Belvis Pons, Esther (2012) Trans-formative theatre : living further realities. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis studies the relationship between human bodies and theatrical events through selected European examples of the emergence of transformative ‘inbetween’ experimental performance in the early 21th century. It aims to explore the nature of participatory practices and their attributes. How does the theatrical event interact with the everyday and its theatricality creating ‘embodied’ experiences? What are the attributes and the implications of the relationships that emerge through this bodily engagement? The study questions emergent relational parameters of the theatrical experience in order to explicate its affects and effects in the bodies of participants, whether professional artists, skilled amateur practitioners, theatre/performance researchers, and accidental or intentional audiences and spectators. Its investigation challenges the (im)possibilities of performance knowledge through an experimental method based on a practice-as-research approach. The introductory chapter aims to facilitate understandings of the operational conditions through which the ‘embodied’ is materialized in theatrical performance. The conditions, are named as ‘nomadism’, ‘net-gaming’ and ‘transductions’, and are drawn respectively from the theories and method of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Bruno Latour and John McKenzie. In unfolding these operational conditions significant ‘ecological’, social, political, geographical concerns are identified as critical to how the thesis accounts for key elements of current experimental theatrical performance. The rest of its chapters examine three productions of the international touring companies Roger Bernat (Barcelona), Stan’s Cafe (Birmingham) and Rimini Protokoll (Berlin). Each chapter examines different specific yet comparable aspects of their participatory theatre/performance methods – namely: expectations, time, atmosphere, labour, and transformation – a thorough writing that is metaphorical, analytical and performative. Metaphors evoke the ‘common’, they interlace bodily expectations and they trigger the sense of the fleeting experience, establishing a shared sphere between the shows, the audiences and the researcher, immersing the reader in the theatrical events. Thus the thesis aims to present the significance of the ungraspable in participatory experimental performance, paradoxically because only in its evanescent in-betweeness might the ‘embodied’ be envisioned.

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 -- Europe, Experimental theater, Participatory theater
Date:	March 2012
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	School of Theatre, Performance and Cultural Policy Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Kershaw, Baz ; Sánchez, José A., 1963-
Sponsors:	Caja de Ahorros y Pensiones de Barcelona
Description:	Completed in conjunction with Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Facultat de Filosofia i Lletres.
Extent:	xix, 255, [9] leaves : ill.
Language:	eng
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/49942

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