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Video description: A Seed is Planted is a two-minute video, narrated by the author, consisting of an illustrated talk and a filmed extract from a stage-production of Shakespeare’s Henry V in which the actor Alex Hassel delivers a soliloquy. The video is illustrated with images of the covers of the book referenced in the authors talk and drawings and engravings, depicting the similarities between animal faces and human faces.
Transcription of the audio from the first part of the video:
‘A few months before completing my PhD, I discovered this thesis by Dionysios Kyropolous [image of thesis title page] in which he investigates the use of diverse historical approaches as a springboard for teaching stagecraft to singers. One of the subjects I found most interesting was his discussion of animal exercises, which reminded me of important references from physical theatre, like Suzuki’s frequent discussion of ‘Animal Energy’ and Grotowski’s exercises connected with animal imagery and sounds. [images of these books covers] Kyropolous explains how animals offer useful models for physical expression, since ‘their character, emotions and the things they want to communicate [are] primarily [perceived by humans] through movement and gesture’. Such thinking has a long history in the theatre, and he specifically quotes this soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Henry V.’
‘In this performance, we can see and hear actor Alex Hassel giving the main instructions of this exercise while simultaneously demonstrating parts of it:’
[Supertitles shown during the excerpt of the stage-production. Exercise: 1. Choose an animal 2. Try to feel your physical possibilities 3. Imagine a context (play, fear, anger, etc.) 4. Explore different actions the animal might do.]
[Text spoken by Alex Hassel]
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, conjure up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard favoured rage,
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect
Let it pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass Canon let the brow overwhelm it.
Now set the teeth and set the nostril wide
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height on …
‘This excerpt seemed to speak directly to me also because of the reference to working with the breath — something that has long been a foundation of my teaching and artistic practices. Practices in which I try to heighten awareness of the interdependence of breathing, moving, and voicing.’
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To begin outlining my horticulturally inspired methodology, I will compare tomatoes (and other fruit-bearing annuals such as zucchini and cucumbers) to cyclical frameworks related to the production of various outputs — not just artistic creations such as paintings and performances, but also the fruits of academic labour such as articles, books, and expositions. So-called ‘praxis’ is at the centre of theatre and intermedial performance scholar Robin Nelson’s model [1] (see fig. below), which represents what artistic research is (ontology) and the knowledge it produces (epistemology). Nelson describes ‘praxis’ as ‘the possibility of thought within both “theory” and “practice” in an iterative [repeating] process of “doing-reflecting-reading-articulating-doing”’ (2013: 32). This model is a useful way of appreciating the dynamics of knowing in artistic research, which Nelson locates at the meeting point ‘of different, but interlocking, spheres, notably “the arts world”, “the mediasphere” and “the academy”’ (2013: 23). Nelson notes that these are only three in ‘a much larger constellation of interconnected praxical spheres’ (2013: 23), and I have already included life and work as part of this constellation earlier.
Image descriptions: Three diagrams with text showing cycles. Nelson’s cycle is designed as a triangle with double headed arrows moving between each of the three main points of ‘Know-How’, ‘Know-What’, and ‘Know-That’. Walker’s two Pro-Create and Embodiment cycles include single-headed arrows pointing between four ‘stops’ moving in a clockwise direction.
Fig. Modes of knowing: onto-epistemological model for Practice Research (graphics Leyao Xia) (Nelson 2022: 46)
Fig. Pro-Create Cycle (Walker 2015: 13)
Fig. Embodiment Cycle (Walker 2015: 13)
Click on https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2951879/3006868#tool-3006893 to see the diagrams.
Jessica Walker’s Pro-Create Cycle and her Embodiment Cycle are excellent examples of Nelson’s praxis, manifesting significant new insights. [2]
These cycles are representative of the processes that took place in the performance projects discussed in Walker’s PhD, but they are similar to many (if not most) performing arts productions and the corresponding experiences of performers, creators, and researchers (in Walker’s case, a hybrid of all three). The Pro-Create model name incorporates the ‘abbreviations of the professional and creative cycles it maps’ but is also intended to represent ‘the process of procreation’ (Walker 2015: 13). Walker identifies this model as a ‘methodological meta-framework’ [3] and also emphasizes how each stage of the cycle itself includes multiple processes (2015: 10). What is so ground-breaking about Walker’s model is how she integrates industry expectations and restrictions into the mix. As she explains,
There was not as yet a creative practice, live performance model foregrounding the ‘professional’ in its conceptual framework. As a representation of these forms of research, this is understandable; the modelling of performative research is a visualisation of research process, and that process, especially within an academy setting, is not contingent on or affected by a need to be commercially viable. These models can, therefore, afford to be inward-looking. They analyse process on its own terms, without casting the net wider to look at how that process is, or might be affected by outside forces. (Walker 2015: 13–14)
As I mentioned earlier, my particular interest in artistic research is its potential for building bridges between professional artistic practice and the academy, and thus the existence of Walker’s model is particularly relevant. The fact that she is also working within the field of music theatre further emphasizes the usefulness of her insights to my research. Framed by the creation of three artistic works, Walker’s thesis is largely interested in the context of the product-driven arts industry. She concisely notes that the Pro-Create Cycle represents ‘how to describe and analyse a creative process which is reliant on industry take-up’ (2015: 15).
Walker discusses her models in relation to … [next page: Flower]
[1] In the first edition of Nelson’s book, this model was called the ‘multi-mode epistemological model for practice as research’ (Nelson 2013: 37). The related model includes some significant additions in the new edition (specifically the additions of the words ‘making, reflecting, reading, being, doing’, and ‘knowing’ to the interior arrows). ↩︎
[2] PhD research has historically been assessed on its contribution of ‘new knowledge’ to a particular field. Nelson notes that such a criterion is not always appropriate in the arts and rather proposes the expression ‘substantial new insights effectively shared’ (Nelson 2022). ↩︎
[3] As a ‘methodological meta-framework’, Walker’s model can be understood as a higher-level framing of her own creative and research processes, one that is potentially relevant to other performing artists also. ↩︎