The thesis engages in Choreography and Dance Technique by delineating the concepts and practices that the artistic research project MODUL has generated. A modular method of choreographing is articulated. The MODUL method of choreography starts by making a topographical movement analysis of the context that the work engages with. This analysis results in an identification of the different agencies at work within the context approached. They are considered as Choreographic Agents and as elements of the modular assemblage. The choreographic act then performed consists of a re-articulation of the relations between the different elements. The MODUL method links movement practice and art production as the topographical movement analysis is also applied to, and conceptualised through, the body. In terms of dance technique the MODUL method works with the same topographical movement analysis to explore bodily functionalities as Choreographic Agents. The technique is called Body-Self Attunement and aims at tuning the self, understood as the symbolic body, with the biological body. Body-Self Attunement does not try to unify the symbolic body and the biological body but affirms the gap as generative. The term Generative Choreography is coined in order to emphasise the performative aspect of choreography that is not defined by what it is, but what it does.

This study examines the ways that videogames and live performance are informed by play theory. Utilizing performance studies methodologies, specifically personal narrative and autoperformance, the project explores the embodied ways that gamers know and understand videogames. A staged performance, “Shall We Play a Game?,” was crafted using Brechtian theatre techniques and Conquergood’s three A’s of performance, and served as the basis for the examination. This project seeks to dispel popular misconceptions about videogames and performance and to expand understanding about videogaming as an embodied performative practice and a way of knowing that has practical implications for everyday life.

No description available.

In this thesis, the author explores and develops new attributes for machine performers and merges the trans-disciplinary fields of the performing arts and artificial intelligence. The main aim is to redefine the term “embodiment” for robots on the stage and to demonstrate that this term requires broadening in various fields of research. This redefining has required a multifaceted theoretical analysis of embodiment in the field of artificial intelligence (e.g. the uncanny valley), as well as the construction of new robots for the stage by the author. It is hoped that these practical experimental examples will generate more research by others in similar fields. Even though the historical lineage of robotics is engraved with theatrical strategies and dramaturgy, further application of constructive principles from the performing arts and evidence from psychology and neurology can shift the perception of robotic agents both on stage and in other cultural environments. In this light, the relation between representation, movement and behaviour of bodies has been further explored to establish links between constructed bodies (as in artificial intelligence) and perceived bodies (as performers on the theatrical stage). In the course of this research, several practical works have been designed and built, and subsequently presented to live audiences and research communities. Audience reactions have been analysed with surveys and discussions. Interviews have also been conducted with choreographers, curators and scientists about the value of machine performers. The main conclusions from this study are that fakery and mystification can be used as persuasive elements to enhance agency. Morphologies can also be applied that tightly couple brain and sensorimotor actions and lead to a stronger stage presence. In fact, if this lack of presence is left out of human replicants, it causes an “uncanny” lack of agency. Furthermore, the addition of stage presence leads to stronger identification from audiences, even for bodies dissimilar to their own. The author demonstrates that audience reactions are enhanced by building these effects into machine body structures: rather than identification through mimicry, this causes them to have more unambiguously biological associations. Alongside these traits, atmospheres such as those created by a cast of machine performers tend to cause even more intensely visceral responses. In this thesis, “embodiment” has emerged as a paradigm shift – as well as within this shift – and morphological computing has been explored as a method to deepen this visceral immersion. Therefore, this dissertation considers and builds machine performers as “true” performers for the stage, rather than mere objects with an aura. Their singular and customized embodiment can enable the development of non-anthropocentric performances that encompass the abstract and conceptual patterns in motion and generate – as from human performers – empathy, identification and experiential reactions in live audiences.

