Johannes Brahms: Historically-Informed Recording of the Piano Quartets
(2020)
author(s): Anthony JOHN THWAITES
published in: Research Catalogue, Birmingham City University: Faculty of Arts, Design and Media
This Exposition presents a Double CD of Johannes Brahms’s Piano Quartets, recorded on period instruments in Vienna by The Primrose Piano Quartet for the Meridian label (CDE84650/1-2, 2019). The recording is presented in fully streamable MP3 format alongside a PDF of the CD booklet proof. Accompanying the recording is an essay which documents the research questions, methodology and processes underpinning the work. Preparation, rehearsal, recording and editing are discussed as a process of interpretative investigation. Historically-Informed Performance Practice with respect to Brahms is a thriving academic discipline within which we have endeavoured to offer the most radically innovative post-war commercial recording of the piano quartets.
Inappropriate COLLISIONS
(2020)
author(s): Catherine Baker
published in: Research Catalogue
Inappropriate Shift is the title of a co-authored chapter in Collective and Collaborative Drawing in Contemporary Practice [eds Journeaux and Gorrill] by Dr Catherine Baker (Birmingham City University and Kimberley Foster (Goldsmiths University). However, it is part of a larger project conceived in 2015 been the two authors that includes a number of drawing related activities and is ongoing called Inappropriate Collisions.
The Art of Design: from philosphy to practice
(2020)
author(s): Kathryn Jane Moore
published in: Research Catalogue
This exposition sets out evidence of the research undertaken over the last decade to understand the implications beyond the academy of the new paradigm presented in ‘Overlooking The Visual: Demystifying the Art of Design’ (2010), leading to
‘Towards New Research Methodologies in Design: Shifting Inquiry Away from the Unequivocal Towards the Ambiguous’ (2018). The exposition shows the process of developing ‘The Art of Design’ at a regional scale through a number of sequential case studies. Requiring investigative and analytical drawing from a position of knowledge and the reimagining and re-presenting of places in order to rekindle and reinvent the connection between communities and the space they inhabit, recognising the pride people take in that space, its cultural identity, be it urban, suburban or rural, is very much a modern, contemporary view of how our landscapes work.
The ideas expressed in the visual narratives have engaged a wide range of decision makers and are shifting perceptions, planning policy and practices at a local, national and international level. The student work exhibited in 2019 (BCU) explored the spatial implications of the ethos of the West Midlands National Park focused on specific locations and was vital in persuading key regional and national stakeholders of the significance of this new approach.
This predominantly visual exposition presents the transformative practice-based research process manifest as visual artefacts from philosophy to practice interrogating the art of design.
Orange Polar Bear - a cross-cultural performance piece for teenagers in Seoul and Birmingham
(2020)
author(s): Peter Wynne-Willson
published in: Research Catalogue
Orange Polar Bear (2014-19) is an innovative bilingual theatre project created by Hanyong Theatre, the National Theatre Company of Korea and Birmingham Repertory Theatre. The main research aims were to develop a methodology for devising and presenting bilingual work in a way that maintains equality between collaborative partners, and, by focusing on the experience of teenagers in Seoul and Birmingham, to consider what young people can teach adults about bridging cross-cultural and language divisions.
The research resulted in a novel methodology for devising bilingual theatre leading to a cross-cultural performance for young people in two languages, presented in the same form in South Korea and the UK. It was unique among Anglo-Korean collaborations for its focus on the experience of teenagers, and conscious balance of languages, cultures and practices. Additionally, the research demonstrates the value of adopting a child-led approach to creating cross-cultural theatre and has created new insights into long-term approaches to developing fair and equal cross-cultural partnerships.
(no)boundaries: A Study in Free Improvisation
(2020)
author(s): Andrew Bain
published in: Research Catalogue, Birmingham City University: Faculty of Arts, Design and Media
This practice-led research project investigates the importance of an empathically creative connection between freely improvising musicians in a live context with no pre-conceived ideas and details the development of instantaneous group composition. As such, (no)boundaries had no pre-composed music, there was no rehearsal period for the musicians (myself playing drums), and we had never played together before the first note of performance. In my research to date, the dynamic between pre-learned knowledge (embodied) alongside intelligent transactions during live improvisation (enacted knowledge), has been useful in helping to better understand the process of jazz improvisation. Even if there are pre-conceived elements, how the music is realised each time is unique. Conversely, even if we set out to have no pre-conceived ideas, in reality, we are still intuitively informed by our experiential and musical knowledge in performance. The two seem inextricably linked.
(no)boundaries showed that group attunement in performance is possible with no pre-learnt repertoire or rehearsals, in an appropriate setting with the right co-performers. Even though no pre-conceived ideas were intended, (no)boundaries evidenced improvisations guided by similar principles of standard jazz performance, pointing to the existence of a common performance mode.
Macbeth Projeto
(2020)
author(s): Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez, Aleksandar Dundjerovic
published in: Research Catalogue
Macbeth Projeto is a performing arts project that used elements of Shakespeare’s Macbeth as a framework for exploring different types of performativity. The central research question was ‘how migration of dramatic text , migratory geography deconstruction of stasis and transformation of form create different aesthetic qualities and performative experiences’? The project resulted in a series of novel rehearsal methodologies for adapting a dramatic text into a multisensorial performance via open rehearsal, creative workshops, and mixed visual and performing creative techniques. The project grew out of the researcher’s previous work with Brazilian theatre – including two co-authored books; Brazilian Collaborative Theatre ( 2017) and Brazilian Performing Arts (2019).Shakespeare’s original text was used as a framework for devising novel methodologies that combined different performance digital media methods with Brazilian collaborative contemporary theatre techniques. Rehearsals began with free collaborative improvisation workshops, out of which emerged material that was selected for further development. From this process the focus fell on the Act 3 scene 4, ‘feast’ scene. From this starting point, ‘The Party’, the relationship with Lady Macbeth, witches and ghosts became the key resources around which new narratives were developed. The research resulted in six performance cycles, each of which explored a different theatre form: Physical and group theatre; Site-specific, Solo-performance, Installation art, Augmented Reality, and Video/Performance Art (created as a remote on-line devised performance). Collaborators and co-producers with CIPA on the research project were Centrala, Digbrew (Birmingham), International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR), VUK Theatre (Belgrade), Prague Quadrennial, AHRC, Shanghai Theatre Academy, and Teatro Os Satyros (Sao Paulo). It has been performed at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (UK), IFTR, Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design 2019 and as part of an AHRC UK-China Creative Industries Partnership Development Programme with Shanghai Theatre Academy, Shanghai.