Output details
35 - Music, Drama, Dance and Performing Arts
University of Manchester : B - Drama
Portfolio title: Reflecting on environmental change through site-based performance
This portfolio documents a performance-based research project which has sought to explore existing and potential uses of site-specific performance practice in addressing questions of environmental change (including climate change). Although site-based work is inherently concerned with the environment in which it occurs, it has rarely been used to address “environmental” or ecological concerns per se. To what extent, and in what ways, can this conjunction of form and content prove instructive and productive? The project has had two major stages to date:
(1) an AHRC-funded network initiative (2010-11; Bottoms PI) which drew together academics and artists at four contrasting sites (in Yorkshire, West of Scotland, London, Bristol) to debate the research questions and experiment with applications. Outcomes include: project website, including audio, video, textual and photographic documentation of related practice-as-research; themed editions of the journals Performance Research and RiDE; essay for WIREs Climate Change journal).
(2) AHRC-funded follow-on project (2012-13; Bottoms PI) in which the network’s deliberations were applied to a larger-scale practice-as-research initiative with interdisciplinary and interprofessional partners. In collaboration with Environment Agency flood management professionals, two case study areas were identified (Shipley, Bradford; Eastville, Bristol). Community-based projects were developed to explore and site-specifically dramatise residents’ relationships with their local rivers and their awareness of environmental change and risk factors. Playing a consulting role in Bristol, Bottoms took primary responsibility for the Shipley case study—researching and devising mobile performance routes, writing scripts based on interview research, developing relationships with relevant stakeholders, etc. Outcomes include: public performances (including additional, schools-based piece commissioned by Bradford Council), short films, project websites documenting process and outcomes.
Written critical reflections will appear in future journal articles, but this portfolio presents full documentation of research process and PaR outcomes. Full listing of contents, with associated timeline, is included inside the portfolio box.
