Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

Moments In Performance: Developing An Aid For Articulation And Reflection, Shelby R. Mckenzie

Theses : Honours

Embodiment is an innately human experience. Why then, is it so difficult for society to come to a shared understanding of what it is to be embodied? This problem is particularly relevant in a theatrical context. Critical thinking across the disciplines of Philosophy, Science and History have impacted an actor's theoretical understanding of embodiment. However, this has not affected their corporeal understanding. As an actor I realised that this gap led to my inability to articulate the embodied experience in my practice. This inability to explain the experience meant I was unable to experience it consistently. This thesis examines how …

Mindfulness, Recovery-Stress Balance, And Well-Being Among University Dance Students, Peta Blevins, Gene Moyle, Shona Erskine, Luke Hopper

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Dance students face many physical and psychological stressors in their training and daily lives, therefore methods for coping with stress are essential for performance enhancement and general wellbeing. This study aimed to investigate the relationships between mindfulness, stress, recovery, and wellbeing among university level vocational dance students. Seventy-two dance students at two Australian universities completed online self-report measures of mindfulness, recovery-stress states, and affect. Correlation coefficients indicated a significant positive relationship between mindfulness and positive affect, and significant negative relationships between mindfulness and stress, and mindfulness and negative affect. MANOVA revealed differences between high mindfulness and low mindfulness groups on …

‘It’S All In The Timing’ – A Research Project That Explores The Complexities In The Relationship Of Actor To Audience, In Musical Theatre, Crispin Taylor

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This research project is interested in the communicative transaction that occurs between actor and audience, in theatrical performance, and how this relationship can differ within nonmusical, and musical theatre. In non-musical theatre, for example, there can be a very intimate and immediate “dialogue” between actor and audience, that can alter each moment of a performance, making possible a unique co-creation between the two entities. In this way, no two performances are ever alike, the actor “reads” the audience and adjusts their performance according to specific responses from them. This communion allows a flexible elasticity in the outcome, and the actor, …

The Dancing Between Two Worlds Project: Background, Methodology And Learning To Approach Community In Place, Anindita Banerjee, Shaun Mcleod, Gretel Taylor, Patrick L. West

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

This article recounts the history to date of the Dancing Between Two Worlds (DBTW) project, which was initiated by a team of artist-scholars at Deakin University in 2018. DBTW’s brief was to engage the Indian community living in the western fringes of Melbourne in a project on civic belonging, cross-cultural artistic identity, and the performance of outer-suburban Indian diaspora. Working with the creative and community energies that are activated at the intersection of the creative arts and demographically inflected place, the Deakin researchers collaborated with local artists with an Indian background on a major performance in late 2019: …

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. …

Judges’ Evaluation Reliability Changes Between Identifiable And Anonymous Performance Of Hip-Hop Dance Movements, Nahoko Sato, Luke S. Hopper

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2021 Sato, Hopper. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hip-hop competitions are performed across the world. In the recent inclusion in the 2018 Youth Olympic Games, the assessment of hip-hop performance is undertaken by a panel of judges. The purpose of this study was to determine the reliability of different visualisation tools utilised in the assessment of the hip-hop dance movements. Ten dancers performed basic rhythmic hip-hop movements which were captured …

Perspectives On The Relationship Between Theatre And Education: A West Australian Case Study, Ceri Anne Nordling

Theses : Honours

Many professional theatre companies incorporate education departments within their organisational structure to develop education offerings for schools. Education within the context of professional theatre companies offers multiple capacity building benefits. Consequently, education departments clearly have a role in strategically shaping contemporary Australian theatre companies. (Edwards & Upton, 2014). Likewise, the well documented positive impacts of arts learning is recognised by the sector. This has prompted widespread drama-education advocacy from education and theatre industries respectively, as well as through the combined efforts of education and industry partnerships. However, this project argues that for partnerships to sustain relevancy and cross-sector support, researchers …

Isolated Joint Block Progression Training Improves Leaping Performance In Dancers, Paige E. Rice, Kiisa Nishikawa, Sophia Nimphius

