Postgraduate and Staff Research Seminar

The Department of Performance Studies invites everyone to join us for our weekly Friday afternoon research seminar.

Held between 3pm and 5pm, in the AV Studio at the Department (Level 1, Woolley Building, off Manning Rd), the seminar is an opportunity for postgraduates, staff and invited guests to present their research. Presentations may be 'conventional' twenty-minute papers, extended talks, demonstrations or, indeed, any other format. Emphasis is placed upon discussion and a relaxed exchange of ideas.

The program for Semester 2, 2009, may be downloaded here

Postgraduate students are encouraged to contribute a presentation once a semester. Often the session is used as a 'trial run' environment for upcoming conferences. On other occasions, the seminar has been used to address specific concerns. Recent sessions have involved debriefing conference activity; workshopping abstract-writing and paper preparation; and developing article-writing skills.

In addition, each year special sessions are dedicated to new postgraduate candidates presenting their projects; to completing postgraduates offering a retrospective of their time as a candidate; and honours students presenting their research epitomes as they embark upon their long essays.

The schedule for each semester is put together by the Seminar Coordinator; for Semester 2 2009 - Miranda Heckenberg. Please should you wish to contribute to future seminars.

Seminars will recommence on 31st July 2009.

Seminar Program, Semester 2, 2009

Week 1: 31 July
Chair: Miranda Heckenberg
Reports back on conferences: PSI (NH), ADSA (GM), IEDIERI (PD), FIRT (DJ), Preparing to Perform (RD)

Week 2: 7 August
Chair: Justine Shih Pearson
May-Brit Akerholt: "Playbird or Featherbrain?"
Glen McGillivray: "Theatrum Mundi: the Booming Metaphor"

Week 3: 14 August
Exploring Dramaturgy:
May-Brit Akerholt in conversation with Alana Valentine and Emma Buzo on
the Buzo Company’s Soft Revolution: Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah

Week 4: 21 August
Chair: Paul Dwyer
Special Guest: Robert Dixon (Professor of Australian Literature)
"Travelling Mass-Media Circus: Frank Hurley’s Synchronised Lecture Entertainments"

Week 5: 28 August
Chair: Nick Hope
Kath Bicknell: "The Feel of Five Minutes"
Tess de Quincey and Co: RUN–a 6-ton dramaturgy

Week 6: 4 September
Chair: Justine Shih Pearson
Gay McAuley: "Space in performance/performance in place"
Tim Fitzpatrick: "Historical Theatre Spaces: getting at, and presenting, the evidence"

Week 7: 11 September
Chair: Robin Dixon
Nick Hope: "Viewing the Self: An Actors' experience of suspended animation"
Ian Maxwell: "My Big Fat Greek Baptism: Time, Transcendence and Performance in the Orthodox Sacrament (an insider account)"

Week 8: 18 September
Chair: Liza-Mare Syron
Paul Dwyer: "Re-presenting shame in the theatre/theory of restorative justice"
Lowell Lewis: "Aspects of Performative Relations"

Week 9: 25 September
Chair: Kath Bicknell
Erin Brannigan: "Choreographic Operations in Dancefilm"
David Williams: "Negotiating navigational hazards: making theatre from obstructionist legal language in Deeply offensive and utterly untrue"

Mid-Semester Break: 28 September–2 October

Week 10: 9 October
Chair: Jodie McNeilly
Jodie and Jeff Stewart–report back on TTP Conference, Monash University
Suzanne Little: title TBC

Week 11: 16 October
Chair: Janice Hinckfuss
Amanda Card: "Reviving the Greeks in Australian Dance"
Robin Dixon: "Preparing Plautus: Rehearsing comedy in the Roman Republic"

Week 12: 23 October
Chair: Kath Bicknell
Justine Shih Pearson: "Airport: transit space on the global stage"
Janice Hinckfuss: "Being, Having and Performing in Higher Education"

Week 13: 30 October
Chair: Liza-Mare Syron
Cassandra Duell: "Cultural Crux of Nationhood: discerning the direction of an Australian theatre practice"
Daniel Johnson: "Acting, Consciousness and Aletheia"