This thesis examines contemporary likay praxis in Thailand through processes influenced by socio-economic, political and cultural contexts. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the ideology and methodology of making contemporary likay, a tradition-based contemporary approach to Thai popular theatre, including development, transformation, theatrical techniques, rehearsal processes, productions, and audience reception. The thesis provides a background of the duality of court and popular theatre forms; a performance history of traditional likay; a construction of artistic elements, conventions, and functions; and a socio-political context for Thailand’s modernisation period, which impacted theatre development. An examination of contemporary urban conditions is conducted, which offers new creative and possibly alternative forms of thinking about traditional-popular performance, particularly contemporary likay, explored through examples of contemporary likay performances. This study of contemporary likay praxis uses interviews with dramatists, practitioners and scholars, and documentary research. I investigate how the contemporary theatre troupes utilise the intra-cultural, inter-cultural and transcultural theatrical aspects, the format of hybridisation of Thai performing arts and the relevance of Western artistic to Thai theatre in their working process in reinventing likay performance, especially, Makhampom’s contemporary likay productions. Analysis of likay reinvention or contemporary likay performance demonstrates the way that dramatists bridge traditional and contemporary, rural and urban theatre practices. I also demonstrate reflexive ethnography and practice-led research, in which I reflect on personal experiences in practising and performing both conventional and contemporary likay performances from 2001 to the present. The thesis is categorised into two key areas: the first part, highlighted in Chapters 1-3, reflects the socio-politic-economic contexts of Thai society, which shaped the cultural formation of the Thai theatre revolution. The second part focuses on contemporary likay practice and praxis from the 1990s to 2010, demonstrated in Chapters 4-6.

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This dissertation examines Boulez's notion of 'centre and absence' in relation to his use of text in composition and how his ideas have acted as a springboard for my own compositions. Boulez's writings about 'centre and absence' are investigated as well as its implementation in two vocal works: Improvisation II of Pli selon Pli and Cummings ist der Dichter. This is followed by a detailed commentary on my own music, demonstrating why and how I became interested in Boulez's notion of 'centre and absence' and the effect this has had on both my vocal and my instrumental music. The culmination of this study is my work Sense of Place, for large ensemble, which uses the novel Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino as a 'centre and absence'.

MMus thesis, School of Music, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, 2009 / The subject of Christian church music has sparked controversy for centuries. In this dissertation I highlight the most recent discussion about the ‘worship war’ debate, namely the infiltration of contemporary popular music into what once was considered a sacred arena. I explore some of the shortcomings of Contemporary Church Music with the intention of answering two questions: Is there a style of music that is most appropriate for Christian worship and that best represents Christian identity? and, How can South African Christians express their own unique cultural identity in their Church Music? I seek proof of the link between musical choices and demographics in three Evangelical churches in Johannesburg via insights gained in a worship questionnaire and series of interviews. I conclude that music has the ability to construct both identity and a sense of place and that Contemporary Church Music (CChM) is distinct from contemporary secular music in two ways: its purpose and the identity of the musicians and congregants who participate in its performance. Addressing the latter, I explore a demographics model and conclude that every congregation boasts a unique identity which is affected by music, church history and cultural upbringing. I argue that Indigenous Worship is critical in answering both questions

Exploring the traffic between U.S. literary culture and political philosophy, this thesis surveys works by a range of leading male contemporary American novelists alongside the recent resurgent interest in friendship as a political concept. Long exiled from serious political philosophy, friendship returned as a crucial term in late twentieth-century communitarian debates about citizenship. Friendship also became integral to continental philosophy's exploration of the ontology of democracy, and, in a different guise, to histories of sexuality. Across these disciplines, friendship has been invoked as a pliable figure of affiliation, and often idealised as modelling equality. This thesis probes the origins of friendship's re-emergence in American political thought, and analyses how this far-reaching revival has registered in American fiction. The Introduction outlines how friendship has played a central role in the theory and practice of democratic politics since Aristotle suggested philia as fundamental to citizenship. In the U.S. context, male friendship in particular functioned as model for civic association in the nascent republic, and continued to be employed as a figure of egalitarian association in canonical works of nineteenth-century fiction. Yet despite its prominence historically in the U.S. civic imaginary, friendship was sidelined from American political culture for much of the twentieth century, until its rediscovery in the 1980s and 1990s as part of a wide-ranging critique of liberal individualism. The Introduction analyses how this renewal of critical commentary within mainstream liberal thought mirrored continental philosophy's contemporaneous exploration of democratic theory, wherein friendship was similarly examined as a vexed yet evocative site for the contestation of forms of political community. Marshalling this history, the thesis' main chapters argue that contemporary U.S. fiction continues to look to male friendship to explore questions of civic affiliation, political agency, and community, and to probe the history of these concepts in twentieth-century American liberalism. Chapter One focuses on Philip Roth's I Married a Communist (1998) and The Human Stain (2000), and analyses how Roth connects the political culture of the 1940s to the 1990s through the male friendships framing each narrative. Chapter Two draws on the anthropology of the gift to examine forms of reciprocity between male friends in Paul Auster's fiction. Chapter Three considers how novels by Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem contextualise their portrayals of interracial male friendship within the legacies of 1960s political radicalism. A Conclusion considers how some of the key themes emerging in previous chapters are reflected in Benjamin Markovits' You Don't Have to Live Like This (2015).

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Many current schools of compositional thought evidence an interest in the integration and collision of different methods of harmonic organisation. Creating strategies that aid composers in incorporating many dramatically different methods of harmonic organisation in individual compositions will help lead to new, exciting music and ideas - the methods leading to the generation of such strategies are a central concern of this thesis. Composers can create pieces of music that engender dramatically different states of being and relate seemingly unrelated musical ideas - the manipulation of many methods of technical organisation will lead to the successful implementation of such shifts, the thesis also addresses this. A major difficulty in the furtherance of new music relates to how composers can make use of more unusual compositional techniques in contexts where performance practicalities could inhibit the realisation of a piece - working closely with soloists and ensembles lends a crucial insight into appropriate instrumental and vocal writing, a third important aspect of this thesis. In conclusion, this thesis evidences that it is absolutely possible to relate seemingly distant musical ideas in individual compositions in service of an effective, practical composition. There is a tremendous, exciting wealth of powerful musical ideas to draw upon; such ideas can be found in the collision and integration of dramatically different musics.

Light Intensity and Surface is the title of this PhD art exhibition where I explore through paintings, the world of my own encounter with the radiant light of the Linear Accelerator used in treatment of women with breast cancer. This engagement with the world of light technology encompasses oncologists, physicists and women who extended their personal experience to inform my artwork and contribute to the theoretical connections made in this thesis. The contribution of this thesis lies in how the lecture The Origin of the Work of Art by philosopher Martin Heidegger can be applied to a reading of great artworks that are separated in time, space and culture but connected in their subject: Light. It was his philosophy that helped shape the connections between where art originates and what springs from the artwork itself. The concept of light in the title of this thesis refers to Heidegger’s notion of the clearing seins Lichtung-the lighting centre- the medium that holds one being to another from where the idea for an artwork springs in the artist. Surface relates to the attunement of artists throughout history to the new particularly in the science of controlling light which influences the way artists achieve the material appearance of their artwork. Intensity refers to the level of openness to the mystery of light in both physicists and artists to create and control some thing that stabilises a community and remains a source of wonder. This thesis demonstrated how artists have responded to the new light technology with a way of seeing that created a depth dimension that bridges cultural worlds to unearth the breath of something often most effectively communicated by being silent / Doctor of Philosophy(PhD)

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An exhibition about advertising and identity.