Supervisors: Vida L. Midgelow, T. Nikki Cesare Schotzko, Bina John
Department: Drama
Keywords: Artistic Research; Critical Pedagogy; Music Theatre; Opera; Performing Arts; Transdisciplinary
Issue Date: Nov-2023
Abstract: Higher education and professional practice in the performing arts co-exist in a mutually constitutive relationship. Just as complementary and supplementary dynamics are evident in the current status quo of pedagogy and practice, so too must their interdependence be embraced to rectify the persisting lack of support for transdisciplinarity in the performing arts. Situated within the field of artistic research, this thesis employs a wide array of empirical, phenomenological, and creative methods in order to demonstrate how to improve learning and performing conditions. Contemporary contexts in opera and music theatre increasingly require performers to exhibit a wide variety of technical and collaborative capacities; often, they are expected to do this while simultaneously exhibiting their unique talents as creative artists. However, even though one could say that the ideological core of opera and music theatre is built upon integrating the arts, current training programmes rarely prioritize disciplinary integration in their curricula. Such circumstances reveal wider problems in formal performing arts training that often leaves essential skills in openness, responsiveness, adaptability, collaboration, improvisation, decision making, and integration untapped and/or uncultivated. This thesis, therefore, proposes a drastic overhaul of performing arts training via a ‘counter-critical pedagogy’. This approach to learning prioritizes the acquisition and maintenance of agency and nurtures individuals’ well-being and artistry through a holistic and integrative approach. A transdisciplinary counter-critical pedagogy repositions key concepts in opera studies, critical theory, critical pedagogy, and performing arts training in more active and processual terms. It thereby promotes a dynamic approach to learning that is fully contextualized and situated, embraces greater complexity and intersectional approaches, and requires a holistic and ongoing process of reflection and critique.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1807/130381
KEVIN SKELTON 