Towards a New Pacific Theatre: Practice‐Led Enquiry into a Model of Theatre Making that Relates to the Geography, Cultures and Spiritual Values of Aotearoa/New Zealand

<p>This practice‐led research enquiry sets out to develop and test a model of theatre practice that relates to the unique geographic, cultural and spiritual dimensions of Aotearoa/New Zealand. In this practice, actors are connected with their body and the earth (they have feet), archetypal qualities inherent in nature and culture are incorporated into training and performance (return of the gods), a sense of adventure and risk‐taking is emphasized, and the practice relates to the multiple cultures and communities of Aotearoa/New Zealand. Presence, defined as the ability to be sensorially alive in the moment, and site‐specific performance, a creative response to locality, emerged as two of the key strategies to connect with self, other and the environment. By investigating selected principles, strategies and values from the indigenous, pre‐European, Māori performing arts (whare tapere), devised theatre, the Michael Chekhov technique, and Japanese Noh theatre, an intercultural approach to site specific theatre evolved that interweaves the four pathways of collaboration, connection, exploration and transformation and their corresponding values. After considering the political and ethical issues of intercultural performance a number of principles to guide the process of intercultural exchange were formulated and tested. A vital component of this study was the creative development and performance of Ex_isle of Strangers – a site‐specific work developed in response to the tangible and intangible dimensions of Matiu/Somes Island. The research generated moments of practice that investigated the creative potential of residential devising processes and the transformative value of audience mobility in performances that involve physical and metaphorical journeying. These moments provided the participants (performers and spectators) time, space and opportunity to interact with one another and with the site they occupied, thus significantly increasing their level of physical and mental engagement with the work.</p>

Towards a New Pacific Theatre: Practice‐Led Enquiry into a Model of Theatre Making that Relates to the Geography, Cultures and Spiritual Values of Aotearoa/New Zealand

<p>This practice‐led research enquiry sets out to develop and test a model of theatre practice that relates to the unique geographic, cultural and spiritual dimensions of Aotearoa/New Zealand. In this practice, actors are connected with their body and the earth (they have feet), archetypal qualities inherent in nature and culture are incorporated into training and performance (return of the gods), a sense of adventure and risk‐taking is emphasized, and the practice relates to the multiple cultures and communities of Aotearoa/New Zealand. Presence, defined as the ability to be sensorially alive in the moment, and site‐specific performance, a creative response to locality, emerged as two of the key strategies to connect with self, other and the environment. By investigating selected principles, strategies and values from the indigenous, pre‐European, Māori performing arts (whare tapere), devised theatre, the Michael Chekhov technique, and Japanese Noh theatre, an intercultural approach to site specific theatre evolved that interweaves the four pathways of collaboration, connection, exploration and transformation and their corresponding values. After considering the political and ethical issues of intercultural performance a number of principles to guide the process of intercultural exchange were formulated and tested. A vital component of this study was the creative development and performance of Ex_isle of Strangers – a site‐specific work developed in response to the tangible and intangible dimensions of Matiu/Somes Island. The research generated moments of practice that investigated the creative potential of residential devising processes and the transformative value of audience mobility in performances that involve physical and metaphorical journeying. These moments provided the participants (performers and spectators) time, space and opportunity to interact with one another and with the site they occupied, thus significantly increasing their level of physical and mental engagement with the work.</p>

Playful production

This case study of The Assembled, an ensemble based at the University of York, UK, explores the approach, rationale, and processes used to develop performances operating at the intersection of experimental music and devised theatre practices. Detailing the rationale for the formation of the ensemble and the relationship to its institutional educational context, the chapter also discusses the historical background to the work of experimental music ensembles and illuminates the working practices of the group, examining components of collaborative facilitation emerging from participant interviews. These relate to the ethos of the group, methods of operation, considerations of space and audience, and verbal interaction.

On Collective and Devised Creation in Slovenian Theatre

In the first part of the article, the author analyses the appearance of the director and the changes in his position in Slovenian theatre from the second half of the 19th century to the present day. In this context, he is particularly interested in the changes in theatre directing that took place in the second half of the 20th century with the emergence of collective theatre. The author methodologically combines historical and comparative analysis, as these processes still take place today, when devised theatre and other forms of theatrical creation are increasingly spoken and written about, moving away from the conventional process by which a playwright writes a dramatic text as a literary work of art and the director then transforms it into a theatrical work of art. There are more and more performances in contemporary Slovenian theatre in which a pre-written dramatic text is not crucial for the final product of the creative process. The two most commonly used terms for this type of performance are po motivih (based on the motifs) and avtorski projekt (auteur performance). Although the terms are not synonymous, both terms imply a devised type of theatre. The author compares group creation with the devised way of creating and points out that although these are practices that can take place in parallel, they cannot be equated. The author concludes that for collective theatre, the specific relationship between the creative group and the director’s position is constitutive. In contrast, for devised theatre, the relationship between the creative group and the playwright’s position is crucial. Finally, the author also touches on the connections between postdramatic and post-directors’ theatre and the emergence of the creative group as a collective subjectivity.

