Research Cluster Event: Performance, Practice & Interactivity
09:00-17:30
Friday 14 November 2014
Bewerunge Room, Logic House
The Performance, Practice & Interactivity Research Cluster hosts its inaugural research event, featuring contributions from many of the cluster members across the University.
One of the most striking developments in recent research in the humanities has been the impact of what has come to be known as the ‘performative turn’. Visible both in the rapid growth of the relatively new discipline of performance studies (an offshoot of theatre studies) and in the wider concern with the impact of performance and performativity in all spheres of culture, this reorientation arguably represents nothing less than a paradigm shift within the humanities. Methodologically, the emphasis on performance can be understood to signal a focus on the actions and transformative capacities of language and creative forms, of bodies and identities. Thematically, it ranges from creative acts explicitly and traditionally coded as performance to social rituals, behaviours and interactions. In this new paradigm body art and ecological theatre, multimedia production and sporting rituals, social media and the production of lived environments all touch on performance and the performative.
The attendant risk of this sweeping embrace is a dilution of terminology and meaning, and despite some compelling attempts at definition, the concept of performance continues to be dogged by ambiguity. If concerts, weddings and job interviews are all forms of performance, then which practices lie outside performance? And how should research negotiate the tension between performance as the following of a script and performance as a fluid activity with ample room for improvisation?
This cluster will consider these questions and more, offering a forum for exchange of ideas on the performative act and the heuristic approaches it has generated. As a means of opening dialogue, the inaugural event of the cluster will feature presentations by international keynote speakers on issues such as performance of the “work”, the observational methods of performance analysis, creative behaviours, and to performance as an immanent creative activity based on embodied improvisatory and extemporary practices. These questions will be grounded in a number of case studies:
- Professor John Rink (University of Cambridge) - performance analysis;
- Professor Robert Hatten (University of Texas) - the performance of Mozart;
- Dr Pamela Karantonis (Bath Spa University) - gender and performance studies.
The event will also feature the launch of two new performance-related titles by cluster participants: Interpreting Chopin: Analysis and Performance by Alison Hood; and Cathy Berberian: Pioneer of Contemporary Vocality, edited by Pamela Karantonis, Francesca Placanica, et al.
SCHEDULE
Cluster Event: Performance, Practice & Interactivity
14 November 2014 Bewerunge Room, Logic House, Maynooth University
09:00 Tea/coffee
09:15 Welcome address: Dr Victor Lazzarini (Dean of Faculty of Arts, Celtic Studies and Philosophy)
09:30 Session 1
Antonio Cascelli: ‘Place and Identity in the Performance of Monteverdi's Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda’
Adrian Scahill: ‘The transcultural tradition: considering performance and performativity in a “global” Irish traditional music’
Threase Finnegan: ‘Visualising recentered folk drama through the occupation of performance space’
Ronan Foley: ‘Performances of Health’
10:30 Break (tea/coffee)
10:45 Session 2
Steve Coleman: ‘Performance theory: logocentric, substantivist, and metapragmatic genealogies’
Christopher Morris: 'High-Rise Opera House'
Estelle Murphy: ‘Black Speech: Female Masculinity and Liminality in Death Metal’
Maria Pramaggiore: ‘Vocal Projections: The Voice in Documentary’
11:45 Break
12:00 Guest Speaker:
Dr Pamela Karantonis (Senior Lecturer in Voice, School of Music and Performing Arts, Bath Spa University):
"The Drama of the Impostor": Unmasking Performance in Leigh Bowery’s Acts of Self-Fashioning
Chair: Francesca Placanica
12:45 Lunch Break
14:00 Guest Speaker:
Prof. John Rink (Professor of Musical Performance Studies, University of Cambridge):
‘The (F)utility of Performance Analysis’
Chair: Antonio Cascelli
15:00 Guest Speaker:
Prof. Robert S. Hatten (Professor of Music Theory, University of Texas):
‘Interpreting Mozart: Analysis and Performance of the Slow Movements from K. 310 and K. 533’
Chair: Alison Hood
16:15 Book Launch and Wine Reception (PUGIN HALL)
Two new performance-related titles by cluster participants:
Interpreting Chopin: Analysis and Performance by Alison Hood; and Cathy Berberian: Pioneer of Contemporary Vocality, edited by Pamela Karantonis, Francesca Placanica, et al.
For further information please email the cluster convenors:
Dr Alison Hood or Dr Antonio Cascelli at performance@mu.ie