Place and Performance

Department of Performance Studies

Gay McAuley (Convenor)
Honorary Professor, Performance Studies, University of Sydney
Gay McAuley is an Honorary Professor in the Department of Performance Studies at the University of Sydney. She taught in the French Department for many years before establishing Performance Studies as an interdisciplinary centre. Her major research and teaching interests include performance analysis, participant observation of rehearsal, documentation of performance, the study of the spectator in live performance, and problems of translation for the stage. Her book, Space in Performance (University of Michigan Press, 1999), was awarded the Rob Jordan Prize by the Australasian Drama Studies Association. Her current research concerns site-based performance, with particular emphasis on the role of place and memory.

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.

This is a self-funded project, assisted by the Department of Performance Studies.

Publications

• Michael Cohen, Paul Dwyer & Laura Ginters. (Forthcoming) "Performing 'Sorry Business': Reconciliation and Redressive Action". Book chapter to appear in Victor Turner and Cultural Performance, edited by Graham St John. New York: Berghahn.
• Maxwell, Ian 2003 “Phat Beats, Dope Rhymes”: Hip Hop Down Under Comin’
  Upper Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.
• Gay McAuley. Space in Performance: Making Meaning in the Theatre, Michigan University Press, 1999, 310pp.
• Gay McAuley. “Place in the performance experience”, Modern Drama, Vol XLVI, No.4, Winter 2003, pp.598-613.
• Gay McAuley. “Body Weather in the Central Desert of Australia: Towards an Ecology of Performance”, in: C. Hamon-Siréjols and A. Surgers (Eds), Théâtre: Espace Sonore, Espace Visuel, Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 2003, pp.231-242.
• Gay McAuley. “Body Weather at Hamilton Downs: a Photo Essay” (with Russell Emerson and Garry Seabrook), About Performance No. 5, University of Sydney, 2003, pp.101-109

Conference Presentations

• Paul Dwyer. "The Politics of Remembering". 14th World Congress of the International Federation for Theatre Research, University of Amsterdam, July 2002.
• Ian Maxwell "There's No There There"; presentation to 'Sonic Synergies' Conference, University of South Australia, July 2003.
• Ian Maxwell “The Space Between: Intercorporeality and theories of Acting”; Presentation to 'Endless Horizons: Looking Inwards and Looking Outwards, Australasian Drama Studies Association Annual Conference'; Australian Catholic University, Brisbane. July 2003
• Ian Maxwell “The Space Between: Intercorporeality and theories of Acting”; Endless Horizons: Looking Inwards and Looking Outwards, Australasian Drama Studies Association Annual Conference; Australian Catholic University, Brisbane
• Gay McAuley. “Reflections on place in the performance experience”. Australasian Drama Studies Association conference, University of Newcastle, July 2000
• Gay McAuley. “Place, performance, memory”. International Federation for Theatre Research, XIV World Congress, University of Amsterdam, 2002.
• Gay McAuley. “Site-specific performance: place, memory and the creative agency of the spectator”. Plenary lecture delivered at “Beyond Aesthetics”, Graduate Summer School, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany, July-August 2003.
• Gay McAuley. “Place and the performance of memory”, Performance Studies International, 10th Annual Conference, Singapore, June 2004.
• Gay McAuley, Kerrie Schaefer, Tom Burvill, “Performance and the Politics of Place”. Panel at which members of the Place and Performance group presented work in progress, Poetics of Australian Space Symposium, Art Gallery of NSW, February 2005.