Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Performer Training Evolutions: Nsp The Firstborn Son Of Smat, Chelsea Crothers

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This study examined the Nobbs Suzuki Praxis (NSP), a performer training that evolved as an Australian variant of the Japanese Suzuki Method of Actor Training (SMAT). There has been little research on NSP up until now and this study seeks to establish its importance as a training approach that has the potential to be transformative for the performers who practice it. The study utilised a multi-modal approach that included traditional and practice as research methodologies. The origins of NSP in SMAT were traced to identify similarities and differences, and reveal NSP’s inspirations and the reasons for its subsequent divergent evolution. …

A Study On Performing The Hungarian Rhapsodies In The Liszt Tradition, Nicholas Mark Williams

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies (1851, 1853) have long been among the most popular collections of piano music. They have also long garnered a reputation for “superficial brilliance and effect” which seems to have influenced the way that famous pianists play the works in public. But would a performer immersed in the Liszt tradition have approached them differently? This dissertation aims to promote a re-evaluation of the Hungarian Rhapsodies from this perspective: considering Liszt’s own ideas on music and performance, the writings and recordings of his pupils, and Liszt’s book Des Bohémiens et de leur musique en Hongrie (1859).

Giving Voice To The Extra-Normal Self With The Extra-Normal Voice: Improvised Exploration Through The Realms Of Shamanic Chaos Magick, Insight Meditation And Gender Performance, Sage Harlow

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis documents practice-led research exploring the intersections of, and tensions between, improvised invocation ritual within a chaos magick paradigm and Buddhist insight meditation. I explore the extra-normal self—those aspects of consciousness not usually present, or not usually accessible, in day-to-day life—by mean of improvised ritual work with the extra-normal voice and seek to maintain a Buddhist ‘witness’ consciousness throughout these explorations. I also explore the tensions between politics, aesthetics and spiritual practice; in particular, queer and trans politics, a timbre-centred vocal aesthetics and chaos magick, shamanic and Buddhist spiritual practices. This work constitutes part of a larger project of …

I Am Here Now: A Play – And – Polyvocality, The Unhomely, And The Methods Of Mike Leigh In Playwriting: An Exegesis, Michael Mccall

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The aim of the research was to investigate how the devising methods of theatre and film director Mike Leigh might generate material for a new play text and what the implications were in regards to authorship. Central to the research was an exploration of the collaborative devising processes of Leigh as a point of origin and how this might lead to an intended and deliberate case for a plurality of voices in a written play text. It was conducted with a focus on utilising many voices. In this instance the ‘voices’ were young participants from Perth’s African Australian community. The …

Sighting Circus: Perceptions Of Circus Phenomena Investigated Through Diverse Bodies, Katrina Lavers

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis is an investigation into modern circus from its beginnings in 1768 through to present day contemporary circus arts. Eight diverse bodies in modern and contemporary circus are explored. These eight bodies act as different lenses to focus enquiry into gaps or ruptures in the grand narratives of circus, to reveal previously missing voices and histories and to set in place new approaches to perceiving circus phenomena.

In The Political Body, the phenomenon of embodied protest is identified and explored in relation to contemporary circus works. The importance of the engaged spectator is identified in determining political, poetic …

The Making Of Disgrace Kelly: Dragging The Diva Through Cabarets, Pubs And Into The Recital Hall, Caitlin Cassidy

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This research project investigates the synthesis of cabaret and recital performance as a way to re-invigorate the recital as a performance platform. As a curious classical singer with a passion for cabaret, I have explored cabaret in my own creative practice as a classically trained opera singer through the employment of practice-led research methodologies. This project includes research manifested in rehearsals, performance and exegetical writing, including a unique self-reflexive voice in the writing style, to encompass a practice-led research methodology. The culmination of these approaches was a final performance program entitled Diva Bites the Dust. A study of the diva …

Diva Voce : Reimagining The Diva In Contemporary Feminist Performance, Dawn Albinger

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This practice-led contemporary performance study investigates and invigorates the diva icon’s usefulness to feminist theatre praxis. It traces the research journey from an unexamined belief in the diva as an icon of empowered, independent and expressive womanhood, to a more nuanced conception of the diva as boundless feminist performer and philosophical subject. Two major questions emerge from and drive the process. The primary research question asks: How can the diva icon (in all her fury and glory and wretchedness and perversity and mastery and mortality) usefully inform a feminist theatre praxis? Early investigations give rise to a subsequent social query: …

An Evaluation Of The Instructional Practices In Voice Teaching At Australian Performing Art Institutions, Ann Adlem

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The purpose of this study was to identify and evaluate the practices and techniques of vocal training for student actors at a tertiary level, through a survey of experienced voice practitioners in Australian performing arts schools, appropriate texts, consideration of contexts and my own professional experience. Vocal instruction starts with the basic training of ‘the instrument’ or the vocal capabilities of the body. Following this or concurrent with its teaching, more specific forms of training are addressed. This research project used qualitative research methods to compile a detailed description of the voice teaching practices currently used in Australia. It comprises …