My research explores how the presence, emergence, and collective experience of archetype can be sought in performance. While words such as essence and truth designate an aim and consequently a sense of direction for the actor, they run short of providing a concrete vocabulary or a precise methodology. Archetypal psychology's conception of archetype offers a framework which facilitates addressing these evasive concerns and indicates certain methodological principles with which they can be explored in training, acting and performance. I employ the process-oriented approach of 'archetypally' engaging with mythology and dreams while investigating questions pertinent to performance; archetypal figures like Sisyphus and Odysseus illuminate various aspects of training and performance, such as, the dynamics of repetition and difference in physical action, the momentary and processual nature of agency, and the composition of performance score within a temporal-spatial context that includes the spectator. The inherent critique of representation allows the performing psychophysical body to appear as the locus of an immediate relationship between actors and spectators; hence, archetype is conceived in the form of a rhizome, emergent and evergrowing through archetypal moments which can be composed, experienced and shared in performance. My work on the tyrant provides a point of focus to explore practically elements which can be traced across a range of traditions. The generic relationship with myth and the multiplied body ofthe actor in ancient pantomime, the relational mode of agency and the active memory of Renerici and lazzi in commedia dell 'arte, and the aporia of the clown can be interlinked with the dynamics of discipline and spontaneity and the actor's 'passive readiness' in the work of Grotowski. Distinguishing from the cross-sections of these traditions various containers for the work of the actor to generate archetypal material as well as to perform archetypally, and by incorporating them into my 'work on myself.' I aim to unveil language pertinent to archetype and perhaps to challenge the notion of the archetypal actor as sacrificial lamb by suggesting another: the clown/tyrant.

The aim of the thesis is to examine certain potential problems in the field of actor training, and to explore and devise means of addressing these problems. The fundamental problem addressed notes that certain forms of training, specifically training with the primary goal of teaching executive functions or skills, can lead to the creation of undifferentiated, compulsive behaviours in the student. The thesis notes that some skills-led approaches to actor training might not provide the actor with a differentiated understanding of the functional uses for the skills that they teach, or the teacher's justification for teaching such skills. In such approaches the actor is not free to understand and value his/her skills in relation to his/her own needs as an actor. Through analysing the work of the educational philosopher John Dewey, as well as paradigms of human learning presented by Ken Wilber, Lawrence Kohlberg and Abraham Maslow, the thesis notes that in order to avoid problems associated with teaching methods that forge compulsive behaviours, a successful actor-training must take into account the transformative effects trainings have on the structure of the actor's self. In order to facilitate training as an integrated, transformative process of self development the thesis utilises Ken Wilber's Integral Four Quadrant system of analysis as a means to study the fields in which an actor can develop his/her self, before examining an approach to transformative actor-training that focuses on the question of how the actor can embody his/her presence in the model of theatre as a communicative encounter (notably analysed by Victor Turner). The thesis makes reference to a number of educational processes that facilitate the learning of `presence' as an integrated process of self-development, but specifically focuses on the teaching and learning of mindfulness meditation, the Feldenkrais Method, and the martial art of Aikido.

The trajectory of my argument moves from thinking about disabled bodies as exceptional or unusual bodies in Chapter One to thinking about impaired bodies as exemplary bodies in Chapter Eight. Analysing disabled bodies on stage and disability and impairment in dramatic texts reveals methodological problems because the questions of what impairment can mean on stage are contested by an articulate political movement. The first chapter is an attempt to develop questions about the differences created by disability in the act of acting. I use structuralist semiotics to break down and analyse the reasons for the confusions in the actor/audience relationship. The conceptual gaps between actor and character are also discussed. Chapter Two asks how we can move from the apparent self-evidence of impairment to the question of comparative or relative identity. I suggest that disability is a representation of a set of complex and unstable ideas. The complexity of these accumulated ideas seems to move us closer to the sorts of complex articulations that are made in art works, including theatre. Ideas of disability as metaphor are the starting point for Chapter Three. This is the point where the argument engages in theories of mind/body relationships and, informed by feminisms' methods of discussing physical difference, I turn to psychoanalytic theory. Chapter Four follows multiple signposts throughout theoretical and theatre writing by going in search of references to disability in Freud. Chapters Five and Six connect the psychoanalytical innovations of Freud with the structuralist and post-structuralist methodologies of Chapter One. I bring Lacan's material on signification and Kristeva's on abjection to a discussion of disability and gender identity, and this suggests that the moment of reading disability is a moment of fixing identity within an interpretative frame. At this point I return to the analysis of theatre with the advantage of insights from a range of theorists. Chapter Seven offers a discussion of a de-freaking of disability, or an un-disabling of freaks. I offer a summary of the implications of the theoretical work developed so far, then in Chapter Eight I try out the innovations of this exercise by analysing five pieces of theatre, selected randomly, through the framework of disability, offering an example of the uses of the theoretical methodologies developed in the thesis.

