Please join us for the next PEP Talk, the seminar series of the Performance.Experience.Presence research group at Plymouth University.
Wednesday 2nd November 2016, 4.30 – 6.00pm
Roland Levinsky Building room 207, Plymouth University
This session features the following two papers, one by Adam Benjamin and one by Abigail Jackson. Adam is a Lecturer in Theatre & Performance and Abigail is an AHRC-funded 3D3 PhD candidate in the Transtechnology Research Group, both at Plymouth University.
Pulling back from being together: An ethnographic consideration of dance, digital technology and hikikomori in Japan and the UK
‘Access’ etymologically reminds of ‘that which approaches’. The radical shifts in lifestyle heralded by the digital age and the ubiquity of tablet technology signals new fields of engagement that we are all moving toward in new and often exciting ways. Access however may not always be beneficial, and unquestioned access may pose threats to our ability to communicate. This paper looks at the use of technology and raises issues about how we might use dance to sustain the fundamental human qualities that bind us together socially and culturally. As the anthropologist Paul Stoller suggests, we are never just working with the other, the other is constantly working on and with us. My experience and recent work in Japan has emphasized elements of access that will, I believe, increasingly shape the role that dance might play, both in Japan and beyond.
Collaboration through movement and touch
My practice-as-research PhD project draws on movement techniques and research within childhood studies, to consider the role of the arts within education for children on the autistic spectrum. For some, my practice is mainly performative, for others therapeutic, and to some people I am “just dancing with kids.” By considering how these different aspects can be discussed and framed theoretically, in this seminar I raise questions around my roles as researcher, facilitator and participant and their implications for the written element of my PhD. Because my project crosses arts and social science disciplines, I am faced with a multitude of decisions about how I position practice in writing, especially as I try to articulate it as a collaboration through movement and touch.
The PEP Talks organising team is Chris Green, Teri Bailie, James Harper, Katheryn Owens & Beth Emily Richards
Twitter: @PlymUniPEP