guattari's concepts of the major and minor, to attend to how major time is ruptured and remade and how minor temporalities can be productive of new relationships with the major and different futures. Our analysis focuses on the intricate and ambivalent relations with futures articulated in written reflections submitted during the early phase (March–November 2020) of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK to a Mass Observation directive on COVID-19 and time. Nourishing a sensitivity to the minor helps us develop a minor sociology that takes futures seriously, which we argue matters in times of uncertainty that stretch beyond the pandemic

Squeeze and Slide: Real-time continuous self-reports with physiological arousal to evaluate emotional engagement in short films of contemporary dance

Engagement is a broad and multifaceted research subject. Self-report engagement data of time-based experiences such as life performance or films is mostly collected through post-hoc questionnaires. The present study compares two devices that allow for real-time continuous self-report while watching 2 short films featuring contemporary dance. The first device is a squeeze ball with a pressure sensor inside and the second device a mechanical linear slider. Users are prompted to indicate their emotional engagement throughout each film using a device. Electrodermal activity (EDA) was also recorded as an indicator of arousal. Across a study involving 31 participants, the squeeze ball and slider reveal comparable overall correlations to EDA data. However there are indications of user-preference for the squeeze ball in the context of rating emotional involvement

Arts Practice as the Daily Extraordinary: A Philosophy of Inclusivity

To conceive a philosophy of art education that is removed from actual practice would belie the extraordinary experience of developing and making practice. In this article, I propose to explore the philosophical implications of art practice being an experience of the ‘daily extraordinary.’ A view of practice as being at once stretching and comfortable, takes the artist and viewer's responses to the strangeness of the everyday: the delightful, the shocking, or even the miraculous, in what appear to be simple and mundane experiences. If we perceive learning in the arts as a pursuit of ideas, affect and expression that occurs in regular practice, there is an inclusivity that renders both learning in the arts and philosophy of art education accessible to everyone. In this article I will refer to the Goldsmiths Centre for Arts and Learning's research programme of 2022–2023, in which events and connected teaching activities practised being All For the Arts. With visiting speakers, museums and galleries and postgraduate students, CAL researched how the vitality and challenge of art practice, which includes the individualities and expression of persons and histories made ordinary and invisible, could bring the value of learning in the arts to the fore. Including reflections from contributors such as John Baldacchino, A Particular Reality, Carol Wild, Danny Braverman, Raphael Vella, Kevin Tavin and Andrea Kárpáti, we explored inclusivity in art practice from the daily extraordinary of each speaker's developments in educational research. Also, in the company of representatives from arts organisations such as Entelechy Arts, Autograph ABP, Whitechapel Gallery, Young V&A and Bow Arts, we considered the amazing and essential factors of inclusivity in the arts – that could be encountered on a daily basis. I will gather meeting points here among this incredible range of contributors

Shaping The Future: Developing Principles for Policy Recommendations for Responsible Innovation in Virtual Worlds

As Extended Reality (XR) technologies continue to evolve at a rapid pace, they hold the promise of transforming the way we interact both with digital information and the physical world. Whilst Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR) technologies offer unbridled opportunities for social connections, productivity, and play, these rapid technological advancements also pose critical challenges to ethics, privacy, accessibility, and safety. At present, there is little policy documentation that directly addresses the novel affordances posed by XR technologies, leading to a ‘policy void’ in this space. Having clear and effective policy frameworks prior to the widespread adoption of technology encourages and enables responsible and ethical innovation of XR technologies. This workshop is therefore dedicated to developing forward-thinking principles to guide policy recommendations that address potential future vulnerabilities posed by the widespread adoption of XR technologies whilst simultaneously encouraging the responsible innovation of new advancements within XR. To ensure these policy recommendations promote responsible innovation, the workshop will assemble multidisciplinary academics, industry developers and international policymakers. Our goal is to ensure that all perspectives are considered such that we can collaboratively chart a responsible and sustainable course for the XR landscape