The aim of the thesis is to argue for inherent intermediality of the theatre medium and explore some of its interactions with other media. The argument is positioned alongside the existing approaches to intermediality, in theatre as well as in other fields of study, most of which tend to focus on exploring the effects of the presence of new media technologies in the contemporary culture. Whilst considering a number of existing approaches to intermediality and their bearing on the phenomenon of theatre, this thesis emphasises a necessity to re-examine the received notions of the concepts involved in such a discussion - the concepts of 'medium', 'theatre' and 'inter' - and thus proposes a more inclusive view of theatre and the theatrical than is suggested by placing 'theatre' in opposition to 'media'. Insights from fields of study other than theatre are employed in order to provide a comprehensive in-depth discussion of the possibilities of the theatre medium for developing inter- and cross- media dialogues. These insights also frame the central questions that guide the discussion of intermediality in theatre, including: 'is intermediality always present in theatre performance?'; 'what is the role of new technologies in experiencing intermediality in theatre?'; 'can intermediality be seen as a form of intertextuality?' and 'is intermediality created in production or in reception?'. Forms of intermediality are explored across a number of plays and performances including Sheila Yeger' s Self Portrait and Variations on a Theme by Clara Schumann, Marguerite Duras's Eden Cinema, Katie Mitchell's Waves, Complicite's The Noise of Time, Frank McGuinness's Innocence The Life and Death of Caravaggio and Trestle Theatre's Tonight We Fly The Story of Marc Chagall. The specific concerns these fictional biographical and autobiographical texts address - the concerns with the representation of a (non-essentialist) subjectivity - provide a highly relevant body of examples across which intermediality (or intermedialities) in theatre can be observed.

This thesis explores how the actor experiences, understands and employs their personal-professional body in relation to the commercial performance industry, the structure and environment of actor training, and the sociocultural as well as politico-economic perception of the body in contemporary Britain. It focuses on the questions of how the actor conceptualizes the body in training and profession, the degree of agency they have over their embodied identity in these fields, and how actors negotiate the experience of their body within capitalist frameworks based on value, supply and demand. The fieldwork underpinning this project involves observations and interviews at five of the UK's major drama schools, with actors working professionally in Britain, and with a selection of industry stakeholders. Drawing on cognitive and social sciences, this discussion illustrates how attitudes and languages referring to the actor's body are translated into embodied conceptualizations, which shape the actor's body and identity in training and professional practice. In particular it focuses on the dynamics of power, ownership, responsibility and representation that emerge in the space within the actor's body where art, business and self are confronted with one another. The framework of the actor's physical capital is developed as a lens through which to highlight the consequences which the actor's lived experience of these dynamics has, both on the actors themselves and on the landscape of the contemporary performance industry. This research thus interrogates aspects of the acting profession which are rarely considered in discussions of the actor's craft, but which fundamentally shape their own, and their stakeholders', role within the body politics of acting.

Performance, in its multi-participant aspects, tends to emphasise the relationship between the individual and the collective. Through an examination of practices of co-working in contemporary performing arts, and with a particular focus on choreographic practices, the thesis develops a theory of co-labouring grounded in the idea of an economy of belonging. Borrowing from Brian Massumi’s concept of ‘becoming-together’ (Massumi, 2002, 2011), this thesis assumes that the development of a sense of belonging is bound to temporal processes of becoming, and that such transient ways of being can be identified as central to an understanding of current collective formations. The thesis argues that the notion of becoming together in performance-making is likely to promote an ethics of belonging which foregrounds the practitioner’s affective commitment to the other, to relational modes of working and encompasses multiple and open-ended action modes. Co-labouring in performance is revealed as a site of human interaction which can yield new insights into the construction of contemporary digital collective identities. Building on post and para-human ideas of the multiplicity of self (Rotman, 2008), co-working is presented as a way to address the relationship between individual and collective becoming in advanced technological society. A central aim of the thesis is to investigate how far relational modes of working can enhance performance-making and the practitioner’s experience and sense of the self. Engaging with post-autonomist ideas of immaterial labour (Lazzarato, 1996; Negri, 2008), the thesis further assesses the extent to and conditions under which contemporary practices demonstrate patterns of resistance to dominant modes of working. The complexities of modes of co-working are examined through the use of a reflective research metadiscourse, which incorporates distinct registers of practice, commentary and analysis. These include a historical register, the use of case studies, and a practice-led stream of inquiry bound-in to and tied back to the theoretical. This approach allows for a multidimensional but also a critical view of modes of co-labouring; it reveals that an informed coworking is bound to the possibility of individual transformation for the co-workers in performance. In other words, the thesis argues that performance mastery (Melrose, 2003) can be seen as partly constituted by the participants’ negotiation of the relationship between the individual and collective.

