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Forthcoming Research Events
Division of Performance Studies
Centre for Practice-led Research in the arts
University of Northampton
Presenters
Simon Piasecki (Leeds Met University), ‘Auto-Bio-Graphics’, Friday March 13th 2009
Simon Ellis (University of Northampton), ‘Screendance projects’, Wednesday March 25th 2009
Franc Chamberlain (University of Cork and University of Northampton), ‘A Question of Mindfulness’, Wednesday 6th May 2009
Full Event Details:
‘Auto-Bio-Graphics: The first person, The person first’
by Simon Piasecki (Programme Leader / Live Art Practitioner, Leeds Met University)
Date: Friday March 13th 2009
Venue: Isham Dark
Time: 1.00-3.00
In this presentation Simon will share his own practice and reflect on the efficacy of auto-performance.
Simon has worked as an artist and performer since 1989, showing variously in Europe, Russia and Britain and collaborating widely.
As an educationalist he has developed Live Art curriculum in five institutions and is currently leading the new BA Hons Art, Event, Performance programme for Leeds Metropolitan University.
For more information visit: www.simonpiasecki.com
Screendance projects by Simon Ellis (Research Fellow, University of Northampton)
Date: Wednesday March 25th 2009
Venue: The Picturedrome, Northampton
Time: 1.30-2.30
An opportunity to see and discuss the recent dance films by Dr. Simon Ellis, Research Fellow, University of Northampton
Films:
Tuesday - by Simon Ellis and Tim Halliday
Then/Now - by Simon Ellis
Anamnesis - by David Corbet, Cormac Lally, Bagryana Popov and Simon Ellis
Simon is a New Zealand born independent artist whose practice has included site-specific investigations, dance on screen, writing, digital outcomes, black box works, and installation. He has a practice-led PhD (investigating improvisation, remembering, documentation and liveness) and is currently the practice-led research fellow at the University of Northampton. He was recently commissioned to develop Gertrud for The Place Prize 2008, and later this year will also create a new screen project, Anamnesis. Previous choreographies include Full (2001), Lying (2002), Indelible (2003), Sleep. Wake. Dream (2004), Tight (2006), dad-project (2006), microflicks (2006), then/now (2007) and Them & Me (2008).
For more information visit: www.skellis.net
Additional screendance work will be shown by Vida Midgelow / Tom Williams, University of Northampton
"A Question of Mindfulness: The Synchronization of Mind and Body in Performance'
by Franc Chamberlain (Visiting Professor in Creative Practice and Performance Studies, University of Northampton / University of Cork)
Date: Wednesday 6th May 2009
Venue: Avenue Research Centre
Time: 6.00-8.00
Buddhism has had an impact on Western thought for centuries but even as late as 1995, Buddhism was perceived as an ‘exclusively non-Western product’ (Prebish, 2002). One of the consequences of this view is that little attention has been paid to the interaction between the processes of creative performance and Buddhist practice. Prior to the 1960s the Western understanding of Buddhism was primarily philosophical or theoretical rather than practical but the influx of practitioners into the US and Europe from Tibet, Vietnam, and Japan changed that radically. Contemporary performance artists such as Marina Abramovic, Kira O’Reilly and Ansuman Biswas, for example, also draw on Buddhist practices even if they don’t all regard themselves as ‘Buddhists’. This paper will look at the question of mindfulness and the synchronization of mind and body in performance and consider it relation to the question of ‘presence’.
Franc Chamberlain teaches Drama and Theatre Studies team at University College Cork, Ireland, and is a Visiting Professor in Performance Studies and Creative Practice at the University of Northampton.
Franc has a particular interest in devising and the development of the actor /performer as a creative artist. He has published a monograph, Michael Chekhov (Routledge, 2003), and other papers on Chekhov, (one of which has been translated into Portuguese, Polish and Japanese), as well as essays on the work of Jacques Lecoq and Eugenio Barba.
Franc’s recent publications include: A Decroux Sourcebook (edited with Thomas Leabhart, Routledge, 2008) and a new edition of Craig's On the Art of the Theatre (Routledge, 2008). He has contributed to A Performance Cosmology (Routledge, 2006), Sacred Theatre (Intellect, 2007), and two essays, including 'Gesturing Towards Post-Physical Performance', to Physical Theatres: A Critical Reader (Routledge, 2007).
Since arriving in Cork in September 2005, Franc has performed a solo show, Interruptions (which was developed whilst he was in Northampton) and produced three devised shows, Telling (2006), My Love…? (2006), and Beatrice (2007), as well as Lorca’s The Public (2005), Beckett’s Come and Go (2008) and Rame/Fo’s Female Parts (2008).
He is currently the editor of Routledge's Performance Practitioners series and a former editor of Contemporary Theatre Review and Contemporary Theatre Studies.