AbstractsEngineering

Re-framing : an investigation of performance at the intersection of space

by Dean Tuttle




Institution: University of Western Sydney
Department: School of Design
Degree: MA(Hons)(Performance)
Year: 1997
Keywords: performance; audio-visual; Plumpton High School, Western Sydney; audience; realities; narratives
Record ID: 1039023
Full text PDF: http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/706


Abstract

Re-framing is the documentation and analysis of a process of theoretical and practical performance research. The terms of reference for this research were to experiment with the practical workshopping and development of three productions which each restructured and reconceived a 'canonical' written playscript in a format which combined audio-visual media with live performance. The perfromances were specifically developed for highschools in New South Wales and developed models and ideas for using portable technology so that they could easily travel from location to location. The research methodology also included the practical investigation of a process of collaborative production of a multimedia theatre piece with a group of highschool students (from Plumpton High School in Western Sydney). The documentation consists of an interactive multimedia component and a number of text 'modules' that correspond to sections of the interactive. The analysis formulates the process of construction, execution and reception of the performances in terms of a number of interesting and interacting spaces. The focus is on the practice and effects of creating combinations and interactions between these otherwise discreet spaces. The nature of these spaces helps to define and situate the performance but the space can, conversely, be redefined by the performance. In the specific context of multimedia theatre performances for highschools, the spaces that may come into interplay and be modified include: those of the audio-visual media, the meeting space of live performer and audience, the school environment and the wider institution of public education that it is a part of, the written text of a playscript as a space for constructing a fictional reality and the 'virtual space' where this fiction is reconstructed within the mind of the spectator in response to the symbolism of the performance. If such spaces are bounded by frames which are at least partly socially and discursively defined, the thesis proposes, then the performance can act as a catalyst to create new spaces, with languages and ways of structuring reality that differ to those of the old spaces. The implications of this hybridisation may reach beyond the immediate time, space and subject of the performance to reframe ideas, images, narratives and mythologies in domains that extend into many areas of social life and destabilize the systems upon which they are based. Reframing a space can reform the perception and structuring of realities within it Master of Arts (Hons)(Performance)