the United Kingdom (UK). This includes audience expectations shaped by theatre conventions, the ways in which actors perform as well as the strategies employed by event producers to encourage audience participation. This research aims to contribute to the field of immersive practice by proposing a new approach to immersive dramaturgy that enhances the experience of individual audiences in immersive, interactive and participatory theatre. This study maps the development of a new approach to actor training, audience interviews and the making of an immersive theatre production trilogy (Hotel Medea). The development process and production of the Hotel Medea trilogy comprise a key practice-based outcome of this research, and it was performed in full in London (2009, 2010 and 2012), Edinburgh (2011) Rio de Janeiro (2010), and in part in the city of Brasilia (2012). A second key outcome of the research is a new methodology of immersive practice—‘dramaturgy of participation’—that includes approaches to theatrical dramaturgy in which each audience member is offered opportunities to proactively participate as an individual, and which will be a useful resource for emerging theatre makers in the field of immersive practice. The overnight theatre production Hotel Medea is a major and central part of this submission. The written material provides context, detailed exegesis and expands upon relevant topics. Readers can access video recordings of Hotel Medea (LIFT, 2010) in full on the following address: http://www.vimeo.com/hotelmedea. I will use the Hotel Medea trilogy as the case study for this research utilizing its durational overnight structure to lead my argument for immersive theatre events to meaningfully consider the experience of each (and every) audience member individually throughout the duration of performance. An experience not based on competitive participation or chance journeys but instead on a carefully designed dramaturgy that allows individuals to build a temporary community with fellow audiences. My argument suggests that there is a need for immersive theatre practitioners to devise adequate tools for its audiences prior to participation being offered, in order to aid a fuller participation in the event. Hotel Medea is a durational interactive theatrical event that takes place in real time from 00.00 a.m. to 06.00 a.m., in three parts. It retells the Greek myth of Medea through three types of participation design: participatory rituals, immersive environments and interactive game-play. Hotel Medea is concerned with the experience of the individual audience members as ticket-paying public, as participants and as players. At every step of the event, expectations are re-negotiated to allow individuals to engage with the event—at times proactively, at others passively. I have focused on the perspective of the author as opposed to solely drawing upon audience questionnaires, feedback and testimonies of collaborators. My choice of critical approach is based on the accumulated experience gathered, especially as a performer in Hotel Medea, allowing me to explore the complex and nuanced responses from individual audience members over the course of six years. During the early stages of my research, audience and collaborator interviews played an important part in evaluating the basic structure of the performance event. However, it soon became clear that the production would need to devise its own tools for capturing relevant data. Therefore the role of the Captain – the first host the audiences meet as they arrive in Hotel Medea - became itself one of the most valuable tools for articulating this research. The Captain, as well as other approaches used, are described in detail through the course of the first chapters. The key focus of this research project is the proposition of a dramaturgy of participation through the notion of the ‘micro-event’. Micro-events are determined by three interrelated design elements, each of which nuances a larger area of practice, namely participatory rituals, immersive environments, and interactive game-play. The significance of this enquiry is the unique new practice in relation to audience behaviour in immersive experiences in a time when the term ‘immersive’ is widely explored both within and beyond the arts. The production output of this research—Hotel Medea—has itself been widely recognized by specialized press and cultural programmers as a leader in the field, creating a direct impact on the wider understanding of processes and methods of audience immersion across the UK and internationally. This recognition can be observed through awards and nominations, public statements of influential figures in the cultural sector, references in academic publications (Boenisch, 2012; White, 2013), in newspaper articles placing Hotel Medea as part of ‘the original cadre of British participatory ensembles’ (Armstrong, 2011) and in other UK publications such as The Herald, Scotsman, Metro (2011), Time Out, and Telegraph (2012).

