'Stepping out' with Gargantua : learning new research practices in the educational theatre of absurdity

Access to new forms, conduct and practices of educational research remain elusive providing researchers stay within the narrow theoretical constructs-the static, single vista ofconventional research models. This dissertation presents the findings of an experimental study that aims to extend the discourse of educational research through a 'performative ethnographic analysis' by using a single-site case study approach. The case study is an analytical parody based on multiple discourse relevant to a 'new' and different approach to educational research so that a more comprehensive and complex process of reading and writing text becomes possible. Throughout this process, a generative methodology and interpretative base are anticipated to provide a metaphoric focus for a critical dialogue. The discourse informing the theoretical and interpretative base of the study include philosophy, science, visual arts, literary theory, critical postructuralist theory and theatre performance. The data are presented as a series of performance narratives in the form of socio-drama, interspersed with critical reflection that enables the researcher, the research participant and reader to become part ofa triadic construct. The findings from this study have major implications for informing contemporary educational research, as they demonstrate that by approaching research in 'new' and different ways, the researcher and the educational community have access to insights that are unavailable within the constraints of conventional models ofresearch.

The Idiosyncratic Body: Contemporary Clown Theory and Practice

Drawing on historical research, personal interviews, performance analysis, and my own embodied experience as a participant-observer in several clown workshops, I explore the diverse historical influences on clown theatre as it is conceived today. I then investigate how the concept of embodied knowledge is reflected in red-nose clown pedagogy. Finally, I argue that through shared embodied knowledge spectators are able to perceive and appreciate the humor of clown theatre in performance. I propose that clown theatre represents a reaction to the eroding personal connections prompted by the so-called information age, and that humor in clown theatre is a revealing index of socio-cultural values, attitudes, dispositions, and concerns.

How does ‘Newstainment’ actually work? : ethnographic research methods and contemporary popular news

Much debate has taken place recently over the potential for entertainment genres and unorthodox forms of news to provide legitimate – indeed democratized – in-roads into the public sphere. Amidst these discussions, however, little thought has been paid to the audiences for programs of this sort, and (even when viewers are considered) the research can too easily treat audiences in homogenous terms and therefore replicate the very dichotomies these television shows directly challenge. This paper is a critical reflection on an audience study into the Australian morning “newstainment” program Sunrise. After examining the show and exploring how it is ‘used’ as a news source, this paper will promote the use of ethnographic study to better conceptualize how citizens integrate and connect the increasingly fragmented and multifarious forms of postmodern political communication available in their everyday lives.

Being There

This 60 minute work looked to challenge traditional expectations of how dancers ‘perform’ and what it means when they are ‘themselves’ onstage. The audience was asked to sit in an ellipse on stage and the dancers were often performing quite close to them. While the audience didn’t move once the work began, the proximity to the dancers allowed them an unusual opportunity to see these dancers deconstructing their own profession and their own world of performance in an intimate environment. This was done for, and with the audience, and for some, it connected them deeply with the performers. For Georg Simmel, an early 20th Century sociologist, ‘the eye of a person discloses his own soul when he seeks to uncover that of another. What occurs in this direct mutual reciprocity is the entire field of human relationships.’ Performer authenticity, while utilised often in film and theatre, is not common in the form of dance. Because of our societal tendency toward the desire for authenticity, and its uncommon usage in dance, an inversion of this convention is one of the many tools that is available to choreographers to form deep connections with their audience and is one that is gaining popularity throughout the world as a form of connection via reality and the immediacy of live performance.

‘Beijing bling’: creative details and consumer choices in contemporary China : an interview with Hung Huang

This edited interview with Hung Huang, CEO of China Interactive Media Group (CIMG), was conducted by Lucy Montgomery in Beijing on 12 August 2005. It was done as part of the ARC Discovery research project, Internationalising Creative Industries: China, the WTO and the Knowledge Economy, led by John Hartley. That project is investigating the development of creative industries in China by focusing on a number of creative services including fashion magazines. Huang’s group publishes five fashion magazines in China, including i-Look, Youth International (Qingnian Yizu), which is the Chinese edition of Seventeen (originally founded by TV-Guide mogul Walter Annenberg), and the Beijing and Shanghai versions of London’s Time Out. It also produces TV programs under the same media brands. The company is based in the stylish Bauhaus-designed former factory 798-Space in the district of Dashanzi, Beijing (see www.798space.com). Huang went to school in Greenwich Village and graduated from Vassar College in New York. She is the daughter of Zhang Hanzhi, who was Mao Zedong’s personal English teacher, and stepdaughter of Qiao Guanhua, Foreign Minister of China during the 1970s at the time of the Nixon visit. Her book My Abnormal Life sold 200,000 copies in China.