THE CYPRIOT THEATRE IN THE MIDST OF GLOBAL CRISIS

In the 21st century, the era of globalization, the technological advancement and the ongoing migration movements, the global com-munity experiences a deep and multi-dimensional crisis (sociopolitical, financial, and cultural). This paper discusses the impact of these multi-ple aspects of the crisis in the theatre of Cyprus, especially during the second decade of the 21st century. The theatre in the time of crisis seems to suffocate within the traditional frames of dramatic theatre. As a re-sult, a group of young directors, without hesitation, confront and keep up with the new trends observed internationally, thus introducing new theatre forms (devised theatre, site-specific theatre, happenings etc.) in the Cypriot theatrical landscape and seeking to develop a new way of dialogue with the audience. Cypriot theatre today uses methods and approaches (ideological and aesthetic) that renounce fundamental the-atrical conventions of dramatic theatre. This fact allows us to talk about experimentation, as well as about presence of elements of post-dramatic theatre in the country. The making of theatre in the public sphere is now an act of social resistance to local and global events and the first step that may lead to political and social change.

Devising in the Pandemic: Trauma and a Dramatic Redesign of a Youth Theatre Tour

Z402 Youth Theatre Tour was designed from a critical performative pedagogical positioning (Weltsek, 2019). Here learning emerges from how individuals and communities perform their emergent identities as they cross literal and metaphorical socio-cultural borders. Z402 resulted in a 100% student created new play, parallel workshop, and study guide. This new play was based solely upon the students’ perspectives, voices, and ways of being. The design used devised theatre, the use of improvisation and games, to create a new play versus a solely written approach. The new play dealt with healing in the face of suicidal thoughts. The course addressed four Indiana educational licensing requirements; student technical, artistic, educational, and class practicum experiences. In March 2020, due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the University instituted obligatory Online instruction. Students redesigned their stage play into a virtual experience using Zoom and integrated their emotional struggles due to pandemic isolation. The live play, slated for three schools, is now accessible to a large virtual audience

Music and Theatre Making In Canadian Prisons

The benefits of engaging in theatre- and music-making have been well proven for various populations. (see Črnčec et al. 2006; Lehmberg and Fung 2010; Salur et al 2017, etc.) These benefits are particularly significant for individuals who have experienced trauma, especially incarcerated individuals. (see Kyprianides and Easterbrook 2020; Reid 2019, etc). Music and theatre programs vary in Canada, and are present in many Canadian prisons. In this paper, I examine two programs more closely: the grass roots program Pros and Cons at The Joyceville Institution in Kingston, Ontario, which involves a collaboration between volunteer musicians and a group of incarcerated men, and Diane Conrad’s work with a young offender’s facility in Alberta Canada, where she employed devised theatre techniques to create meaningful theatrical pieces within the prison’s walls. Both these programs are working towards a similar goal: preparing the incarcerated individuals to return to society through practicing and rehearsing healthy community and citizenship through collaborative music and theatre. While this is an admirable goal for this work, the conversation surrounding music and theatrical work in prisons has been focused on its rehabilitative aims and properties. In this presentation I will explore the features of both programs, examine the rehabilitation goals and the focus on rehabilitation in the literature on prison-based music and theatre programs, and discuss ways that Transformative Justice and the Abolitionist movement can be supported through these arts-based initiatives.

Hope against hope: COVID-19 and the space for political imagination

COVID-19 has loosened neoliberalism’s hegemonic grip on the future. Amid the enormous suffering experienced internationally, there is much discussion of how to ‘Build Back Better’, and hope for a more caring, just and sustainable world. But competing futures are being imagined and planned. Hope is never politically neutral, and the content of collective hope is a key site of political struggle. This is partly a question of space: who has the literal and discursive space in which to develop visions of the future? The following article considers the role that cultural studies can play in this struggle. ‘Conjunctural analysis’ has a key task, making visible the competing futures contained within the present. But cultural studies should go further: combining conjunctural analysis with methods drawn from a range of scholarly and activist traditions – including critical pedagogy, devised theatre and the interdisciplinary field of futures studies – that deliberately create spaces for imagining new futures.