Enhancing the impact of Australian performing arts: virtual scenography and opera for the 21st century. Digitally created scenography has the potential to create immersive stage environments that are designed for 21st century visual impact, and to re-model the economics of live performance by reducing the cost of touring. Deakin Motion.Lab and the Victorian Opera aim to work together to design, test and evaluate the artistic and economic value of virtual scenography for touring performing arts c ....Enhancing the impact of Australian performing arts: virtual scenography and opera for the 21st century. Digitally created scenography has the potential to create immersive stage environments that are designed for 21st century visual impact, and to re-model the economics of live performance by reducing the cost of touring. Deakin Motion.Lab and the Victorian Opera aim to work together to design, test and evaluate the artistic and economic value of virtual scenography for touring performing arts companies. This project aims to enable opera companies to present large scale productions in previously inaccessible regional and rural areas, enhancing both artistic experience and access to this cultural experience for audiences. These outcomes aim to be transferable to other theatre forms such as ballet and theatre that require large-scale set production.Read moreRead less
Thinking brains and bodies: distributed cognition and dynamic memory in Australian Dance Theatre. Creative thinking, learning and memory - key features of human cognition - will be investigated in the context of dance in this project. Complementary quantitative and qualitative methods will shed light on process and communication in the Australian Dance Theatre and the arts more broadly, and inform new accounts of thinking as embodied and distributed.
Conceiving Connections: Increasing industry viability through analysis of audience responses to dance performance. The development of audiences is identified by the Australian dance industry as vital to the future of the sector. The current project will investigate how audiences respond to highly evolved dance-works. It will explore the kinds of meaning communicated by such works, and the value assigned to them by tutored and untutored audiences. Methods for enhancing audience engagement will be ....Conceiving Connections: Increasing industry viability through analysis of audience responses to dance performance. The development of audiences is identified by the Australian dance industry as vital to the future of the sector. The current project will investigate how audiences respond to highly evolved dance-works. It will explore the kinds of meaning communicated by such works, and the value assigned to them by tutored and untutored audiences. Methods for enhancing audience engagement will be tested through studies in both metropolitan and regional centres. Dance-scholars, artists and cognitive psychologists collaborate with three industry partners to identify and address significant concerns for artists, presenters, advocates and funding bodies, and to train postgraduate reserachers in inter-disciplinary modes.Read moreRead less
Intention and Serendipity: Investigating Improvisation, Symbolism and Memory in Creating Australian Contemporary Dance. Contemporary dance is one of the major vehicles through which Australian stories and cultural diversity are communicated. Little is known about the processes that underpin creation and performance of communicative dance works, and less still about processes and stylistic traditions unique to the Australian form. We will investigate cognitive and kinaesthetic processes involve ....Intention and Serendipity: Investigating Improvisation, Symbolism and Memory in Creating Australian Contemporary Dance. Contemporary dance is one of the major vehicles through which Australian stories and cultural diversity are communicated. Little is known about the processes that underpin creation and performance of communicative dance works, and less still about processes and stylistic traditions unique to the Australian form. We will investigate cognitive and kinaesthetic processes involved in creating, refining, performing significant works. Combining experimental and practice-based research we examine psychological mechanisms engaged by elite choreographers, and experienced and emerging dancers, and analyse the unique Australian heritage and embodied knowledge evident in leading dancers and choreographers influenced by Gertrud Bodenwieser.Read moreRead less
Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum. This project aims to interrogate the relationship between dance and visual art practices and institutions since the turn of the 21st century, developing solutions for emerging and associated challenges for artists and art workers. As a contemporary art form, dance innovates our museums and galleries by foregrounding challenging issues such as the dematerialization of art, the nature of creative labor, digital archives, experience as economy, and ....Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum. This project aims to interrogate the relationship between dance and visual art practices and institutions since the turn of the 21st century, developing solutions for emerging and associated challenges for artists and art workers. As a contemporary art form, dance innovates our museums and galleries by foregrounding challenging issues such as the dematerialization of art, the nature of creative labor, digital archives, experience as economy, and participatory aesthetics. Bringing academics, curators, conservators and artists from diverse institutions together, Precarious Movements stages a dialogue between dance artists and art institutions to support exemplary creative arts practices and the production of end user processes and protocols.Read moreRead less
'Wizards in Oz': The impact and legacy of Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes on Australian cultural life and artistic practice. The project heralds a nationally significant co-operation between Australian cultural and tertiary institutions to research the content, impact and legacy of Australian tours 1936-40 by the acclaimed Ballets Russes. Australians were overwhelmed by the company's high-modernist aesthetic, and inspired by the collaborative ideals celebrated in its balletic, theatrical and m ....'Wizards in Oz': The impact and legacy of Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes on Australian cultural life and artistic practice. The project heralds a nationally significant co-operation between Australian cultural and tertiary institutions to research the content, impact and legacy of Australian tours 1936-40 by the acclaimed Ballets Russes. Australians were overwhelmed by the company's high-modernist aesthetic, and inspired by the collaborative ideals celebrated in its balletic, theatrical and musical masterpieces. Research will generate a range of scholarly publications, physical and virtual exhibitions, and select performances by the Australian Ballet. The project utilises an innovative interactive research methodology to establish a vital nexus between scholarly research, digital archival management and dissemination strategies, and artistic practice.Read moreRead less