Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Movement Capture: A choreographic re-interpretation of the physical dynamics and sequential movements of a rugby union match

This thesis explored ways of coding and reinterpreting physical movement data from sport to create movement responses within a choreographic practice context in the field of contemporary dance. The study consisted of the notation and analysis of the physical dynamics and sequential body patterns of the high impact sport of rugby union to inform and influence the creation of movement scores that resulted in the creation of a new contemporary dance work and contributed to furthering the knowledge, understanding and practice of choreographic approaches to dance

Body and forgetting

Body and Forgetting is a powerful dance performance that brings together the work of choreographer Liz Roche and film maker Alan Gilsenan, with a live score by Denis Roche.\ud \ud Inspired by the writings of Milan Kundera, Liz Roche Company's remarkable dancers find their way through delicately woven circumstances of disappearance, loss, relationship and hope. Their attempts to hold fast to memories and objects of meaning is at the heart of this work.\ud \ud The live performers move in dialogue with filmed versions of their dancing selves. They re-write their histories, make better endings to their stories, say what they regret not having said. These filmed reflections or versions of themselves, by offering a mirror, ultimately bring the performers back to themselves, richer from the experience

Time Over Distance Over Time

The project delivered a highly ambitious dance performance involving a collaborative team based in Australia, Ireland and the UK. The research explored how six experienced dance artists could develop a virtual space to exchange embodied knowledge through a creative engagement. By highlighting the challenges of sharing embodied knowledge over distance and time, the audiences were invited to partake in this experience and find resonances with these explorations of corporeal exchange.The research drew from Guy Debord’s 1967 thesis the Society of the Spectacle, through which he anticipated the substitution of human interaction for its representation, explaining that the spectacle ‘is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images’. A key component was the increased connectivity afforded through screen-based media, while critiquing how such platforms can diminish the experience of interpersonal connection. Further associations were made between the experiences of Irish immigrants to Australia in the mid 1800s and contemporary experiences of separation through emigration through David Fitzpatrick’s (1994) book Oceans of Consolation, Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of ‘rhizomatic exchange’ (1987) and Jonathan Crary’s (2013) critique of screen based culture in ‘24/7 capitalism’. The research innovation lay in the new creative methodology formed for the work alongside the interdisciplinary nature of the performance outcome. The creative team formed working methods that utilized available platforms for communication and information transfer to bridge the considerable geographical distance and the need to work simultaneously but separately in different time zones; thereby developing ways to dialogue across distance and time. The project received competitive Australia Council funding, alongside competitive arts funding from Culture Ireland and the Arts Council of Ireland. It was presented at the Dublin Dance Festival, Dance Bites Season at Riverside Theatres, Sydney and Brisbane Powerhouse. Key national newspapers including the Irish Times and the Sydney Morning Herald reviewed the performances and the piece was profiled on ABC national radio

Building Fields of Play: An examination of the use of notational analysis to reinterpret dynamic and sequential movement from rugby union to inform the creation of a new dance work

This article offers an examination of a research process that used elements taken from an elite sporting competition, in this case an international Rugby Union match, to develop choreographic thinking tools to create a new contemporary dance work. One goal of this practice-led research was to create a vehicle for penetrating the physicality and unpacking the bodily configurations created in a rugby match. Data derived from a frame-by-frame analysis of a recorded match allowed for the identification and deconstruction of sequential movement to be converted into set representational, abstract choreographic tools named movement signatures and blocks. Through this research, the main physical traits identified were entanglement, directional changeability and interlocking struggle. Subsequently, these choreographic stimuli were used in the formation of movement scores and an abstract movement vocabulary to inform the creation and performance of a non-traditional research output, Fields of Play (2015). Furthermore, this practice-led study utilized elements of Laban Movement Analysis and sports movement analysis to develop an experimental approach to movement annotation and the development of a choreographic process. Through witnessing this hybrid movement vocabulary evolve, the research revealed qualities of de-centred logic, interruption of flow and the potential for a game dramaturgy to emerge.</p

