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PARIP 2003

NATIONAL CONFERENCE: 11-14 September

CONTRIBUTORS

TAYLOR: LIB
department of film, theatre and television
university of reading
don’s diary: the research process and the epistemology of practice as research

In any one day, I as a director might do many things. I might consider the load-bearing capacity of suspending wire, research the translations of Homer, workshop expressionist movement, or discuss musical motifs. These everyday activities raise theoretical and institutional questions about the legitimation of designing, staging and evaluating performance as research. In this paper, I examine one diary entry in the life of an academic doing practice as research, then analyse its methodologies and epistemologies. Quotidian problems and activities shift their epistemological status in the practice as research agenda, which depends on translations from one episteme to another. ‘Ordinary’ theatrical activities are re-sited by academic knowledges, and reconceptualised. Reconceptualisation can be indicated within practice by foregrounding processes of production that are transformed into bearers of critical ideas. The Don’s Diary is an intervening discourse between practice and written reflection: it highlights ‘ordinary’ activity and juxtaposes this with research questions. Since the epistemologies and knowledges of practice as research are in themselves differentiated, with different claims to legitimacy, we must develop a discourse that reflects this. My Don’s Diary is not publishable, but it is a foundation for reconceptualising quotidian theatre making, and an object where ideas and practices are ‘translated’ into reflective writing.

Lib Taylor is Head of Film, Theatre & Television at the University of Reading. She researches in the theory and practice in contemporary women’s theatre; identity, the body and performance; aspects of British Theatre. Her edited book Indeterminate Bodies has just been published by Palgrave.

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