Center for Women’s Studies, JNU
Invites you to a Talk on
Performance as Research as a Decolonial Practice: Towards an Eros an Ethics of Embodied Practice
by
Manola Gayatri
(Dr. Manola K. Gayatri currently teaches at the Centre for Development Practice at Ambedkar University Delhi and convenes the International Federation of Theatre Research’s Performance as Research Working Group)
Venue: Room 324, School of Social Sciences I, JNU
Date: 16 April 2019
Time: 3:00 pm
What is the role of creative practice in research? When does a theatre performance become one half of a thesis? What are our considerations as we continue to address knowledges hierarchies in decolonial contexts? What could the South African sangoma have in common with Manipuri thespian Hesinam Sabitri? Is it possible to define the role of intuition in our research? What is the space between impulses of eros and the discursive clarity required to evolve ethical relationalities? How do you share co-authorship with a tree? What could Rasa theory tell us of breath’s relationship to a Shakespearean text? What dreams does the Muscle Jew have by an old South African monument? Can discovering composition with medieval Kannada poetry offer a new way to consider the frameworks we use in our research? What is the value in the camera becoming the researcher’s pen?
This talks introduces Performance as Research as it emerged as a methodology and episteme in academia from its conceptual stance to the practices of its incorporation into research degrees and offers insight into some of the rich transdisciplinary political potential and fluid creative power of this work. In doing this, it gestures towards an eros and ethics of embodied practice through a consideration of the possibilities of performance as research as a decolonial tool. It opens up these considerations for contemporary researchers navigating their work amidst a multiplicity of methods, perspectives and sites, welcoming a transdisciplinary conversation with interlocutors from Development Practice, Women Studies and the others.