This practice-as-research thesis investigates and contributes to the transmission of official, non-official and personal memories of the Portuguese Dictatorship (1926-1974), Revolution (25th April 1974) and Revolutionary Process (1974-1975) – three key historical moments, memories of which are still subject to contestation. My research addresses these disputes, part of the overall “memory struggles” (Jelin, 2003) concerning the public politics of memory in Portugal, together with the lack of inscription of those memories in the public space. Moreover, in what I argue to be the absence of an official process of transitional justice and the lack of reparation for victims of state repression during the dictatorship, – I interrogate not only state policies over the last 40 years, but also the personal responsibility of the individuals in the preservation and transmission of memory. <i>A Living Museum of Small, Forgotten and Unwanted Memories</i>, presents a series of seven performance-lectures on aspects of the three historical moments, as évenements “…shaped from conflicting imaginations at once past and present” (de Certeau, 1988 xv). My employment of different performance devices within the performancelecture mode intersects the “archive” and the “repertoire” (Taylor, 2001) in the transmission of memory, demonstrating that, rather than disappearing, performancecan remain (Schneider, 2011) in various ways, as when written materials originally pertaining to the “archive” are performed and thus become “repertoire”, and through the effect of the performance on spectators and their memories of the events portrayed. Using autobiography and oral testimonies, I accessed the meaning of the events for these individuals, myself and my family, creating a set of personal histories with which I challenge some of the dominant master narratives, disseminated through privileged channels, such as the media and political discourses. As such, the performance A Living Museum became a space to disseminate an alternative history, altering the perception of these events in the public space. It also became a space of live interaction between past events and their present representation, through post-performance debates staged every night, whereby spectators and some of the interviewees could voice their opinions, as well as their own personal memories. The performance thus encouraged emancipated spectatorship (Rancière, 2009), offering an active practice of reconciliation for individuals with traumatic features of their past, namely state repression and the Colonial War during the dictatorship; the return from the Portuguese ex-colonies during the revolutionary process; and the lost utopias of an “impossible” revolution (the revolutionary process of 1974-75), today perceived through negative narratives of excess and exoticism.

This thesis consists of three substantial case studies exploring the work of dramaturgy departments at three different theatres in Berlin during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: at the Deutsches Theater Berlin under the directorship of Max Reinhardt at the beginning of the twentieth century, at the Schaubühne am Halleschen Ufer under the directorship of Peter Stein during the 1960s and 1970s, and at the Maxim Gorki Theater in the first season of Shermin Langhoff and Jens Hillje’s directorship in 2013/14. The study locates dramaturgical practices within a wider cultural and political field – from metropolitan culture in Wilhelmine Berlin to the anti-authoritarian theatre movement in West Germany and finally to contemporary debates on postmigrant theatre and cosmopolitanism in the reunified Germany of the twenty-first century. It applies a mixed-methods approach that focuses equally on performance analyses as well as analyses of historical documents such as theatre journals and theatre programmes. In its holistic approach to the practice of dramaturgy, it seeks to make a contribution to scholarship on dramaturgy in historical as well as contemporary perspectives.

In this thesis I offer a philosophy and a performance practice of the ear. It is a theoretical reflection as well as a discussion on my hearing/listening and performance practice, research and workshops. Here is where sound and the body move and perform by relating to the constantly changing acoustic environment. It is an enquiry into and a corporeal experience of sound as the ear body, a bodied experience of sound and listening where the whole body becomes an ear. This is explored through my experience of chronic tinnitus, a criticism of over-determined technology and through a discussion on the trance-dance therapy of Tarantism. With a focus on environmental awareness, this thesis is an ecophenomenological investigation in my theory of site contingency, where I connect my ecophenomenological approach to contingency – contingency intended as a necessary experience of the world – and to acoustic ecology. It offers a methodology for performance-making, also through workshops. They are a ground for shared mutual experience and contribution, with participants from different backgrounds and abilities, and are also a pedagogical instrument, for students and others, in the form of a ‘training’ practice of the ear. This methodology becomes a basis for what I call site-contingent performance, where sound is intended and experienced as relation and as contingency. The kinaesthetics of sound is exemplified in ‘aural choreography,’ a moving by following environmental sounds, and where the experience of contingency is also in the practice of ‘earlines’ drawing; a form of performance and of acoustic documentation.