Memoirs, Essays and Ceremonies

Abstract

This thesis is a personal reflection on the work that I made over the period of my studies at DAMU September 2017 – January 2019. It focuses on four works created by its author over four semesters. The Potato Piece, Eulogy, Before The Ceremony and The Ceremony. These works have been created in response to the question of how it might be possible to use the artist’s personal experience to create performance that engages in an experiential and intimate way with its audience. It tracks the author’s theatre-making practice over these four works as it develops from staging simple compositions with objects to exploring new forms of participatory performance that seek to find new intimacy and cross borders in the audience-performer relationship. Through a detailed description and reflection of The Potato Piece, Eulogy, Before The Ceremony and The Ceremony this thesis invites the reader to enter into the world of that process and to reflect on how each of these projects act as a stepping stone toward a more expanded practice of ‘directing’. The final chapters of the thesis look at how this work with objects (relating to things) can translate into a way of approaching working with personal material (relating to the self) and creating experience as performance by crossing the border of the audience/performer relationship (relating to others).