Building Fields of Play

This article offers an examination of a research process that used elements taken from an elite sporting competition, in this case an international Rugby Union match, to develop choreographic thinking tools to create a new contemporary dance work. One goal of this practice-led research was to create a vehicle for penetrating the physicality and unpacking the bodily configurations created in a rugby match. Data derived from a frame-by-frame analysis of a recorded match allowed for the identification and deconstruction of sequential movement to be converted into set representational, abstract choreographic tools named movement signatures and blocks. Through this research, the main physical traits identified were entanglement, directional changeability and interlocking struggle. Subsequently, these choreographic stimuli were used in the formation of movement scores and an abstract movement vocabulary to inform the creation and performance of a non-traditional research output, Fields of Play (2015). Furthermore, this practice-led study utilized elements of Laban Movement Analysis and sports movement analysis to develop an experimental approach to movement annotation and the development of a choreographic process. Through witnessing this hybrid movement vocabulary evolve, the research revealed qualities of de-centred logic, interruption of flow and the potential for a game dramaturgy to emerge.</p

Narrative as a tool for critical reflective practice in the creative industries

This paper explores the efficacy of narrative in reflective practice across a range of creative disciplines. As practitioners within the creative industries the authors internalise experience and re-contextualise it as stories, designs, music videos, fiction and non-fiction films and dance. They are uniquely placed to examine narrative in critical reflection through the prism of their creative practice and in so doing offer insights into reconceptualising professional practice. The authors demonstrate how engagement with and reflection on and in their stories enables wider reflection. Their purpose in reflection is not just to learn from mistakes but to develop an epistemology of practice that enables them to apply rigorous academic inquiry to articulate their tacit professional knowledge and establish new methods for dealing with uncertainty in creative practice research

Body Stories

This research is in the field of arts education. Eisner claims that ‘teachers rarely view themselves as artists’ (Taylor, 1993:21). Situating professional dance artists and teacher-artists (Mc Lean, 2009) in close proximity to classroom dance teachers, spatially, through a shared rehearsal studio and creatively, by engaging them in a co-artistry approach, allows participants to map unique and new creative processes, kinaesthetically and experientially. This pratice encourages teachers to attune and align themselves with artists’ states of mind and enables them to nurture both their teacher-self and their artist-self (Lichtenstein 2009). The research question was: can interactions between professional dance artists, teacher-artists (Mc Lean, 2009) and classroom dance teachers change classroom dance teachers’ self-perceptions? The research found that Artists in Residence projects provide up-skilling in situ for classroom dance teachers, and give credence to the act of art making for classroom dance teachers within their peer context, positively enhancing their self-image and promoting self-identification as ‘teacher-artists’ (Mc Lean, 2009). This project received an Artist in Residence Grant (an Australia Council for the Arts, Education Queensland and Queensland Arts Council partnership). The research findings were chosen for inclusion in the Queensland Performing Arts Complex program, Feet First: an invitation to dance, 2013 and selected for inclusion on the Creative Campus website, http://www.creative-campus.org.uk

We are here and we are everywhere at once (WAHAWAEWAO)

The research which informed this creative work explores how travelling through virtual environments can ‘make strange’ our engagement with the real. It questions how awareness of embodied presence, which is augmented and altered through its intermingling with digital technologies and apparatus might inform how we engage with the natural world. The piece emerged from the research project Kinesthetic Navigations/Kinesthetic Stories instigated by researchers Carol Brown and Ruth Gibson. The creative work was a moving image installation at Pah Homestead Gallery in Auckland. WAHAWAEWAO was created by Ruth Gibson, Carol Brown, Bruno Martelli and Russell Scoones with performer/collaborators Jenny Roche, Grant McLay and Cassidy Scoones. An exhibition booklet with essays by Brown, Roche and Gibson accompanies this submission