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.

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Chapters

  • Making/Doing/Thinking: Methods for Performance Research - Full monograph
    Mark Fleishman , Alex Halligey
  • Preliminary Pages
  • Introduction
  • PART I
  • Section 1: Advocating for practice as research
  • Knowing performance: performance as knowledge paradigm for Africa
    Mark Fleishman
  • The difference of performance as research
    Mark Fleishman
  • Beyond capture: the indifference of performance as research
    Mark Fleishman
  • Artistic research and the institution: a cautionary tale
    Mark Fleishman
  • Section 2: PaR in response to the world
    Mark Fleishman
  • Cargo: staging slavery at the Cape
    Mark Fleishman
  • Making space for ideas: the knowledge work of Magnet Theatre
    Mark Fleishman
  • PART II
  • Section 1: Conceptual
  • Chapter 1:
    A different stage: from play thinking to research thinking
    Juliet Jenkin
  • Chapter 2:
    Dramaturgical methods: migrant attitudes, wayward archives and other proposals for creative research
    Mwenya B. Kabwe
  • Chapter 3:
    DBLE: a curatorial approach to practice as research
    Khanyisile Mbongwa
  • Chapter 4:
    And Then…: revealing the teachings of the praying mantis
    Jackï Job
  • Chapter 5:
    This image may contain… : a visual and aural articulation of research into notions of speculative indigeneities
    Heeten Bhagat
  • Chapter 6:
    Piecing together a girlhood: using ‘girlfriend play’ as method to perform memory
    Alude Mahali-Bhengu
  • Chapter 7:
    little did I know…
    Myer Taub
  • Section 2: Methods
  • Chapter 8:
    Ugcwele ukudlala: ways of seeing, learning and knowing through serious play
    Noluthando Mpho (Jupiter) Sibisi
  • Chapter 9:
    Breath-body-self: a practice-led journey
    Sara Matchett
  • Chapter 10:
    Practice as research: some insights into developing a theatre-voice based pedagogical praxis
    Sarah Woodward
  • Chapter 11:
    Thinking through micropractice: an embodied interrogation of the archive
    Alan Parker
  • Chapter 12:
    Beyond flailing: redirecting tacit knowledge of methods in design to create a research methodology in visual dramaturgy
    Illka Louw
  • Chapter 13:
    Practice as research in puppetry performance: the making and unmaking of Plot 99
    Aja Marneweck
  • Chapter 14:
    Practice as research in developing saamtrekking as a performance art practice
    Peter Andrew Hamish van Heerden
  • Chapter 15:
    Exploring autotopography: methods
    Rosa Postlethwaite
  • Chapter 16:
    Practice as research into learning everyday urban place-making through theatre and performance
    Alex Halligey
  • Section 3: Data management and analysis
  • Chapter 17:
    How RDM could have helped the PaR in my PhD: research data management in a PaR project
    Sanjin Muftić
  • Chapter 18:
    Mohahlaudi-BAHAHLAUDI (Traveller-TRAVELLERS): a case of practice as research
    Kabi Thulo
  • Appendix 1: Mohahlaudi-BAHAHLAUDI (Traveller-TRAVELLERS) script
  • Appendix 2: Creative research project 2 devising session excerpt

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Cover Image
Published
27 September 2024

Details about this monograph

ISBN
978-0-7992-2559-4
Author(s)
Juliet Jenkin
Khanyisile Mbongwa
Noluthando Mpho (Jupiter) Sibisi
Sarah Woodward
Illka Louw
Peter Andrew Hamish van Heerden
Rosa Postlethwaite
Kabi Thulo