Industrial Relations
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THEATRE & TEACHING STUDIES ACADEMY OF THE ARTS QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY PROCEEDINGS FROM THE 1999 QUT / AUSTRALASIAN DRAMA STUDIES ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS A conference exploring the links between theatre scholarship and professional theatre practice QUT 5th - 9th July, 1999 Industrial Relations Foreword These papers were presented at “Industrial Relations”, the Australasian Drama Studies Association conference hosted by Theatre & Teaching Studies in the Academy of the Arts, Queensland University of Technology, from the 5th to the 9th of July, 1999. Conference delegates included scholars and artists from across the tertiary education and professional theatre sectors, including, of course, many individuals who work across and between both those worlds. More than a hundred delegates from Australia, New Zealand, England, Belgium and Canada attended the week’s events, which included: Over sixty conference papers covering a variety of topics from project reports to academy/industry partnerships, theatre history, audience reception studies, health & safety, cultural policy, performance theory, theatre technology and more; Performances ranging from drama to dance, music and cabaret; Workshops, panel discussions, forums and interviews; Keynote addresses from Wesley Enoch, Josette Feral and Keith Johnstone; and A special “Links with Industry” day, which included the launch of ADSA’s “Links with Industry” brochure, an interview between Mark Radvan and David Williamson, and a panel session featuring Jules Holledge, Zane Trow, Katharine Brisbane, John Kotzas, Gay McAuley and David Watt. The proceedings are presented here in unedited form, with standardising only of textual format. An edited selection of some of these papers is currently being prepared for publication. Paul Makeham Conference Convenor Theatre & Teaching Studies, QUT 2 Industrial Relations TABLE OF CONTENTS PART ONE: KEYNOTE ADDRESSES Josette Feral ‘Culture versus Art: From Symbosis to a New Cultural Contract’ p.6 Wesley Enoch ‘With Quizzical Fingers Through the Flywire Door’: The Industry & The Academy p.21 David Williamson, interviewed by Mark Radvan: ‘Orthodoxy, Subversion, Transgression’ p.30 PART TWO: DELEGATES’ PAPERS Howard Bradfield Working Partners: A Discussion of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts Working Partnerships p.41 Vanessa Byrnes Constructing the Stuff that Dreams are Made on: Bi-Cultural Processes of Investigation and Training at Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School p.45 Christine Comans & Rod Wissler Brink Visual Theatre: A Case Study of Theatre Form and Drama Education p.51 Peter Copeman & Rod Wissler Towards an Industrially Responsive, Academically Rigorous Performance as Research Paradigm – The Centre for Innovation in the ‘After-China’ Project p.63 Sharon Cottrell Examination of a Journey from Ethno-Drama to Professional Standard Group Devised Theatre p.70 Michael Coe Making Theatre/Creating Possibilities: A Comparision of Practices Utilised in a Regional Theatre Company with Those in a University Environment p.76 Clay Djubal Selling Ourselves Short?: Reflections upon the Australian Commodity Musical p.81 Peter Eckersall Performing from the Academy: Theory and Revitalising Contemporary Japanese Theatre p.89 Lynn Everett From Paris with Love: The Lecoq Influence on George Ogilvie’s Directing p.97 Richard Fotheringham When a Girl from Community Arts Meets a Boy from Las Vegas Inc – Some Occupational Safety Issues in the Tetu Case p.103 3 Industrial Relations Mike Foster All the World’s a Research Stage and all the Men and Women Practitioners Merely Paradigms of Reflexive Discourse p.107 Peter Hammond Career Trajectories: Launching Theatre Trainees from Tasmania p.115 Barbara Joseph Careering into Comedy: The Role of Industry in the Development of a Performance Career p.121 Debra MacAuslane The Ethical Police…Classifying Artistic Practice Under Human Experimentation p.129 Jacqueline Martin The Academy as Seeding Ground for Performance as Research p.136 Ian Maxwell Towards a Reflexive Sociology of Theatre Production p.145 Gay McAuley The Actor and the Specator in Contemporary Theatre Practice p.155 Robyn McCarron Regional Performing Arts Centres and Community Productions: The Amateur/Professional Nexus at the Bunbury Regional Entertainment Centre p.162 Andrew McNamara Ruins and Vestiges p.169 Paul Monaghan Managerialism Meets Dionysos: Theatre and Civic Order p.174 Mark Radvan Dialoguing the Bodies p.183 Meredith Rogers Design for a Found Space – Twice p.197 Rebecca Scollen Understanding New Audiences: An Audience Reception Study of ‘Non-Theatre Goers’ Attending La Boite Theatre Company’s 1998 Season p.203 Christine Sinclair