North West PARIP Meeting Back to Region-Based Working Groups Summary by Robin Nelson Stephen Joseph
Studio, University of Manchester 1. Convened by Barbara Kennedy and Robin Nelson, the meeting was attended by 22 people representing most HE institutions in the North West. Thanks are due to Viv Gardner and the Manchester Drama Department for facilitating the meeting (including an excellent selection of biscuits). Given sensitivities in defining as NW Region a group involving colleagues from Glasgow and Belfast as well as NW England, it was agreed to call the group the PARIP NW Forum. 2. The day event afforded the opportunity for some critical reflection on both PaR in the RAE and on PARIP thus far. Overall, however, the discussion was consciously forward-looking and very positive. We confirmed a need for a supportive local environment in which those colleagues interested in engaging in, and promoting, PaR could exchange ideas and practices. We agreed that:
3. Simon Macklin, tutor/researcher from Queensland University of Technology currently visiting lecturer at MMU Alsager, made a thought-provoking presentation outlining the arts educational context in Australia which distinguishes clearly between professional practice routes (BFA, MFA, DFA) and academic arts routes (BA, MA, PhD). Simons own Masters research addresses the kinds of knowledge involved in PaR and his thesis includes practice as a PaR chapter. Simon questioned whether we can create knowledge solely through a performance asking, where does the knowledge sit in a performed outcome? Professional practice, he posits, produces an aesthetic text; academic inquiry produces an academic text. Referring to insights into Mnouchkines research process, he distinguished an eight-hour outcome which was not aesthetically-pleasing from the two-hour professional performance text which was selected and shaped from the research material to be aesthetically pleasing. Stressing that, in his view, the point of knowledge is that other people can learn from it, he argued that we cannot document knowledge we cannot identify or which resides solely in the individual performer(s). Summing up the state of PaR as he sees it, Simon suggested that we understand the technicalities but not all the epistemologies or methodologies. We have not yet established a how we do it of PaR though we might, and should, proceed to do so. Simons presentation
stimulated an excellent debate with too many well-made points to be
summarised fully in these notes. By drawing clear benchmarks, Simon
invited us to engage with specific aspects of the PaR debate. A keynote
of response was that knowledge and understanding might be advanced in
a negotiation between spectator/reader and work/creator. The affectiveneeds
to be embraced in this context. Knowledge may be produced in dialogue
and it may be possible to rewrite the aesthetic to include
the processual. 4. Reflection on the place of PaR in the 2001 RAE and AHRB initiatives acknowledged that a significant advance in respect of inclusion of PaR work has been made. A number of points/ proposals were made, however, in the plenary session:
5. The meeting identified some questions about the functioning of PARIP which Robin Nelson undertook to put to the PARIP Management Group. |