Finnan, Kevin (2005) A body of work: performance and becoming. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis explores the relationship between body and site in performance. The research is conducted through the making and examination of a number of the researcher’s own works. Touring and site-based works are examined in relation to specific examples of other contemporary artistic practice. The research is an embodied relationship between theory and practice. Performance works directed by the researcher were created in collaboration with other artists. The process of creating these works is the lived experience of the interaction of the creation of art images and critical theory. These works are then interrogated as part of an ongoing artistic process. This thesis is one element of a tripartite enquiry, comprising practice, theory and documentation, which constitute a ‘body of work’. The ‘body of work’ engages over time with the notion of life as a quality experienced through the body and occasioned by movement. From this perspective it interrogates the static notion of ‘being’ and argues that this notion is limited in examining contemporary performance practice. Through an investigation of theories of ‘becoming’ and an exploration of an embodied practice of ‘becoming’ this research proposes a model of ‘fluid being’ to articulate the nature of the body within ‘the body of work’. The research concludes that the ‘fluid being’ manifest in the lived experience of the ‘body of work’ is an open constellation that militates against any notion of site as that which can contain it. It therefore speculates towards a notion that, in a practice occasioned by ‘fluid being’, the primary relation of practice is with the temporal occasion of life as lived experience rather than spatial notions of site.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN2000 Dramatic representation. The Theater
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Theater -- Philosophy, Theater -- Production and direction -- Great Britain, Experience -- Great Britain, Philosophical anthropology
Date:	January 2005
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Theatre Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Heathfield, Adrian
Description:	This is an abridged version for electronic use and lacks performance material contained in 6 CD-ROMs; please see the official URL for details on how to access the full version.
Format of File:	pdf
Extent:	2 v. (471 leaves) : ill., plans
Language:	eng
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/2598

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