Networks of Practice in New Music Theatre

Project Information

NePraMusT

Grant agreement ID: 890975

DOI

10.3030/890975

Project terminated on 31 January 2024

EC signature date 24 March 2020

Start date 1 September 2022

End date 1 March 2025

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 224 933,76

EU contribution

€ 224 933,76

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITY OF HUDDERSFIELD
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NePraMusT (Networks of Practice in New Music Theatre)

Reporting period: 2022-09-01 to 2024-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

NePraMusT paved the way to the investigation of those art forms that converged in the making of European New Music Theatre in the 1960s and 1980s. By throwing light on the creative crosscurrents that forged new forms of performance at this time, NePraMusT has investigated the aesthetics and interdisciplinary approaches that have heavily shaped present-day creative practices.
Through a pragmatic encounter with the practices that conveyed in the making of experimental theatre and music-theatre, the research has evaluated their currency and actualised their role in current practices. In particular, the practice-based exploration of trainings adopted by practitioners belonging to these lineages of practice were probed field-tested through interdisciplinary laboratory work, probing the various articulations of voicework and actor-training.
Overall, the research led has evidently raised numerous questions about training and performance across disciplines, and proven the worth of practices otherwise neglected in art forms that were liminal to yet not immediately addressed by these practices. The practice-based work undertaken through interdisciplinary laboratory has designed an experimental test-field based on an ongoing dialogue with a network of artists and scholars. Ultimately, the research might disclose new horizons in the creation of new training curricula for musical actors and opera singers, to be more desirably fostered through institutional approval by broader musical studies.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The ER has carried foundational research to be unpacked and submitted for publication within the next year. In particular, the ER worked with her supervisor Dr Ben Spatz and members of the Centre for Experimental Practices (CXP), organising, undertaking and completing two main phases of training during which she has experimented with burgeoning methods for practice-based theatre laboratories. The method governing the studio work was Spatz’s Dynamic Configurations with Transversal Video (Spatz, 2020), which articulates alternative forms of interactions among practitioners in the laboratory space. The DCTV method subverts the conventional power dynamics expressed by the actor-training setting where a director oversees the actor’s improvisations and dictates the interactions among all agents involved and embraces the videographer’s work as an integral part of the laboratory. The videographer somehow “cuts” the lab work, in ways that are subjective and emanate directly from knowledge and impressions generated by the immediacy of practice. The audiovisual results of these practice-based explorations border documentary practice and creative production. The ER’s involvement with the applications of Spatz’s DCTV method to the embodied laboratory shared by creatives from different lineages (actors, singers, videographers) has marked for the first time the participation of an opera singer to this practice, hence providing a unique and privileged viewpoint on training, vocal practice and vocality overall.
The research carried over the two intensive laboratories was documented through videographic production and has become the source of a dissemination plan that is already unfolding.
Dissemination Plan:
Open Access Reports:
Completed: Online Report 1 [WP3.1]; The online report [https://www.francescaplacanica.com/nepramust-online-report-1-musical-notes-from-an-embodied-laboratory/] is an audiovisual testimony to the training undertaken at the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield, 27-28 November 2023. The output, bordering documentary and creative production, refers to training phase WP1.1; WP2.1.
Completed: Online Report 2 [WP3.2}; The online report [https://www.francescaplacanica.com/nepramust-online-report-2-creative-shared-spaces-a-multidisciplinary-residency/] is an audiovisual testimony to the residency undertaken at the Bidston Observatory Artistic Research Centre (BOARC) on 12-14 January 2024 . The output, bordering documentary and creative production, refers to training phase WP1.2; WP2.2.

Conferences:

Completed: a. 20-22 March 2024 Conference paper at Subject / Object / Practice / Place Connecting Creatively through the Performing Arts at University of Malta describes the training undertook at the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield, 27-28 November 2023. Title of Paper: Creative Shared Spaces: Turning the Music Room into a Laboratory. Paper delivered on March 20.
Completed: b. 23-24 May. Conference paper at The Theatrical Voice, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK, describes more in detail insights on voice in opera and music theatre as emerging through training. Title of Paper: Operatic in the flesh: notes from an audiovisual theatre laboratory. Paper accepted.
c. 28-30 June 2024. Conference Paper at SMI Plenary Conference, National University of Ireland Galway, Enjoying the journey: (musical) notes from an audiovisual embodied laboratory. Paper accepted.
Completed: Invited Talk
22 April 2024, Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz, Hochschule für Musik, Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Basel. Operatic in the flesh: (musical) notes from an audiovisual embodied laboratory. To be completed
23 April 2024, Public Screening and Talk, Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz, Colloquium48, Public Talk and Screening, Basel. Creative Shared Spaces: Navigating the Artistic Process through the audiovisual laboratory. To be completed.

Forthcoming Publications (in progress)

Peer-reviewed article 1 (in preparation): [Operatic in the flesh: notes from an audiovisual theatre laboratory]. (to be submitted to: Performers Training Journal or Journal of Voice Interdisciplinary Studies)
Peer-reviewed video article 2 (in preparation) [The audiovisual body in the making: Neither (I nor Not I) an opera-film] (to be submitted to Journal of Embodied Research)
Co-edited Peer-reviewed Journal Issue article 2 (“Voice and Technology”, Le nuove musiche, co-edited Prof Stefano Lombardi Vallauri, University of Milan, awaiting submissions from contributors); due in November 2024.
Encyclopaedic entry and Music and Acting in the 20th Century (Musica e Recitazione) (Treccani enciclopedia, Turin, Italy), ed. by Ernesto Assante (†) and Sandro Cappelletto.Submitted and under review
Monograph “Cathy Berberian nel teatro della voce” (under contract: Mimesis edizioni, Milan, due 2025) in preparation

Peer-reviewing:
Journal of Embodied Research 2022-
Chigiana, 2022-
Archival Notes, 2023-

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The insights developed through her embodied research has impacted the appraisal itself of the theatrical vs the operatic voice in performance, and this break-through could potentially open new developments in the creation of new curricular activities for conservatoires and musical academies that train musical actors and opera singers. Furthermore, the training undertaken has developed new awareness in the ER’s artistic practice, sedimented her knowledge of methods contemporaneous to avant-garde music theatre and expanded her knowledge of legacies deriving from the work of practitioners who took part in foundational creative processes leading to major music theatre and theatre productions. On a wider level, the interdisciplinary exchange has formulated an ongoing conversation across different networks and agents working on creative practice in various sectors, and envisages the application of such practices to disciplines fostering creative practice and somatics for therapeutic and wellness finalities.

nepramust-small.jpeg