Output details
35 - Music, Drama, Dance and Performing Arts
Queen Mary University of London
On Taking Care: Attention and Touch in Common Dance (2009-13)
Research Project Description
The project is an extended engagement with creative processes in, and in relation to, Rosemary Lee’s Common Dance (2009), and in particular, its use of attentive touch as a paradigm through which to articulate a politics and aesthetics of care. This is addressed in part through a critically reflexive scholarly practice involving publication and an ongoing dialogue with Lee. It includes contributions to a DVD documenting her creative practice, and the co-curation of an interdisciplinary symposium (including a keynote presentation) inviting responses from artists, academics and care professionals to the theme of ‘taking care’ expressed by and through the performance.
Research Imperatives
To explore, advance and emphasise the creative processes of attentive touch in Common Dance as paradigmatic of a politics and aesthetics of care.
To advance a model of scholarly interaction with processes of performance beyond the critique of their event.
To map the multiplicity of knowledges in a large-scale, intergenerational artwork.
Peer Assessment/Quality Indicators
Invitation by Lee to advise on dissemination of her practice to scholarly, professional and public audiences following the initial presentation of Common Dance (2009-13).
Commission by Donald Hutera, editor, of ‘Stretching Silence’ for Animated: The Community Dance Magazine (Spring 2010), pp.1-2, an article reflecting on Common Dance.
Research Outputs
‘Listening-as-Touch: Paying Attention to Rosemary Lee’s Common Dance’, Performance Research, 15.3 (2010), pp.47-54.
‘Rosemary Lee – Interview with Martin Welton’ in Caoimhe McAvinchey (ed.), Performance and Community: Commentary and Case Studies (London: Methuen, 2013), pp.141-154.
Keynote presentation for On Taking Care, a symposium co-curated with Lee at QMUL, 1 December 2012, involving artists and scholars across a range of disciplines.
On Taking Care DVD; adviser to Lee on editing, form and content. Also contains two to-camera interviews with Lee by Welton.
