The political promise of choreography in performance and/as research: First Physical Theatre Company’s manifesto and repertory, 1993-2015

Finestone-Praeg, Juanita

Title: The political promise of choreography in performance and/as research: First Physical Theatre Company’s manifesto and repertory, 1993-2015
Creator: Finestone-Praeg, Juanita
ThesisAdvisor: Gordon, Gary
ThesisAdvisor: Katrak, Ketu H
Subject: Choreography -- Political aspects
Subject: Dance -- South Africa -- Makhanda
Subject: Dance -- Political aspects
Subject: Performance art -- South Africa -- Makhanda
Subject: Performance art -- History and criticism
Subject: Performance art -- Research
Subject: Performance art -- Study and teaching
Subject: Performance art -- Philosophy
Subject: Experimental theater -- South Africa -- Makhanda
Subject: Experimental theater -- History and criticism
Subject: Political art -- South Africa -- Makhanda
Subject: First Physical Theatre Company
Subject: First Physical Theatre Company -- History and criticism
Date: 2020
Type: Thesis
Type: Doctoral
Type: PhD
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/149373
Identifier: vital:38844
Description: This study redefines the political in dance by drawing on the scholarly concept of the “choreopolitical” (André Lepecki) and extending it into analysing related concepts such as the “postdramatic” (Hans-Thies Lehmann), performance and/as research, among others from Performance Studies scholarship as well as from First Physical Theatre Company’s pioneering legacy of production, pedagogy and research in making Phyical Theatre performance. Following from the notion that performance is both a site and a method of study/knowing, the research invites a rethinking of the relationship between art (performance), epistemology and the political, in the sense that performance becomes a way, not of simply re-presenting the political but, as its own way of knowing, actively questioning the very categories on which the political is premised. The argument for Physical Theatre as having nascent potential to invoke what I call “the power of the small” is analysed as a choreopolitical method and community of practice that has a generative capacity to produce the “intimate revolts” (Julia Kristeva) or body of questions that can perform the imaginative curiosities/forms required to create provocative, subversive, ethical, reflexive and charged performance. My argument is supported by critical commentary, insight, choreological analysis and reflection on the dramaturgical strategies and choreopolitics of selected commissioned choreographers and dance forms that extended FPTC’s manifesto and production between 1993 and 2015. My project has the following three goals: (i) to contextualise, conceptualise and identify key issues in the identity, pedagogy and performance ethos of Physical Theatre as a performance philosophy and form; (ii) to engage critically with the praxis of Physical Theatre within the contextual, cultural, historical and political relationships between Physical Theatre and other performance practices in South Africa; and (iii) to document, analyse and interpret selected claims, works and performance processes from the archive of FPTC’s repertory and training manifesto from 1993 to 2015. The research evaluates the political significance and consequence of FPTC’s heritage and legacy problematising constraints, possibilities, tensions, failures and proposing the hope of imaginative entanglements with practising freedoms.
Format: 332 pages, pdf
Publisher: Rhodes University, Faculty of Humanities, Drama
Language: English
Rights: Finestone-Praeg, Juanita

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