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a 12-week ankle-specific block progression training program on saut de chat leaping performance [leap height, peak power (PP), joint kinetics and kinematics], maximal voluntary isometric plantar flexion (MVIP) strength, and Achilles tendon (AT) stiffness. Dancers (training group n = 7, control group n = 7) performed MVIP at plantarflexed (10◦) and neutral ankle positions (0◦) followed by ramping isometric contractions equipped with ultrasound to assess strength and AT stiffness, respectively. Dancers also performed saut de chat leaps surrounded by 3-D motion capture atop force platforms to determine center of …

Supporting The Performance Of Noongar Language In Hecate, Clint Bracknell, Kylie Bracknell, Susan F. Studham, Luzita Fereday

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

As the first adaptation of a complete Shakespearean work presented entirely in one Aboriginal language of Australia, Hecate is a landmark production in Australian theatre. The Noongar language of the southwest of Western Australia is a critically endangered language impacted by colonisation since the early 1800s and suppressed until the 1970s. Working with an all-Noongar cast learning what is by birthright their mother-tongue, the Noongar language, on a full Shakespearean work presents a range of challenges. Consideration of effective rehearsal strategies to support brave spaces for the cast to flourish holistically, both as language learners and performers, was imperative. As …

Weather Bodies: Experimenting With Dance Improvisation In Environmental Education In The Early Years, Jo Pollitt, Mindy Blaise, Tonya Rooney

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This paper reports on insights gained from incorporating dance improvisation into a broader early years environmental education ethnographic research project. Findings are reported from a two-day workshop where a dancer was invited to work with young children to attune to the weather through their bodies. In these workshops, the practice of dance improvisation was used as a deliberate interference to disrupt the disconnected and disembodied ways in which weather is often taught to young children. The paper argues that when children attune with weather through the embodied and relational practice of dance improvisation, this challenges the common practice of learning …

Understanding Stage Management In The 21st Century In Australia: A Preliminary Survey, Ping Sum (Teresa) Fok

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

As a vocation that has been around for at least 150 years, stage management has gone through years of evolution in its scope of practice. From existing as a purely mechanical part of the theatre process to becoming vital co-creators in collaboration with Directors, Designers, and Playwrights, the roles and skills of a Stage Manager has expanded beyond the theatre into the events and entertainment industry that includes large sporting events, rock concerts, and corporate productions.

Academic research into Stage Management is presently in its infancy, with a dearth of published literature. This research contributes a timely and critical reflection …

Student And Teacher Attitudes Towards Overtraining And Recovery In Vocational Dance Training, Peta Blevins, Shona Erskine, Gene Moyle, Luke Hopper

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Elite performance in dance is the result of many years of training, during which dancers face high physical and emotional demands. There is little empirical evidence addressing dancer training behaviours in the context of overtraining and in response to training demands; however, underlying dancer attitudes that affect training behaviours must first be understood to truly determine the drivers of dance training behaviour. This study explored the attitudes held by vocational dance students and their teachers in relation to stress and recovery during vocational dance training. Using Q methodology with a sample of 86 students and teachers, six viewpoints were identified …

My Hall. A Stage Play And My Hall: Excavating, Shaping And Sharing The Memory Of Hale School’S Memorial Hall Through A Site-Specific, Staged Performance. An Exegesis, Julia Jarel

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis provides a case study which investigates the notion that a building which is historically and architecturally significant to a community holds that community’s memories within its walls. It argues that, in collaboration with the members of that community, these memories can be excavated, revealed and woven together to form a piece of site-specific theatre which can then be performed by and for those community members. It proposes that this intergenerational, creative collaboration may enhance the community members’ understanding and appreciation of the significance of the building, its place in the community and their place within it.

The site …

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).

