Recreation and Significant Others

: seeking post-work possibilities in contemporary choreography

Abstract

At the centre of this research is a performance, entitled Recreation. This performance features in this thesis both as a constituent element, where the reader is invited to review video documentation of one of the live iterations halfway through, and as the primary choreographic work under examination. In this study, Recreation is followed from early making through to final production, its processes and actions pulled through conceptions of work and two of its supposed opposites: life and recreation. In turn, these frames are complicated and problematised through the lived experience of the practice and its description in order to come to a thinking-through of recreation as a set of qualities that are produced through as well as in resistance to work.
These ideas are then extended into another form of practice, curation, which frames three works by other artists: LAURA LAURA DOUBLE PENETRATION by immigrants and animals; Assembly by Nicola Conibere; and Swarm Sculptures by Lucy Suggate. What these works share with Recreation is not only their location in the British independent dance scene but in that they each feature non-professional dancers. In the final chapter of this thesis these works are examined in order to think about how performances with this latter attribute, and the relationships established within them through work and non-work, can offer a way of thinking about professional dance and community dance as each other’s significant other.
As well as making an offering into contemporary discourses around choreographic practice, this research locates itself in vivid contemporary post-work thought. Employing an autoethnographic approach to artistic practice, the research makes use of political philosophy, mostly from contemporary post-work theory and its lineage, to explore the post-work potentials of contemporary choreography featuring non-professional performers.

Date of Award	19 Jun 2019
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Roehampton
Sponsors	TECHNE AHRC Doctoral Training Programme
Supervisor	Simon Bayly (Supervisor) & Sara Houston (Supervisor)