La thèse analyse la relation entre le cinéma et l'anachronisme. En partant des enjeux de la notion d'anachronisme en termes d'écriture de l'histoire et de discours autour de la mémoire, ce travail se propose de traiter certaines pratiques cinématographiques présentant une relation étroite avec une volonté de réflexion sur les temps et les chronologies. A partir d'une pratique spécifique comme le film-essai, dont on analyse les caractères en sens esthétique, un discours se dégage sur les liens entre le cinéma et le temps, entre la pluralité des formes de l'image et un temps anachronique capable de questionner les formes, les histoires, les lectures, les rapports. Si les Histoire(s) du cinéma (1988-97) de Jean-Luc Godard posent la grande question du sens du cinéma, de sa pluralité dans un réseau dense et complexe, Tokyo-Ga (1983) de Wim Wenders questionne les relations entre un cinéma passé et des formes plus actuelles, entre une mémoire du cinéma et la recherche difficile d'un présent de l'image. Chris Marker, avec Sans soleil (1982) et Level Five (1996) croise le cinéma, les images et leurs transformations aux rapports complexes entre passé, présent et futur, dans un contexte où le temps peut se déployer selon les formes de l'image. Dans certains de ses essais, Alexander Kluge assigne une importance stratégique aux images de tout type, mais aussi aux relations entre les images que nous produisons et notre histoire. Tous les parcours analysés font surgir certaines questions théoriques relatives aux pratiques du regard : toute image est le signe d'un agencement complexe entre l'histoire et notre travail à partir de là, selon une pratique plurielle des images / This thesis analyzes the relationship between cinema and anachronism. Starting from anachronism as an important topic in history writing and memory discourses, this work intends to deal with some film practices with a strong will if reflection about time and chronologies. Starting from a specific practice as the essay film, analyzed from an aesthetical point of view, a topic comes out about the links between cinema and times, between a multiplicity of image forms and an anachronic time questioning forms, histories, interpretations, links and relationships. If Jean-Luc Godard's Histoire(s) du cinéma (1988-97) questions the sense of cinema itself, his plurality in a dense, complex network, Wim Wender's Tokyo-Ga (1983) interrogates some links between past cinema and more actual film forms, between a memory of cinema and the difficult search for the image's present, actual time. With Sans soleil (1982) and Level Five (1996), Chris Marker crosses cinema, images and their transformations with the complex links between past, present and future, in a context in which time can be presented according to the images forms. In some of this essays, Alexander Kluge gives strategie importance to images of every sort but also to the relationship between the images we produce and our history. All the analyzed films develop some theoretical questions about gaze's practices : every image is the sign of a complexe relationship between history and our starting from history, in accordance with a plural practice of the image.

This document provides an elaboration of the critical, contextual and methodological rationale for a practice‐based PhD research project undertaken at London Metropolitan University 2009-2013. This four‐year project was an exploration in identity, space and location. It looks at the transitions, journeys and stories of migrant women. Specifically this exploration has been developed through the language of the cultural practices of Iban women. The Iban are an indigenous group of people from Borneo, predominantly living within the Malaysian state of Sarawak. Significantly the Iban practices have migrated from the jungle, to urban areas, and globally, and inevitably the identity of these practices has developed as the locations have changed, much like the women performing them. My father is Iban and my mother white New Zealander, and I grew up in both Sarawak and New Zealand before coming to live in the UK in my 20s. My performance training has been within a Western context, both in New Zealand and the UK. This project has been a personal exploration, which has wider consequences in developing performance practice and understanding the discourses of home, belonging, migration and identity. This has led to questions around migrating Iban performance and cultural practices to a western contemporary context. These questions have been investigated through the cultural practices of the Iban pantun (chapter three), the Iban ngajat (chapter two), Iban weaving (chapter four) and the use of space in the Iban longhouse (chapter one). This project was an interdisciplinary investigation; in each chapter I pull together performance theory from western practitioners and post‐colonial feminist literature with the Iban performance practice. This project has asked the question: "Can Iban cultural and performance practices be ‘migrated’ to a contemporary western performance context in order to explore experiences of women’s migration?" My research question was central to the practice‐based research I conducted, the methodologies developed through practice as research, and are central to all the work covered in this thesis. Within this context the practice is submitted as an outcome alongside this written narrative. Additional details can be found on the website: www.fromthejungle.co.uk.

Syftet med denna studie är att bredda kunskapen om företeelsen dans och hur dans kan påverka människans fysiska, psykiska och sociala välbefinnande. Studien inriktar sig även på att undersöka samt bredda kunskapen gällande dans som ett hälsofrämjande verktyg. Undersökningen av ovanstående utfördes på ett träningscenter i Norrbotten där verksamhetschef och instruktör intervjuades och en enkätundersökning genomfördes på deltagare som valt dans som träningsform. Totalt genomfördes två intervjuer och en enkätundersökning där urvalet bestod av 17 kvinnor. Studiens data samlades in och analyserades därefter utifrån en innehållsanalys. Resultatet visar på att dansen, via fysisk aktivitet, upplevs ha en genomgripande positiv påverkan på den fysiska, sociala och psykiska hälsan hos de medverkande i studien. Den psykiska hälsan har varit den som upplevts har påverkats mest positivt och visat sig i form av lägre stressnivåer, bättre koncentrationsförmåga och förhöjd dansglädje. Den fysiska hälsan uppfattade deltagarna hade större positivt inflytande på konditionen i jämförelse till styrkan och gällande den sociala hälsan rådde det mer delade uppfattningar om exempelvis huruvida dansen höjt självförtroendet eller inte.