« Élargir le cercle » Le Public théâtral au XVIe siècle et aujourd’hui

Dans la première partie de cette brève analyse du public, je me réfère à un certain nombre d’études faites par Christian Biet sur le public du XVIe et du XVIIe siècle. La deuxième partie de ma méditation est principalement inspirée par une série de tables rondes organisées par Olivier Neveux et Christophe Triau qui, depuis 2015, accueillent des directeurs artistiques pour parler, entre autres sujets d'importance, du public. Ces débats détaillés et pénétrants ont été publiés dans Théâtre/Public, la revue qui, après avoir été fondée en 1974, fut sauvée en 2007 lorsqu'elle était menacée de fermeture, par l’équipe de recherche « Représentation. Recherches théâtrales et cinématographiques » que dirigeait Biet à l’Université Paris Nanterre. En me référant à ces discussions, je me demande comment la définition développée par Biet, d’un public au cœur du bâtiment de théâtre, et de la cité, pourrait - ou devrait – être valable aujourd'hui

Exploring Deceptive Patterns: Insights from Eye Tracking, EMG and Sentiment Analysis

A Deceptive Pattern (DP) is a user interface design that intentionally misleads users by manipulating their decision-making process. In this study, we investigate the effects of two DPs, namely ’Hard to cancel’ and ’Hidden subscription’. We adopt a mixed-method approach that combined eye tracking, electromyography (EMG), and sentiment analysis to explore user behaviour, cognitive processing, and emotional responses. Our findings show that explicit consent mechanisms result in higher user engagement and quicker noticeability of terms and conditions compared to implicit consent, and obfuscated cancellation processes elicit stronger negative emotional responses. Sentiment analysis further supports these findings, showing a higher proportion of negative sentiment towards deceptive practices. These results underscore the value of transparent and ethical design practices and the importance of regulatory frameworks to mitigate the adverse effects of deceptive UX patterns

A Bran Nue Dae? Decolonising the Musical Theatre Curriculum

Decolonising the musical theatre curriculum in higher education is much more radical and comprehensive than exposing students to a greater volume of commercially-celebrated work featuring Black, Indigenous and Asian artists. The process of decolonisation begins by understanding how we could make universities accountable to the circumstances of the real artists who create the work. The challenge for academic leads in musical theatre is that they are preparing students for an industry that does not see decolonisation as an aim. For the globalised musical, the nexus of Broadway-West End is the cornerstone of an unyielding power structure that relies upon multiple canons of work enabled by a network of capitalist-colonialist nation-states whose social, economic and cultural structures depend upon the centrality of these canons. This chapter will consider how a very grounded story about a very particular set of lived circumstances, namely in Jimmy Chi and Kuckles’ Bran Nue Dae, is instructive as to how we begin to decolonise our understanding of commercial musical theatre globally and within the university sector. Entailed in this are matters of: who curates and theorises this material, who performs it as part of an educational curriculum, how we decolonise the training of skills in both analysing and performing the genre, and the productions we stage

The British State, Citizenship Rights and Gendered Folk Devils: The Case of Shamima Begum

The revoking of Shamima Begum’s citizenship exemplifies much of the purposes of contemporary anti-Muslim racism and underlines its significant gendered element. Both state and media actors constructed the 15-year old as a problematic other, both to justify conditional citizenship ideologically, and to use her case to strengthen and add to the framework for making it legal. This comes in a context in which British Muslims and members of the British Windrush generation are being denied citizenship and the rights that go with it. We argue that Shamima Begum’s construction as a gendered folk devil must be understood in the context of nation states shifting their purpose and legitimacy from ‘civil rights’ to ‘national security’ and strengthening two-tier citizenship rights to control residents of colour, increase the state’s authoritarian purpose and, as part of an ongoing process, to transform the concept of ‘national security’ into legal reality, to further militarise the state and its borders against the ‘migrant crisis’ and, ultimately, to stifle dissent