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International Conference | 29 June - 03 July 2005 Mock: Roberta | UK M(other)2: Research as Performance Presented by Roberta Mock, Christine Roberts and Ruth Way (University of Plymouth) contact: email: roberta.mock@plymouth.ac.uk; chris.hall@plymouth.ac.uk; ruth.way@plymouth.ac.uk postal address: Theatre & Performance, University of Plymouth, Douglas Ave., Exmouth, Devon EX8 2AT, U.K. As Lusty Juventus physical theatre, we have been working together collaboratively as practitioner-researchers since 1996, and have completed five projects to date. As individuals, we identify as a playwright, a dancer/choreographer and a director/scenographer. From the very beginning, we have been concerned with working through and against assumptions of heirarchy in performance production processes. While this originated with explorations about the assumed relationships between word-based text and movement in theatrical performance, it quickly became apparent that working processes, production roles and performance 'disciplines' also imply heirarchical decision-making processes in collaborative practice. While drawing on our long history of collaboration, this presentation focuses specifically on the making of M(other), a live performance integrating video projection which was produced in Greece in 2002 and has subsequently developed into a short film. During the making process, we deliberately blurred our traditional discipline-specific roles in an attempt to develop a specifically non-heirarchical collaborative process which may be considered 'feminist'. This performative paper thus attempts to demonstrate the following negotiations: - of different working practices and assumptions due to discipline specificities - of individual and collective goals for performance - of exploratory experimental research process and professionally received product Aims of the presentation: Developing from and extending a presentation we created for the Performance as Research Working Party at FIRT 2004 in St Petersburg, we aim to contribute to the ongoing debates and perspectives on performance practice as research by addressing how best to articulate, present and document research findings from embodied practices. Acting as reflexive practitioners/scholars, the paper itself will perform and demonstrate a research process, its strands and outcomes. The presentation will specifically address the issues arising from the collaborative practice of three practical scholars. Outcomes: - to illustrate the issues arising from current debates surrounding practice as research in performance, using as our starting point a research-driven performance we created and performed as Lusty Juventus in Athens in 2002 which was entitled M(other)1; - to theorise from this performance and the creative processes which informed its creation; - to expose and analyse artistic decisions made arising from the collaborative practice of a director, writer, and choreographer/dancer who chose to perform together. In this way the paper aims to revisit the practice in order to return to the moments where the processes of interactivity between the company members can be exposed and therefore observed and witnessed by a new audience; - to demonstrate to our audience the inter-relatedness and interdependency of knowledge and experience when articulating embodied performance theory and practice; - to express how the reflexive practitioner can develop new methodologies and practices through a multi-moded approach to researching performance practice and disseminating findings.This method can address the web of inter-relationships present in the actual making of the art object, in this case a physical theatre performance.
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