Drama: Live Arts and Performance
Assignment Instructions:
Essay
3,000 words
Write an essay on the work of an artist or company making contemporary performance. Choose from the list below.
The essay is a scholarly presentation of your research.
The essay question is:
In what ways is the performance of [artist/company] an expression of liveness? How does their work extend beyond the conventions of dramatic theatre? How do the structure, form, style and manner of presentation provoke new ideas, issues, questions, attitudes, experiences or feelings from those who experience the work?
Choose one performance as your focus, and one or two others by the same company/artist or a similar one for comparison or as a point of reference. Choose performances that are innovative or experimental in extending beyond the conventions of dramatic theatre. Performances must in some fundamental way foreground the experience of “liveness” and may feature:
• living bodies, real action, choreographed movement
• sound-scapes, visual projections, animated objects
• site specificity, multiple sites, installation, environment
• durational significance, time-shifting, evolution over time
• flexible audience relations, audience-as-performer
• mediation, transmission, networking, game-play
Essays should conform to the conventions of scholarly presentation with regard to spelling, grammar, style, referencing and layout.
A List of Companies and Artists:
AUSTRALIA
Australian Dance Theatre http://www.adt.org.au
Back To Back Theatre http://www.backtobacktheatre.com
Bangarra http://www.bangarra.com.au/
Big hART http://www.bighart.org
Black Lung & Whaling Firm
Bodyweather / Tess de Quincey http://www.bodyweather.net
Brown Council http://browncouncil.blogspot.com/
ChamberMade http://www.chambermade.org.au
Chunky Move http://www.chunkymove.com
Erth – Visual & Physical Inc. http://erth.com.au/
Force Majeure http://www.forcemajeure.com.au/
Lucy Guerin http://www.lucyguerin.com
Moira Finucane http://www.moirafinucane.com
My Darling Patricia http://www.mydarlingpatricia.com
Nigel Kellaway http://www.nigelkellaway.com
Not Yet It’s Difficult http://www.notyet.com.au
Omeo Dance / Rosalind Crisp http://omeodance.com/rosalind/
pvi collective http://www.pvicollective.com
Restless Dance http://www.restlessdance.org
StoneCastro http://www.stonecastro.com/
The Border Project http://www.theborderproject.com
The Fondue Set http://www.thefondueset.com.au
Torque Show http://www.torqueshow.com.au/
Unreasonable Adults / Unreasonable Films http://unreasonablefilms.com
Urban Theatre Projects http://www.urbantheatre.com.au
Version 1.0 http://www.versiononepointzero.com
Yumi Umiumare http://yumi.com.au
INTERNATIONAL
Banana Bag and Bodice (USA) http://bananabagandbodice.org
Blast Theory (UK) http://www.blasttheory.co.uk
Cheltfisch (Japan) http://chelfitsch.net
Cremaster / Matthew Barney (USA) http://www.cremaster.net
Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan http://www.cloudgate.org.tw/eng/
Dumb Type (Japan) http://dumbtype.com
DV8 (UK) http://www.dv8.co.uk
Fai Fai (Japan) http://faifai.tv/
Forced Entertainment (UK) http://www.forcedentertainment.com
Franko B (Italy/UK) http://www.franko-b.com
Goat Island Performance Group (USA) http://www.goatislandperformance.org
Gomez-Pena & La Pocha Nostra http://www.pochanostra.com/
Granular Synthesis (Germany) http://www.granularsynthesis.info
Theatre Group GUMBO (Japan) http://www.eonet.ne.jp/~gumbo/index.html
Hotel Modern (Netherlands) http://www.hotelmodern.nl/
Laurie Anderson http://www.laurieanderson.com
Leigh Bowery Xtravaganza (Aus/UK) http://www.leighbowery.com.br
Les Ballets C de la B (Belgium) http://www.lesballetscdela.be/en/
Lone Twin (UK) http://www.lonetwin.com
Meredith Monk (USA) http://www.meredithmonk.org
Odeon Theatre de L’Europe http://www.theatre-odeon.fr
Ontological-Hysteric Theater (Richard Foreman) (USA) http://www.ontological.com/
Ontroerendgoed (Belgium) http://www.ontroerendgoed.be/
Processing Plant (Louis Philipe-Demers) http://www.hfg-karlsruhe.de/~ldemers/
Robert LePage (Canada) http://www.exmachina.qc.ca http://www.anamorphoses.com
Robert Wilson (USA) http://www.robertwilson.com
Societas Rafaello Sanzio (Italy) http://www.raffaellosanzio.org
SOIT Staff Only If Temporary (Belgium) http://www.soit.info
Stan’s Cafe (UK) http://www.stanscafe.co.uk
Stationhouse Opera (UK) http://www.stationhouseopera.com
Stelarc (Aus/UK) http://www.stelarc.va.com.au
Survival Research Laboratories (USA) http://srl.org
Teatro de los Sentidos / Enrique Vargas (Spain) http://www.teatrodelossentidos.com
The Builders Association (USA) http://www.thebuildersassociation.org
The Forsythe Company (Germany) http://www.theforsythecompany.de/
The Wooster Group (USA) http://www.thewoostergroup.org
TheatreWorks (Singapore) http://theatreworks.org.sg
Victoria (Belgium) http://www.victoria.be/
VENUES, ORGANISATIONS & RESOURCES
Arts House (Melbourne) http://www.artshouse.com.au
Arts Projects Australia http://www.artsprojects.com.au
Artspace (Sydney) http://www.artspace.org.au
Australia Council for the Arts http://www.ozco.gov.au
Brisbane Powerhouse http://www.brisbanepowerhouse.org
Experimental Art Foundation (Adelaide) http://www.eaf.asn.au
Live Art Development Agency (UK) http://www.thisisliveart.co.uk
networked_performance: a research blog http://www.turbulence.org/blog/
PACT Centre for Emerging Artists (Sydney) http://www.pact.net.au/
Performance Space (Sydney) http://www.performancespace.com.au
Performing Lines (Australia) http://www.performinglines.org.au
Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) http://www.pica.org.au
RealTime (Aus) http://www.realtimearts.net
Performance Paradigm (Aus) http://www.performanceparadigm.net
The Presence Project (UK/USA) http://presence.stanford.edu/
The Studio (Sydney) http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/
This Is Unbound (UK) http://www.thisisunbound.co.uk/
Acknowledging your sources:
In your written work, you are expected to draw upon up-to-date, relevant and reputable sources. Your sources may be books, journals, newspapers, films, photographs, theatre programs, websites or personal communications (for example, letters or conversations).
