Virtual Praxis: Conducting Performance Research in Virtual Theatres

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Resource Text: Chapter
Title Virtual Praxis: Conducting Performance Research in Virtual Theatres
Creator Contributors
Abstract/Description It is impossible to travel back in time and capture the essence of a lost performance, but a new performance research methodology using virtual reality technology is reducing this epistemological gap. It has emerged from the Visualising Lost Theatres (VLT) project, which is predicated on the assumption that embedded in every live event are the material condition of its venue, whether this is the audience/performer relationship, the culture of spectatorship, the visual spectacle, or the techniques used by performers. The virtual theatres created by VLT are versatile performance research laboratories. This chapter will report on a number of experiments conducted by scholars and artists working inside these laboratories to translate archival documentation into spatial, visual and embodied data. This work is challenging conventional interpretations of the archive because the process of translating historical documents into three dimensional animate or inanimate forms highlights hundreds of practical problems not addressed in the ephemeral traces of a lost performance. Three examples of this virtual praxis will be presented: the reconstruction of written descriptions of set designs using the stage machinery available in the performance venue; examining a lost culture of spectatorship by reproducing elements of audience response; and the reconstruction of moments from a lost performance by actors using the performance techniques attributed to the original cast.
Item URL
Publisher Springer Nature
Publisher Location Singapore
Volume Perf Arts: Research in the Age of Digital Revolution
Issue Digital Culture and Humanities (volume 4)
Page 39-54
Date Issued 12 August 2023
Language English
Citation Julie Holledge, Virtual Praxis: Conducting Performance Research in Virtual Theatres, Springer Nature, Singapore, Perf Arts: Research in the Age of Digital Revolution, Digital Culture and Humanities (volume 4), 12 August 2023, 39-54
Data Set AusStage
Resource Identifier 79180