Playing to Learn: Developing Reflective Practice in Emerging Artists a University-Industry Partnership p.216 Barbara-Rose Townsend Death Defying Theatrical Practice Staying Alive and Funded p.228 Stuart Young Threatening Theory?: Two Tribes p.235 4 Industrial Relations PART ONE KEYNOTE ADDRESSES 5 Industrial Relations 6 Industrial Relations CULTURE VERSUS ART: FROM SYMBIOSIS TO A NEW CULTURAL CONTRACT By Josette Feral JOSETTE FERAL is full Professor at the Drama Department of the Université du Québec à Montréal. She is currently President of the International Federation for Theatre Research, and is on the editorial boards of several international journals. She has published a number of books, including 'Mise en scène et jeu de l'acteur' (1997/98), 'Rencontres avec Ariane Mnouchkine' (1995) and 'La culture contre l'art: essai d'économie politique du théâtre' (1990). She has also published articles on the theory of theatre in Canada, the United States and Europe, mostly in Cahiers de Théâtre Jeu, SubStance, Théâtre Public, The Drama Review, Modern Drama, The French Review, Discourse, Theaterschrift and Poétique. * * * I am afraid that my contribution may suffer from a certain fragmentation, that same extreme fragmentation which is precisely that of today's theatre and which constitutes one of its major problems. Moreover, the topics of this colloquium are so far-reaching and deal with so many interrelated fields that it would have been difficult for me to narrow down my presentation to one single field of studies, that is to say, examine either the connection between culture and society, or the relationship between theory and practice. In order not to sacrifice any aspect, I have therefore chosen to draw parallels between both issues. My aim is to demonstrate that the evolution of theatre, within its relationship to the public and to society, can be compared with the evolution of theoretical research on theatre. Given the scope of this object of study, my approach can only offer but a brief overview, but I hope that it will open some new perspectives, thus allowing us to envision the relationship between scholars and professionals in a different way, provided this relationship is of an industrial nature which we will have to redefine. Theatre and Society: from Symbiosis to Cultural Contract 1. Theatre, culture and society Today, Culture (with a capital "C") has become Western societies’ last refuge for their fading identities. Such is the case in Quebec as in many other countries in the world and I would think that Australia is probably no different. Much conceptual soul-searching and political energy is being devoted in many countries to anxious questionings in the face of globalization and the development of a world market that seems to turn anything and everything into a commodity. Hence the fierce battles that are raging in Europe and even North America over the contested notion of "cultural exception". As traditional nationhood feels increasingly threatened, the notion of "Culture" becomes invested with greater signification. It is thus not entirely surprising that Theatre has eventually become a nation’s ultimate cultural expression, or at least the most visible cultural asset a country can offer beyond the traditional monuments which constitute its conventional patrimony. At the same time, Theatre is paradoxically becoming more transcultural, or multicultural, a seeming inconsistency which is certainly noteworthy. 7 Industrial Relations Today's states and governments of all kinds (national, regional, local) seem particularly eager to proclaim their public support of the arts in general and of theatre in particular, while theatre schools are becoming increasingly popular and theatre programs are burgeoning within academia. Can the more or less "natural" development of civil society alone be accounted for such cultural fervor? Is it merely the logical consequence of increased prosperity? Does it perhaps, on the contrary, express some wild collective flight from reality, or is it one of the characteristics of our cultural bubble, which, along with our financial bubble, might very well burst at some point? Whatever the answer - and we will attempt to provide one as we go further into this discussion - it appears quite clearly that Theatre is part and parcel of a tremendously intricate plot which involves historical, political and economic factors that reach much beyond the range of purely aesthetic or institutional debates. "Industrial relationships" there are indeed, but tied up in a network of many types of other relationships. Let's try to outline some of them, if only sketchily. Today's Theatre exists within the confines of a complex structure that can best be described, for the sake of the present discussion, as a political triangle which encompasses "industry" (the