Acknowledge your sources whenever you use information, ideas, text, data, tables, figures or any other material which originally appeared in someone else’s work. A reference is required whenever you:
• use the exact words from a source (quote)
• express a source’s ideas in different words (paraphrase); or
• outline the main points of a source (summarise).
There are two main systems for referencing sources – ‘note’ systems and ‘in-text’ (or ‘author- date’) systems. Select either ‘note’ or ‘in-text’ and use it consistently. Do not mix systems. We’ll outline the ‘in-text’ (or ‘author-date’) system here.
Referencing using the ‘in-text’ (or ‘author-date’) system
For the ‘in-text’ (or ‘author-date’) system, you make reference within your text to all the sources you have used. Full publication details are given in a ‘Works Cited’ list at the end of the text.
In the text of your assignment include author-date references…
• Give the author’s surname and the date of publication in parentheses within the body of your own text:
A recent study (Holledge and Tomkins, 2000) has shown …
• Include page numbers when you quote or paraphrase particular passages, lists or figures: ’Sweet friends, to bed’, says Tom at the end of Act Two (Gow, 1986:22)
• Provide the page number/s only when making multiple subsequent references to one source: Tom quotes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the opening scene of Away (Gow, 1986:3) and from King Lear in the closing scene (57).
• Distinguish between two or more articles by an author that were published in the same year by adding ‘a’, ‘b’, etc. to the dates:
Reviews of the company’s work (Bramwell, 2003, 2004a, 2004b) …
• Distinguish between different authors who have the same surname, by using the authors’ initials or full names: Some scholars (A. Smith, 2002) argue … but a more recent study (Z. Smith, 2004) has suggested …
• To cite several different articles at the same point, place the authors’ names in alphabetical order, and separate them using semi-colons:
Many scholars agree (Bloggs, 1999; Jones, 2003; Smith, 2002) …
• If you have found your information about one author in an account by another author, acknowledge both sources: Smith’s (2002) study (cited in Jones, 2003) …
At the end of your assignment include a ‘Works Cited’ list…
Provide a page entitled ‘Works Cited’ at the end of your assignment. On this page, list all the works from which you have quoted, to which you have referred, or upon which you have drawn on as a critical source.
A ‘Works Cited’ list gives the full publication details of all works you have consulted, in alphabetical order by surnames of author(s) or editor(s), followed by the date of publication, and then details of the title and publisher. Where there is no author, the reference begins with the title.
Each entry takes the following format – with elements are separated by full stops and a hanging indent.
Surname, Initial of first name. Date. Title in Italics (Place: Publisher) Book – one author
Morley, M. 1977. Brecht: A Study (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield)
Book – two authors
Holledge, J. & Tompkins, J. 2000. Women’s Intercultural Performance (London & New
York: Routledge)
Journal article
Hartog, J. 1998. ‘The computerised gaze and the performing arts’, Australasian Drama Studies, 32, 109-130
Newspaper articles, theatre reviews
Bramwell, M. 2005. ‘Romping through a fine farce’, The Australian, 3 November, p.14
Chapter in an anthology
Bollen, J. 2000. ‘Animated suspension: dance parties and the choreography of community’, in Body Show/s: Australian Viewings of Live Performance, ed. by P. Tait (Amsterdam & Atlanta: Rodopi), pp. 187-198
Film or video
Little Fish. 2005. Dir. Rowan Woods. Icon Films
Theatre program
State Theatre Company of South Australia. 2006. Honk If You Are Jesus by Peter
Goldsworthy and Martin Laud Gray [theatre program]
Website
Adelaide Fringe 2006. <http://www.adelaidefringe.com.au> [accessed 22 February 2006]
Online database
‘Australian Dance Theatre’, in AusStage <http://www.ausstage.edu.au> [accessed 23 February 2006]
Theatre productions
Theatre productions aren’t usually included in a list of ‘works cited’. You can include reference to the play script if it has been published. For theatre productions, you should include the title, writer, director or company, venue, city and dates – in the text or in a footnote/endnote.
in-text: Raimondo Cortese’s Features of Blown Youth, directed by Corey McMahon, was performed at the Drama Centre, Flinders University, Adelaide on 21 February 2006.
note: The Border Project’s Highway Rock ‘N’ Roll Disaster, directed by Sam Haren, Higher Ground Inc (Main Theatre), Adelaide, 7-12 March.
