Thesis (M.A.)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humantities, Dramatic Arts, 2012 / This creative practice-based research report explores a phenomenological approach to the body as a sensorially, audibly, visibly and viscerally present entity. The research argues for an experience of embodiment that highlights the primacy of the body within the context of the HIV and AIDS pandemic in South Africa. It addresses theoretical and methodological concerns of theatre making as a creative practice for interrogating the body’s lived experience of HIV and AIDS. The study argues that theatre has tended to describe the surface experience of the trauma of HIV and AIDS and that it has failed to speak to the lived body experience of HIV and AIDS. In so doing, this report excavates the innovation of a theatre making process that helps illuminate complex human experience through performance. This research report is written in a way that allows the reader access to the process that was developed by the researcher/theatre maker/writer. Through a facilitated process of theatre making, this study focuses on the four co-researchers/performers lived experiences of HIV and AIDS and how through the use of stimuli (visual art and elements of nature) and the use of the combination of somatic play, movement and sound, they evoked and exhumed their bodies living memory. The accounts that were made in the exploration are presented in this report and in the performance and recording (DVD) of Stains Inner. This research posits the body as a knowing entity in the era of HIV and AIDS in South Africa and highlights the process of on-flow in theatre making as a fluid dynamic process through which the body can viscerally access the latent lived experiences associated with the pandemic. It is a powerful process that enhances the body aesthetic in theatre. The study concludes that this form of theatre making has the capacity to create a transformative experience for the performer and audience. The study also puts forth recommendations that would possibly shift the landscape of HIV and AIDS discourse.

Technology has during the last decades been adopted into the dance art form which has appeared as interactive dance. Many studies and performances have been conducted investigating this merging of dance and technology and the mapping of the motion data to other modalities. But none have previously explored how the introduction of technology affects the mutually interdependent relationship, the co-play, between a dancer and a live musician in a completely live setting. This thesis specifically explores this novel stting by investigating which sound parameters of a live drummer’s sound a dancer should be able to manipulate, through the usage of motion tracking sensors, to alter the dancer’s experience positively in comparison of without the usage of the tool. For this purpose, two studies have been conducted. First, a development study to create a prototype from the first person perspective of a professional dancer and choreographer. Second, an evaluative study was conducted to evaluate the applicability of the prototype and the experience of the manipulation of the sound parameters chosen, on a larger group of professional dancers. The studies showed that the sound parameters of delay and pitch altered a dance experience most positively. This thesis further shows that it is important for the user to get enough time to truly get to know the interactions allowed by the system, to actually be able to evaluate experience of the sound parameters. / Teknik har under de senaste decennierna anammats in i danskonsten vilket har framträtt som interaktiv dans. Många studier och föreställningar har genomförts för att undersöka denna sammanslagning av dans och teknik, och mappningen av rörelsedata till andra modaliteter. Men ingen har tidigare undersökt hur introduktionen av teknik påverkar samspelet, den ömsesidigt beroende relationen, mellan en dansare och en live-musiker i en fullständigt live inramning. Den här avhandlingen utforskar specifikt denna nya inramning genom att undersöka vilka ljudparametrar av en live-trummis ljud en dansare ska kunna manipulera genom användning av rörelsesensorer, för att förändra en dansarens upplevelse positivt i jämförelse med utan användning av verktyget. För detta ändamål har två studier genomförts. Först en utvecklingsstudie för att skapa en prototyp från ett förstapersonsperspektiv av en professionell dansare och koreograf. Sedan genomfördes en utvärderingsstudie för att utvärdera användbarheten av prototypen och upplevelsen av att manipulera de valda ljudparametrarna, på en större grupp professionella dansare. Studierna visade att ljudparametrarna av fördröjning och tonhöjd förändrade en dansupplevelse mest positivt. Denna avhandling visar vidare att det är viktig för användaren att få tillräckligt med tid för att verkligen lära känna de interaktioner som systemet tillåter, för att faktiskt kunna utvärdera upplevelsen av själva ljudparametrarna.