As a practitioner in site-specific performance, my research arose from an interest in how aspects of globalisation (time-space compression, homogenisation, technological development, travel and diaspora) are affecting people's experience of place, and how site related performances (referred to here as 'performances of place') might offer a questioning of or resistance to these phenomena. My research drew on the theories of Henri Lefebvre (e.g. 1991, 1996) who suggested that 'To change life ... we must first change space' (Lefebvre 1991: 189). In this thesis, I consider how contemporary 'performances of place' can be seen to 'change space'. I look at practices from both the overtly political and the more aesthetically orientated ends of the performance spectrum. In an analysis of the antiglobalisation protests surrounding the G8 summit (Gleneagles 2005), I suggest that art activist practices attempt to 'change space' through creating a fluid, spontaneous and nonlinear organisation of/in space in contrast to the carefully 'cut up and marked' (Neild 2006:61) spaces of state and global capitalist control. In looking at the practices of contemporary performance companies, Lone Twin and Blast Theory, I suggest that their practices create an alternative spatiality by blurring the boundaries between place and space (or 'concrete' and 'abstract 'space, to use Lefebvre's terms). I then propose that 'performances of place' in themselves create a 'doubling' (Lefebvre 1991: 188) of place that destabilises any fixed meanings of place. In my framework, The Five Acts, I explore how this 'doubling' of place and performance operates through different types of performance, which I divide into five categories: act out, act as if, act as, act up and act/ion. The framework is then applied to a case study of a small-scale performance by Reckless Sleepers as part of Oxford's Evolving City festival.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:550219 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | George, Jane |
| Contributors | Floyd, Malcolm ; Turner, Cathy |
| Publisher | University of Winchester |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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