Préface (English Translation), Jonathan W. Marshall

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

A discussion of the role of pain and suffering in butoh and in the work of renowned butoh photographer and artist Nourit Masson-Sékiné (author of the landmark text Butoh: Shades of Darkness, 1987)

Sustaining Dancer Wellbeing Through Independent Professional Dance Careers, Luke S. Hopper, Peta Blevins, Shona Erskine, Danica Hendry, Raewyn Hill, Richard Longbottom

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Dancers dedicate their lives to their art. The lucky few dancers who reach professional careers, must navigate a casualised industry, balance financial pressures and maintain performance fitness. This research aimed to provide practical considerations for dancers to support their health and wellbeing through independent, professional dance careers. Dancers from Australian contemporary dance company Co3 participated in a training program involving psychological and physiotherapy assessments and fitness training in conjunction with a major performance season. Focus groups with company dancers and staff investigated the perceived efficacy of the training program within the company schedule and in supporting dancer wellbeing. Dancers were …

Being The Adult You Needed As A Kid: Why The Aitsl Standards Are Not The Best Fit For Drama Teachers, Christina Gray, Kirsten Lambert

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. The Australian Professional Standards for teachers attempts to regulate the profession and improve teacher quality. Yet the standardisation of teachers’ work has attracted criticism from researchers who assert that a “one size fits all” model for judging teacher quality fails to recognise the affective, enactive and relational aspects of teaching. Given the interactive and interpersonal nature of teaching drama, this concern has salience. Our research into the experiences of early-career drama teachers reveals the positive influence these teachers have on their students and in their …

Traumatic Dances Of The ‘Non-Self’: Bodily Incoherence And The Hysterical Archive, Jonathan Marshall

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

"We seem to be living in hysterical times. A simple Google search reveals the sheer bottomless well of “hysterical” discussions on diverse topics such as the #metoo movement, Trumpianism, border wars, Brexit, transgender liberation, Black Lives Matter, COVID-19, and climate change, to name only a few. Against the backdrop of such recent deployments of hysteria in popular discourse––particularly as they emerge in times of material and hermeneutic crisis––Performing Hysteria re-engages the notion of “hysteria”. Performing Hysteria rigorously mines late 20th- and early 21st-century (primarily visual) culture for signs of hysteria. The various essays in this volume contribute to the multilayered …

How Can Australian Actor Training Be Relevant In A World Of 86 Per Cent Unemployment?, Gabrielle Metcalf, Andrew Smith

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Completing a University degree in actor training may have become a practice in absurdity. There is not enough work for most graduates to even pay the HECS debt that they would have accumulated over their three-year degree. What does this signify for the relevance of actor training, when most graduates can only look forward to a future of unemployment or at best, underemployment? This article charters territory for the Academy to navigate in order for actor training to become more relevant and its graduates better equipped to meet the challenges of the high unemployment rates in the arts industry. A …

The Jekyll’S Hide Project. Devising Jekyll’S Hide: A Critical Analysis Of The Performative Elements And Working Methods Of Jerry Lewis And The Butoh Dancers Tatsumi Hijikata And Kazuo Ohno, Hugo Belviso

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This practice-led research project explored the process of devising for performance for the stage via physical theatre workshops. The research was informed by Japanese butoh dance-theatre and its two creators, Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, and by the work of American comic Jerry Lewis. I began with exercises in group workshops derived from butoh movement practice, followed by inspiration drawn from Jerry Lewis’s performance and directorial work in his films, and from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. I developed a workshop exercise and devising process where ideas and methodologies from butoh and Jerry …

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 …

Writing As Dancing: The Dancer In Your Hands , A Novella <>, Joanna Tollemache Pollitt

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

With the premise to ‘write like I dance,’ Writing as dancing investigates new methods of accessing and revealing choreographic thinking in three distinct ways; writing as a soloist, writing for the ensemble and writing responsively in collaboration. Resulting iterations have variously emerged in the form of performance, novella, play, artist-book, exhibition and long form poem; the novella The Dancer in Your Hands, being the primary solo work presented alongside this exegesis.

The research posits engagement with solo dance improvisation practice as a dynamically charged, and tangible way of thinking that is transferable to the practice of writing. It draws …

Monologuing The Music: A New Actor Training Practice For New Times, Nicole Stinton

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The myth that musical theatre actors cannot act is alive and well. Director, musician and lecturer Dr Zachary Dunbar asserts that the industry frequently chooses between actors who cannot sing or singers who cannot act (2016, 71). Popular blogger WestEndProducer purports that the musical theatre ‘twirley’ is often considered as a jack of all trades but a master of none (2017). In conservatoire style training, could traditional triple-threat skill-focused courses include more holistic educative approaches that integrate the three disciplines of acting, singing and dancing and, longer-term, contribute to dispelling the aforementioned myth? Whilst this question cannot be answered without …

