Making/Doing/Thinking: Methods for Performance Research
Synopsis
In recent decades scholars globally have advocated for artistic practice or performance as research (PaR) in higher education institutions as a valuable and innovative way of developing knowledge and knowledge paradigms. PaR has been championed for extending what we know and how we come to learn about it in ways that are embodied, processual and integrate creative and intellectual projects and practices in productive ways. Much of the published discussion about PaR takes the form of overarching philosophies and less attention has been given to the granular processes through which individual PaR projects are realised. Each PaR process is unique to the researcher, their particular artistic practice and their research question. Each successful PaR process is also fundamentally rigorous in its research design. This handbook seeks to give insights into the bespoke sets of methods researchers develop to rigorously support their overallmethodology of PaR – a ‘how-to’ in support of the philosophy of PaR.
The book has been made possible by grant funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the Reimagining Tragedy in Africa and the Global South (ReTAGS) project (2019-2024), based in the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies. ReTAGS has used PaR as its foundational methodology and seeks to promote PaR in the work of African and global South scholars. Part I of the handbook reproduces Mark Fleishman’s writing on PaR, giving a sense of the key philosophical concerns in this research approach. Part II offers individually authored chapters by scholars who have come through postgraduate programmes at the Centre for Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies (formerly UCT’s Drama Department). The handbook offers inspirations and guiding compasses to scholars embarking on their own, unique PaR journeys.
Chapters
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Making/Doing/Thinking: Methods for Performance Research - Full monograph
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Preliminary Pages
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Introduction
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PART I
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Section 1: Advocating for practice as research
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Knowing performance: performance as knowledge paradigm for Africa
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The difference of performance as research
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Beyond capture: the indifference of performance as research
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Artistic research and the institution: a cautionary tale
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Section 2: PaR in response to the world
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Cargo: staging slavery at the Cape
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Making space for ideas: the knowledge work of Magnet Theatre
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PART II
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Section 1: Conceptual
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Chapter 1:A different stage: from play thinking to research thinking
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Chapter 2:Dramaturgical methods: migrant attitudes, wayward archives and other proposals for creative research
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Chapter 3:DBLE: a curatorial approach to practice as research
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Chapter 4:And Then…: revealing the teachings of the praying mantis
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Chapter 5:This image may contain… : a visual and aural articulation of research into notions of speculative indigeneities
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Chapter 6:Piecing together a girlhood: using ‘girlfriend play’ as method to perform memory
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Chapter 7:little did I know…
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Section 2: Methods
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Chapter 8:Ugcwele ukudlala: ways of seeing, learning and knowing through serious play
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Chapter 9:Breath-body-self: a practice-led journey
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Chapter 10:Practice as research: some insights into developing a theatre-voice based pedagogical praxis
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Chapter 11:Thinking through micropractice: an embodied interrogation of the archive
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Chapter 12:Beyond flailing: redirecting tacit knowledge of methods in design to create a research methodology in visual dramaturgy
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Chapter 13:Practice as research in puppetry performance: the making and unmaking of Plot 99
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Chapter 14:Practice as research in developing saamtrekking as a performance art practice
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Chapter 15:Exploring autotopography: methods
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Chapter 16:Practice as research into learning everyday urban place-making through theatre and performance
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Section 3: Data management and analysis
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Chapter 17:How RDM could have helped the PaR in my PhD: research data management in a PaR project
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Chapter 18:Mohahlaudi-BAHAHLAUDI (Traveller-TRAVELLERS): a case of practice as research
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Appendix 1: Mohahlaudi-BAHAHLAUDI (Traveller-TRAVELLERS) script
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Appendix 2: Creative research project 2 devising session excerpt
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