Para se compreender a organização do trabalho artístico há que se levar em conta seus aspectos institucionais. As formas que as organizações artísticas tomam estão diretamente relacionadas ao desenvolvimento desses campos de produção em artes. Nessa dissertação, tomo como objeto de interesse o campo da produção teatral paulistana conhecido como Teatro de Grupo. Argumento que a aprovação da Lei de Fomento ao Teatro para a cidade de São Paulo em 2002 foi um importante ponto de inflexão na construção desse campo. Para explorar de que modo a lei permanece como um dos mecanismos centrais da organização dessa parcela da produção artística, foram coletados, por meio de pesquisa de campo e análise documental, dados e informações sobre os grupos que concorreram a essa verba de financiamento. Ao descrever os elementos que constituem esse campo de produção torna-se possível elucidar aspectos específicos da experiência de trabalho artístico dos indivíduos que compõem esses grupos teatrais da cidade. / Institutional features must be taken into account in order to understand the organization of artistic labor. The shapes artistic organizations might take are closely related to the development of the artistic fields of production they pertain. This thesis focuses on a field of theatre production in São Paulo known as Teatro de grupo. I argue that the approval of a law called Lei de Fomento ao Teatro para a cidade de São Paulo in 2002 was a turning point towards this fields construction. Aiming to explore the ways by which this law continues to be one of the core mechanisms of this particular part of the artistic production, I gathered data on theater groups in the city through documental research and field work. Describing he elements that constitute this specific field elucidates the aspects of the labor experience of the artists who are part of these groups.

Buscando fomentar reflexões de ordem estética e ética, conectadas às questões latentes da atualidade, tais como a diversidade e a tolerância, este trabalho pretende instaurar um diálogo entre tradição e contemporaneidade nas Artes do Espetáculo. De caráter teórico-prático, consiste na investigação de uma abordagem que parte da pesquisa das culturas tradicionais brasileiras, identificando nelas aspectos que possam servir de ponte para esta conexão com a espetacularidade contemporânea. Para tal, norteia-se por três pontos principais: traços de ancestralidade afro-banto na cultura brasileira; relações espaços-temporais permeadas pelo acaso e pelo improviso; e a transdisciplinaridade artística. Debruçandose sobre a comunidade tradicional da Irmandade de Nossa senhora do Rosário de Justinópolis/MG e apoiando-se em princípios da Educação Somática como a Eutonia e a técnica Klauss Vianna, trilha um percurso transdisciplinar que trafega pela Etnocenologia e os Estudos da Performance, bem como às perspectivas em torno da contemporaneidade a partir de Jorge Larossa Bondía, Edgar Morin e Giorgio Agamben / Stimulating aesthetic and etic reflections, connected to important social questions of contemporary times, such as diversity and tolerance, this work intend to establish a dialog between tradition and contemporaneity on the spectacle arts. As a theoretical e practical research, it consists on the investigation that look at Brazilian traditional cultures, identifying on them aspects that could work as a bridge to the contemporary performativity. For that, follow three main points: the African Bantu ancestry on Brazilian culture; the time and space relations built by fortuity and improvisation; and the transdisciplinarity between arts. Investigating the Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário de Justinópolis, a traditional community, and using the elements of somatic education like Eutony and Klauss Vianna technics, it goes on a transdiciplinary research that gather the Etnocenology, the Performance Studies and Jorge Larossa Bondía, Edgar Morin and Giorgio Agamben points of view about contemporaneity

Fåglar lever vilt i staden, de bland oss och vi bland dem. De spränger gränser, vi äcklas av dem och beundrar dem. När vi vill komma nära försvinner dem, när de kommer nära vill vi ha bort dem. Fåglar stör och lockar. De är svåråtkomliga – vi vill åt dem. Vi kan inte nå dem. De rör sig fritt. De kan flyga. Fåglar vidgar min blick, jag får se världen från ett helt annat perspektiv där människan inte har huvudrollen. Vi människor är så upptagna av oss själva och det är skönt att möta varelser som inte bryr sig om oss. Det började nog med ett ägg. Det brukar börja med ett ägg. Men jag minns inte så noga. Tätt, tätt och mycket mjukt. En dag ramlade jag, sedan dess ligger jag lågt. Vandrar runt, skutt – upp en stund och ner igen. Funderar på om jag ska ta mig tillbaka, men minns inte vilken väg. Natten rullar in och havet kommer närmare. Eller himlen längre bort. Jag vet att jag har varit någonstans och jag längtar tillbaka. Blott de tama har en längtan. De vilda vandrar. / Birds live wild in the city; they among us and we among them. They provoke boundaries; we are disgusted by them and admire them. When we want to get close, they disappear and when they come close, we chase them away. Birds disturb and attract. They are hard to reach – we want them. We can’t reach them. They move freely. They can fly. Birds broaden my gaze. I can see the world from a completely different perspective where the human being doesn’t have the main role. We humans are so preoccupied with ourselves and it’s nice to meet creatures that don’t care about us.