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-
