Spectators’ aesthetic experiences of sound and movement in dance performance

In this paper we present a study of spectators’ aesthetic experiences of sound and movement in live dance performance. A multidisciplinary team comprising a choreographer, neuroscientists and qualitative researchers investigated the effects of different sound scores on dance spectators. What would be the impact of auditory stimulation on kinesthetic experience and/or aesthetic appreciation of the dance? What would be the effect of removing music altogether, so that spectators watched dance while hearing only the performers’ breathing and footfalls? We investigated audience experience through qualitative research, using post-performance focus groups, while a separately conducted functional brain imaging (fMRI) study measured the synchrony in brain activity across spectators when they watched dance with sound or breathing only. When audiences watched dance accompanied by music the fMRI data revealed evidence of greater intersubject synchronisation in a brain region consistent with complex auditory processing. The audience research found that some spectators derived pleasure from finding convergences between two complex stimuli (dance and music). The removal of music and the resulting audibility of the performers’ breathing had a significant impact on spectators’ aesthetic experience. The fMRI analysis showed increased synchronisation among observers, suggesting greater influence of the body when interpreting the dance stimuli. The audience research found evidence of similar corporeally focused experience. The paper discusses possible connections between the findings of our different approaches, and considers the implications of this study for interdisciplinary research collaborations between arts and sciences

Thinking Theatre: Enhancing Children’s Theatrical Experiences Through Philosophical Enquiry

A marker of quality in a cultural experience is its enduring resonance as it engages its audience intellectually, imaginatively or emotionally. This is certainly the case with theatre that is made for adults and we should have the same ambition in theatre made for children. It is worth acknowledging, however, that children might need to be actively invited to take their engagement with a theatre performance further and provided with the time, skills and structures through which to do so. This paper presents the findings of a piece of research commissioned to explore the potential of using Philosophy Enquiry for Children (P4C) as the structure through which to deepen and enhance children’s engagement with theatre. In doing so it explores what happens when theatre is used as the stimulus material for a philosophical enquiry, providing insights into both the nature of the theatrical experience and the nature of P4C

Ways of Watching: Five Aesthetics of Learning Disability Theatre

Over the last couple of decades, theatre and dance by performers with learning disabilities has progressively moved from the domains of the therapeutic or community orientated to that of art. The movement is marked by a shift in venues (from private facilities or community halls to ‘mainstream’ theatres), a shift in funders, and – perhaps most fundamentally of all – a shift in audiences. In this chapter, I examine the relationship between the concept of spectatorship and theatres of learning disability, before applying this concept to the messier practice of audiencing. I draw upon interview material with learning disabled performers and other practitioners working in the field, alongside research with audiences to learning disabled theatre. These discourses are used to explore questions of quality, judgement, acts of looking and interpreting as the chapter considers the thorny issue of whether there is a distinct form of aesthetic looking that is invited by learning disabled theatre. While this possibility has the appeal of disrupting normative forms of performance, it also risks recapitulating problematic forms of looking at Otherness. In response to this risk, I propose a nuanced typology of the aesthetic positions – or ways of watching – that audiences adopt in relation to learning disability theatre

An investigation of drug partitioning into lipid membranes using a thickness shear mode biosensor

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Students as Arts Activists: Insights and analysis from a politically engaged assessment

Throughout the second year of their BA programme at York St John University (UK), drama and dance students engage with a compulsory module titled ‘politically engaged practice’. As part of this they are given a deliberately provocative assessment brief that requires them to ‘plan, design and implement a small-scale politically engaged piece of acts activism.’ This paper explores the experience of asking students to become, even if only temporary, political activists. It does so by first setting out how arts activism is framed and defined for the module as an intersection between effect and affect. Under the headings ‘dialogical activism’, ‘culture jamming’ and ‘quiet activism’, it then provides a typology of the kinds of students arts activist projects undertaken. Suggesting that the assessment offers an opportunity for ‘authentic learning’ the paper describes how students articulated the impact of the module on their sense of social consciousness and relationship to political issues. Finally, the paper reflects on the role of activism within the academy, particularly in a context where universities are frequently accused of operating under a liberal bias that imposes particular political perspectives on students