Participant observation of the rehearsal process: practical considerations and ethical dilemmas

Authors

  • Gay McAuley Royal Holloway University of London

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v7i2p10-26

Keywords:

Performance studies, rehearsal studies, participant observation, collaborative theatre, ethnography.

Abstract

The observation and analysis of rehearsal process as practised at the University of Sydney. Comparison with theatre genetics. Historical account of the development of the Sydney model based on collaboration with professional theatre artists. Goals of the research: enhanced appreciation of the mise-en-scène, insights into the processes of group creativity. Concepts and methodological approaches borrowed from ethnography applied to the study of rehearsal: field and fieldwork, participant observation/direct observation, group sociality, insiders and outsiders, paying attention to the words used, thick description. The article concludes with observations concerning creative agency in rehearsal practice and the nature of group creativity.

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Author Biography

  • Gay McAuley, Royal Holloway University of London
    Gay McAuley lectured on theatre and film in the French Department at the University of Sydney before joining with others to establish Performance Studies as an interdisciplinary centre in the University of Sydney in 1989. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, she worked in Sydney to establish modes of collaboration between academics and theatre practitioners for teaching and research purposes, and in the 1990s she pioneered the application of ethnographic methodologies to the study of rehearsal process. Her books Space in Performance (University of Michigan Press, 1999) and Not Magic But Work (Manchester University Press, 2012) both won ADSA’s Rob Jordan Prize in their respective years of publication. Since her retirement from teaching, in 2002, she has edited six issues of About Performance (2003 to 2010), convened an interdisciplinary research group and edited the collection of essays emerging from its work (Unstable Ground: Performance and the Politics of Place, Peter Lang, 2006), and undertaken several translation projects. She is currently living in London where she is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Drama and Theatre, Royal Holloway University of London.

References

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CRAMPHORN, R. Professional Stocktaking Document. 1985. In: MAXWELL, I. (ed.). A raffish experiment: the selected writings of Rex Cramphorn. Sydney: Currency Press, 2009. p. 291.

GEERTZ, C. Thick description: toward an interpretive theory of culture. In: ______. The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1973. p. 3-30.

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KNOWLES, R. Reading the material theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

MARSHALL, N. The producer and the play. London: Macdonald, 1957.

MCAULEY, G. Space in performance: making meaning in the theatre. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999.

MEAD, M. The art and technology of fieldwork. In: NAROLL, R.; COHEN, R. (ed.). A handbook of method in cultural anthropology. New York; London: Columbia University Press, 1973. p. 246-65.

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Published

2017-12-31

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 2 (2017): Metodologias de pesquisa no acompanhamento de processos cênicos

Section

Especial (Special)

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How to Cite

Participant observation of the rehearsal process: practical considerations and ethical dilemmas. (2017). Revista Aspas, 7(2), 10-26. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v7i2p10-26