Accented Body and Beyond: a Model for Practice-Led Research with Multiple Theory/Practice Outcomes

Dance has always been a collaborative or interdisciplinary practice normally associated with music or sound and visual arts/design. Recent developments with technology have introduced additional layers of interdisciplinary work to include live and virtual forms in the expansion of what Fraleigh (1999:11) terms ‘the dancer oriented in time/space, somatically alive to the experience of moving’. This already multi-sensory experience and knowledge of the dancer is now layered with other kinds of space/time and kinetic awarenesses, both present and distant, through telematic presence, generative systems and/or sensors. In this world of altered perceptions and ways of being, the field of dance research is further opened up to alternative processes of inquiry, both theoretically and in practice, and importantly in the spaces between the two

Moveable worlds/digital scenographies

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ Intellect Ltd 2010.The mixed reality choreographic installation UKIYO explored in this article reflects an interest in scenographic practices that connect physical space to virtual worlds and explore how performers can move between material and immaterial spaces. The spatial design for UKIYO is inspired by Japanese hanamichi and western fashion runways, emphasizing the research production company's commitment to various creative crossovers between movement languages, innovative wearable design for interactive performance, acoustic and electronic sound processing and digital image objects that have a plastic as well as an immaterial/virtual dimension. The work integrates various forms of making art in order to visualize things that are not in themselves visual, or which connect visual and kinaesthetic/tactile/auditory experiences. The ‘Moveable Worlds’ in this essay are also reflections of the narrative spaces, subtexts and auditory relationships in the mutating matrix of an installation-space inviting the audience to move around and follow its sensorial experiences, drawn near to the bodies of the dancers.Brunel University, the British Council, and the Japan Foundation

Cultural Capital: Challenges to New York State’s Competitive Advantages in the Arts and Entertainment Industry

This is a report on the findings of the Cornell University ILR planning process conducted with support of a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to investigate trends in the arts and entertainment industry in New York State and assess industry stakeholders’ needs and demand for industry studies and applied research. Building on a track record of research and technical assistance to arts and entertainment organizations, Cornell ILR moved toward a long-term goal of establishing an arts and entertainment research center by forging alliances with faculty from other schools and departments in the university and by establishing an advisory committee of key players in the industry. The outcome of this planning process is a research agenda designed to serve the priority needs and interests of the arts and entertainment industry in New York State

Digital scenography in opera in the twenty-first century

This thesis undertakes an extensive analysis of current trends in digital scenography in opera production, including dramaturgical possibilities, historical precedents, and impacts on backstage processes. Drawing on examples of practice and interviews with major practitioners, the work proposes a method for assessing digitally-enhanced productions and reevaluating existing industry standards

Regeneration: restorative theatre practice in theatre education.

Regeneration: Restorative Theatre Practice in Theatre Education aims to harness the holistic benefits of theatre as a discipline and create an intentional restorative practice for performers. This thesis serves as a proposal; an attempt to prioritize restorative and self-care practices within the theatre industry, specifically pre-professional training programs. This proposal takes the form of a curriculum that builds upon the current model of theatre training (Voice, Movement, Acting) with the addition of Regeneration. Regeneration provides theatre artists with specific areas of study to offer the psychosocial support a theatre artist may need during their pre-professional training. This thesis will discuss how Regeneration practices are put into action by performers and how theatre-makers can use Regeneration practices to affect social change

Curatorial Directing and Actor Agency: Consent-Based Practices for Digital Performance

In lieu of an abstract, here is an excerpt:  recognition that digital performance will remain as a practice far beyond the pandemic, and in response to Rikard and Pace’s call for theatre educators to reconsider what consent looks like in on-camera classrooms, this article engages with the genre of digital performance that W.B. Worthen’s analysis of performances created during the pandemic names as “Zoom Theatre” (2021). Worthen highlights Zoom Theatre as “the defining genre of theatre during the pandemic,” describing this genre as that in which “actors in different places all perform live, but remotely, typically from their homes, gathered on a screen” (183). Due to this merging of liveness and digitally captured performance, intimacy practitioners engaging with this form of performance need to consider ways in which intimacy choreography and intimacy coordination must merge. This article focuses on the ways in which the framing of Zoom Theatre can complicate Laura Mulvey’s concept of the Male Gaze (1975), introducing the concepts of agentic framing and curatorial directing as tools for creating consent-based performance within the unique contexts of Zoom Theatre

The challenges of opera direction

The Challenges of Opera Direction is an investigation of the art of the opera stage director. In addition to a brief history of opera, the investigation includes opinions of leading international directors. Furthermore it details directing techniques and examples gleaned from the direction of Mozart\u27s The Impresario (Der Shauspieldirektor) and Donizetti\u27s The Elixir of Love (L\u27elisir d\u27amore) both at UNLV and an assistant directing internship with Seattle Opera\u27s production of Delibes\u27s Lakme. Also included are chapters on the art of collaborating with conductors, designers and performers

Sampling the past:a tactile approach to interactive musical instrument exhibits in the heritage sector

In the last decade, the heritage sector has had to adapt to a shifting cultural landscape of public expectations and attitudes towards ownership and intellectual property. One way it has done this is to focus on each visitor’s encounter and provide them with a sense of experiential authenticity.There is a clear desire by the public to engage with music collections in this way, and a sound museological rationale for providing such access, but the approach raises particular curatorial problems, specifically how do we meaningfully balance access with the duty to preserve objects for future generations?This paper charts the development of one such project. Based at Fenton House in Hampstead, and running since 2008, the project seeks to model digitally the keyboard instruments in the Benton Fletcher Collection and provide a dedicated interactive exhibit, which allows visitors to view all of the instruments in situ, and then play them through a custom-built two-manual MIDI controller with touch-screen interface.We discuss the approach to modelling, which uses high-definition sampling, and highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the exhibit as it currently stands, with particular focus on its key shortcoming: at present, there is no way to effectively model the key feel of a historic keyboard instrument.This issue is of profound importance, since the feel of any instrument is fundamental to its character, and shapes the way performers relate to it. The issue is further compounded if we are to consider a single dedicated keyboard as being the primary mode of interface for several instrument models of different classes, each with its own characteristic feel.We conclude by proposing an outline solution to this problem, detailing early work on a real-time adaptive haptic keyboard interface that changes its action in response to sampled resistance curves, measured on a key-by-key basis from the original instruments