University of Sydney / Faculty of Arts / Department of Performance Studies / Research and Publications / Research

Research

Research Projects

Staff at the Department of Performance are involved in a range of research activities. Details of specific projects will be published through this page, which is presently under construction: the links below are yet to be activated; instead, scroll down to read details of three current projects.

Enacting Reconciliation: Negotiating Meaning in Youth Justice Conferencing

Dr Paul Dwyer with Professor Jim Martin and Ms Michelle Zappavigna

An ARC Discovery Grant-funded project over four years (2008-2011)

'Restorative justice' initiatives like youth justice conferencing are aimed at strengthening the social fabric by making sure the voices of victims are heard while giving offenders a genuine opportunity to 'set things right' and get back on track with their lives. More detailed research into the way participants use language and other communicative modes will help the convenors of conferences, and the trainers of convenors, to understand better the potential of this social healing process. This project will also add to Australia's reputation as a world leader in the field of restorative justice.

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Place and Performance

Chief Investigator:

Participants:

  • Gay McAuley (Convenor), Honorary Professor, Performance Studies, University of Sydney
  • Paul Brown, Programme Co-ordinator, Environmental Studies, University of New South Wales
  • Tom Burvill, Associate Professor Critical and Cultural Studies, Macquarie University
  • Michael Cohen, Programme Director, Live Sites, Newcastle
  • Russell Emerson, Technical Director, Performance Studies, University of Sydney
  • Tess de Quincey, Director, De Quincey Company
  • Paul Dwyer, Lecturer, Performance Studies, University of Sydney
  • Jane Goodall, Director of Research, Contemporary Arts, University of Western Sydney
  • Stuart Grant, Ph.D candidate, Performance Studies, University of Sydney
  • Julie Holledge, Professor, Drama, Flinders University
  • Lowell Lewis, Senior Lecturer, Performance Studies/Anthropology, University of Sydney
  • Ian Maxwell, Senior Lecturer, Performance Studies, University of Sydney
  • Mary Moore, Theatre Designer and Visual Artist
  • Kerrie Schaefer, Senior Lecturer, Drama, University of Newcastle
  • Katrina Schlunke, Senior Lecturer, Cultural Studies, University of Technology Sydney
  • Peter Snow, Senior Lecturer, Drama and Theatre Studies, Monash University
  • Joanne Tompkins, Associate Professor, English, University of Queensland

Current work in disciplines such as cultural geography, history, environmental studies and anthropology has brought to the fore in new ways the interdependence of human and other lived experience of place, the complex ecologies of place involving multiple histories of occupation and exploitation, and the central role of place in establishing personal or group identity and sense of self. A concern with place inevitably involves issues that have far-reaching political, moral and ethical implications. Theatre and performance are modes of cultural production that are inseparably bound up with space and place and they, too, are thereby drawn into an engagement with these issues. In this project, an interdisciplinary group of scholars from nine universities and site-based performance practitioners are together investigating the complicated nexus between place and performance and the ways in which this nexus functions in a range of performative practices that expose many of the faultlines running through Australian society.

The academics and artists constituting this Advanced Research Seminar have been meeting at intervals over a period of 3 years, reporting on a range of research projects in progress that provide insights into ways in which performance functions in relation to place and vice versa. Emerging from these discussions, the group is producing a collectively authored book entitled Contested Ground: Performance and the Politics of Place. The first part of the book, Interrogating Place in Aesthetic Performance, consists of essays dealing with ways in which place functions in a range of contemporary performance (text-based theatre, site-based performance, physical theatre, popular music); the second part, Place, Memory, Politics, takes the notion of performance more broadly and investigates performative practices (memorials, demonstrations, community action) occurring in real places, stirring memories and dealing with unresolved political issues; the third part, Place in Practice, consists of essays by artists specialising in site-based performance which provide a wealth of information and practical insights into their creative process and the ways in which they conceptualise and work with place. The book ends with an essay by anthropologist, Lowell Lewis, reflecting on theoretical issues raised by the other contributors and exploring key terms such as space, place and cultural memory.

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"A Raffish Experiment": The Writings of Rex Cramphorn

Researcher: Ian Maxwell

  • “In academic circles, I seem to be a sort of raffish experiment, and in practical circles I get branded an academic . . .”
  • Brisbane, Katharine 1995 “Rex Cramphorn” in The Currency Companion to Theatre in Australia (General Editor Philip Parsons) Currency Press, Sydney: 164-5.
  • Braun, Edward 1969 Meyerhold on Theatre Methuen, London.
  • Cramphorn, Rex 1987 “L’Illusion Comique to Theatrical Illusion: Textual Changes for Performance” in McAuley, Gay, editor From Page to Stage: L’Illusion Comique University of Sydney Theatre Services Unit, Sydney: 59-71.
  • McAuley, Gay 1999 Space in Performance: Making Meaning in the Theatre University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.
  • Maxwell, Ian 2005a “Rex Cramphorn” in Fifty Key Theatre Directors (edited by Shomit Mitter and Maria Shevtsova) Routledge, London: 178-185.
  • Maxwell, Ian 2005b “Jim Sharman” in Fifty Key Theatre Directors (edited by Shomit Mitter and Maria Shevtsova) Routledge, London: 212-217.
  • Meyrick, Julian 2002 See How It Runs: Nimrod and the New Wave Currency Press, Sydney 2002.
  • Minchinton, Mark 1998 “The Right and Only Direction: Rex Cramphorn, Shakespeare, and the Actors’ Development Stream” in Australasian Drama Studies 33: 128-144.
  • Sharman, Jim 1996 “In the Realm of the Imagination” in Australasian Drama Studies 28: 20-29.
  • Willett, John 1978 Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic Eyre Methuen, London
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