The camera and the trained body

The camera and the trained body

Location: Alec Clegg, stage@leeds, University of Leeds

Please book a place with Linda Watson l.m.watson@leeds.ac.uk

Performance Lecture by Judaica Lab with Ben Spatz, Nazlıhan Eda Erçin, Agnieszka Mendel hosted by the Performance Training, Preparation and Pedagogy Research Group

The Judaica research project (AHRC 2016-2018) is designed around a new method of ‘configurations’ for structuring and documenting experimental embodied practice. Drawing on discoveries made during the 2017 intensive laboratory phase of the research, the trio of international researchers will present new ways of thinking about and working with embodiment, vocality, songs, and identity in a multimedia experimental context.

The lecture performance consists of a laboratory session of the Judaica trio followed by video screening and discussion through which the questions below will be addressed:

• How is training situated in the method of configurations?
• How does the method of configurations change the experience of training for the practitioner?
• How does the dramaturgy of the director/instructor/teacher/trainer role interact with the dramaturgy of the videographer in co-creating audiovisual documents?
• What is it that the camera makes visible, enables and simultaneously conceals or blocks in relation to the moving and living body?
• What can theatre, dance, and performer training offer to contemporary conversations about digital and audiovisual media?

For information on the Judaica project, please visit: www.urbanresearchtheater.com

Research team

Ben Spatz is Senior Lecturer in Drama, Theatre and Performance at the University of Huddersfield; author of What a Body Can Do: Technique as Knowledge, Practice as Research (Routledge 2015) and numerous articles; convener of the Embodied Research Working Group within the International Federation for Theatre Research; and editor of the new videographic Journal of Embodied Research.

Nazlıhan Eda Erçin is a performer, researcher and educator pursuing a practice-based PhD degree in Drama at the University of Exeter. Her background is in Sociology (METU, Turkey) and Performance Studies (SIUC, USA). Her current research and teaching practice focus on body-centred research, physical/auto-biographical/solo performance, gender and identity.

Agnieszka Mendel is a singer, actress, ethnologist, voice and theatre teacher. For 15 years she was a core performer with the Gardzienice Centre for Theatre Practices in Poland where she played leading roles in several performances and conducted workshops for actors and singers from around the world.