An Analysis Of The Foot In Turnout Using A Dance Specific 3d Multi-Segment Foot Model, Sarah L. Carter, Alan Bryant, Luke S. Hopper

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Introduction: Recent three-dimensional (3D) kinematic research has revealed foot abduction is the strongest predictor of standing functional and forced turnout postures. However, it is still unknown how the internal foot joints enable a large degree of foot abduction in turnout. The primary purpose of this study was to use a dance specific multi-segment foot model to determine the lower leg and foot contributions to turnout that female university-level ballets use to accentuate their turnout. Methods: Eighteen female dance students (mean age, 18.8 ± 1.6 years) volunteered for this study. Retro-reflective markers were attached to the dancers' dominant foot. Each dancer …

Su Dansi. A Dance Film – And – Dancing Elements: The Making Of Su Dansi - A Dance Film. An Exegesis, Johanna Omodei

Theses : Honours

This research project titled Dancing Elements explores choreographic conversations between the body and natural elements, specifically water on film. I question how natural elements when viewed in relation to the dancing body, can begin to be seen as a dancing entity. This research is divided between scholarship and the creation of a new dance film, su dansi which is Turkish for ‘water dance.’ su dansi is a collaborative and explorative outcome that plays with the dancing body and water through the art form of film. Drawing from author Sylvie Vitaglione (2016), I have adopted her term “natural elements’’ in reference …

The State Of Dancingness: Staying With Leaving, Jo Pollitt

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Borrowing from Cixous’ ‘State of Drawingness’ (1993), this article proposes a ‘State of Dancingness’ as method of inhabiting the practice of writing as dancing. Understanding the dancing body as a place of virtuosic attention, the practice of writing is activated as a ‘continuation’ of dancing; neither as creative response or description but as frame for housing (staging) emergent content. The work proposes that the dancer begin on the page from the vantage and experience of entering the stage as solo improvising performer. These words come with this body tucked and pressing inside them. Pressing. The State of Dancingness …

Finding Your Balance: An Investigation Of Recovery–Stress Balance In Vocational Dance Training, Peta Blevins, Shona Erskine, Luke Hopper, Gene Moyle

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Professional dance careers require years of intensive training. Stress experienced during training must be balanced with adequate recovery to prevent overtraining and burnout. Little is known, however, about how dancers achieve recovery–stress balance. This study examined dancers’ recollection of stress and recovery during their vocational dance training to identify potential stressors and recovery behaviors in vocational dance training. Twelve current and ex-professional ballet (n=4) and contemporary dancers (n=8) participated in the study. Four general dimensions, based on the extant overtraining literature in athletes, were identified: dance culture, intrapersonal, interpersonal, and situational factors. Cultural norms, health factors related to injury and …

Dancing Through It: Enhancing Psychological Recovery In Dance, Peta A. L. Blevins

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Achieving elite level performance in dance requires intensive training and physical demands that may put dancers at risk of underrecovery and overtraining if not balanced with adequate recovery. Dancers have been shown to be susceptible to overtraining and burnout (Koutedakis, 2000), however, little is known about how dancers balance training and non-training stress with recovery to counteract negative training outcomes. This thesis investigated psychological recovery among vocational dance students, using a mixed-method study design to examine dancer experiences of stress and recovery, and the effectiveness of a mindfulness intervention in enhancing psychological recovery in vocational dance training. Study 1 explored …

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 …

"I Felt That I Could Be Whatever I Wanted": Pre-Service Drama Teachers' Prior Experiences And Beliefs About Teaching Drama, Christina C. Gray, Robin Pascoe, Peter Wright

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Pre-service drama teachers enter teacher training with established ideas and beliefs about teaching. These beliefs, based on experience, are informed by many hours spent in schools, and the pedagogies – both effective and ineffective – utilised by their teachers. This research explores the influence of some of these prior experiences on pre-service drama teachers’ beliefs about teaching drama, this being important in the way that not only shapes their practicum experiences, but also what will then influence their own teaching of drama. Individual interviews with four pre-service drama teachers revealed the complexity and dynamics of these participants’ lived experience with …