Organiser: Deakin University (Melbourne, Australia)

Tittle: CASE STUDY: The Phoenix with Seven Tales: a collaborative trans/disciplinary performance in a community. (Co-presentation of paper (Emylia Safian)

Abstract
This participatory presentation will examine the processes in realising the performance of The Phoenix with Seven Tales through the themes of embodied practices and imagery at the intersections of theatre and art therapy processes.  Notions central to this collaborative trans/disciplinary practice are the sensory-kinesthetic and perceptual-affective qualitative and subjective dimensions of experiences in image and performance making.

 The nature of embodied images in art therapy (Schaverien, 1992) suggests that the eyes are not merely visual agents but also the conduit for contemplation.  The visual expression is in a symbiotic relationship with the body, further reinforced by Jullien’s (2018) position on the two different ways of looking.  Beneath the suggestion that one can either look with the eyes or to look through the eyes is the implication of two pathways towards cognition.   The latter, which leads to discoveries of inward significance, involves intimately looking at the existing borderlines between subjectivity and objectivity, and the process of exchange and interaction between self and the other. 

The notion of embodiment in performance making articulates that the body is the site of knowledge and meaning-making (Shusterman, 2012). It is through the body that we make sense of who we are and where we are, through which we embodied space, and share a lived-experience.

Looking through our eyes to view a collaborative community arts project, this participatory presentation will also offer a snapshot of the role sensations and emotions as embedded in our mindbody and inner life through a group image making process, expanding on ways through which art practices can shift the shared lived-experience in performances with a case vignette.

References:

Jullien, F. (2018). Living off landscape: Or the unthought-of in reason (P. Rodriguez, Trans.).  London: Rowman & Littlefield International.  (Original work published 2018).

Schaverien, J. (1992). The revealing image: Analytic art psychotherapy in theory and practice. London: Tavistock/Routledge.

Shusterman, R. (2012). Thinking through the body: Essays in somaesthetics. Cambridge University Press.