News and Events

Perforum: Spring 2020 Mindful Embodiment Practice and the Creative Process

4 Feb 2020

Wed 12th February (6 – 7.45pm)

Deborah Middleton

Director of the Mindfulness and Performance Project at the University of Huddersfield, UK

‘Mindfulness for Performers: Embodied and Relational Practices’

Wed 12th February (6 – 7.45pm)

Deborah Middleton

Director of the Mindfulness and Performance Project at the University of Huddersfield, UK

‘Mindfulness for Performers: Embodied and Relational Practices’

In recent years, there has been growing popular and scientific interest in mindfulness, and in the ways mindfulness-based interventions can be applied in a wide range of contexts.  Some of the latest research opens up aspects of mindfulness training that are particularly pertinent to performers: the role of the body, and the notion of relational, or inter-personal, mindfulness. In this presentation, I will look at some of this research as a way to understand how performers can cultivate mindfulness through body-based and ensemble training.

 

https://pure.hud.ac.uk/en/persons/deborah-templeton

 

Wed 18th March (6 – 7.45pm)

Franc Chamberlain

Centre for Psychophysical Performance Research, Department of Music and Drama, University of Huddersfield, UK

‘Michael Chekhov: The Development of Technique’

Prior to the turn of the 21st century Michael Chekhov’s work was known primarily  through his out-of-print book To the Actor (1953) and through a handful of essays and recordings. Since 2000, however, there has been an explosion of interest in the work of Chekhov and I will discuss some of the elements that have led some to consider Chekhov Technique as a technique for the 21st century.

https://pure.hud.ac.uk/en/persons/franc-chamberlain

 

Wed 25th March (6 – 7.45pm)

Gaitkrash Theatre Company

Ireland

Presents a live performance of:

‘Cabinet of Curiosities’

Cabinets of curiosity, a phenomenon of the Renaissance, traditionally presented the rare, the exceptional and the marvelous, encompassing both ‘God’s creation’ and man’s art. With this 21st Century cabinet the curious is also revealed; however, the objects encountered here are continually mutating compositions: performed by hands in the mini-theatres of the cabinet, curious objects – animate and inanimate, organic and inorganic – shift, morph and mutate under the spectator’s gaze. The visual images wrestle, dance and pause in conversation with unique sound sculptures. No stories or narratives are offered – these are created in the mind of the spectator. This cabinet of sound and vision beckons the spectator to dream-time…

 

followed by Q and A

 

https://www.gaitkrash.com

 

Wed 1st April (6 – 7.45pm)

Maria Kapsali

School of Performance and Cultural Industries, University of Leeds, UK

‘Yoga Practice: Ways of Doing – Ways of Sharing’

 

Drawing on over 20 years’ experience in practising yoga within and beyond performance contexts, as well as extensive scholarly research on the subject, this presentation will share some of the ways in which yoga can support the development of creative praxis as well as the ways in which yoga practice can be enabled and disseminated through a range of media. The presentation will focus on two projects: the publication of a co-authored DVD/Booklet Yoga and Actor Training (Hulton and Kapsali, Routledge 2015); and a year-long task-based project on exploring yoga as a form of creative practice undertaken in collaboration with dance artist and yoga teacher Marie Hallager Andersen and delivered exclusively through a digital platform (Two Trainers Prepare). With reference to these two examples, the presentation will discuss a dialectic between presence and absence in terms of the practitioners’ embodiment, learning and collaboration, as well as present ways in which the predominant body/self-centred emphasis of contemporary yoga practice can extend to, enable and inform the practitioner’s relationship with the world.

https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/performance/staff/316/maria-kapsali

 

PERFORUM EVENTS ARE OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. ADMISSION IS FREE

Perforum Coordinator: Dr. Bernadette Cronin (b.cronin@ucc.ie)

Department of Theatre

Roinn na hAmharclannaíochta

Muskerry Villas, Western Road, Cork City T12 AW97

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