Monthly Archives: March 2014

Arts on Wednesday, Wellington campus, on April 9th will be full of Improv!

Members of the Wellington Improvisation troupe including from left Darryn Woods, Belle Harrison, Christine Brooks, Ryan Hartigan and Peter Dorn

Improv show more than just quick laughs

Theatre and comedy act the Wellington Improvisation Troupe headline a free lunchtime show at Massey University’s Wellington campus on April 9 aimed at not just gaining some audience laughs but demonstrating the art of quick thinking too. Members of the public are welcome to see the one-off performance invented on the spot from audience suggestions.

The show, in Massey Wellington’s Theatre Laboratory, is part of the Arts on Wednesday series hosted by the School of English and Media Studies, which brings free performances and artists onto campus on Wednesday lunchtimes.

Organiser, Associate Professor Elspeth Tilley, says Massey’s Bachelor of Communication students are also gaining skills from seeing such theatrical techniques acted out on stage.

“Decisiveness and nimble thinking are particularly crucial skills in today’s fast-moving media and business worlds, which is why our Bachelor of Communication students are learning theatrical improvisation alongside more traditional business communication skills.”

“We are delighted that Wellington Improvisation Troupe has agreed to give a live demonstration of where the students’ work on spontaneity, storytelling and public performance can take them.

“WIT is a world-class improvisation group, and as well as being a lot of fun, their shows embody the kind of rapid problem-solving skills that business leaders are telling us they want in graduates – the ability to think on their feet,” she says.

The series aims to expose students to a diverse range of arts and artists to spark their creativity.

“Students often genuinely can’t afford to see a lot of shows. We know the value of seeing and hearing a wide range of artists to the development of their aesthetic understanding, so Massey works with both established and emerging artists to bring short free shows onto campus whenever we can,” Dr Tilley says.

“The public are also most welcome to join us for all Arts on Wednesday shows.”

Jenny Lawn’s take on the golden age of NZ crime fiction

Bloody, funny – the golden age of NZ crime fiction

Dr Jenny Lawn, from Massey University’s School of English and Media Studies.

Blood-soaked with a vein of humour. These are the distinctive features of home grown crime fiction, which has soared in popularity over the past two decades, says an academic who’s read most of it.

In fact the past 20 years have been dubbed ‘the golden age of Kiwi crime fiction’ by Massey University New Zealand literature expert, Dr Jenny Lawn, who has just penned a chapter on recent trends for a forthcoming edition of the Oxford History of the Novel (Oxford University Press).

Having ploughed through over 40 blood-drenched, sinister-themed books by 20 authors, she is struck by the “sheer proliferation” of crime fiction here.

Before Paul Thomas, who started to publish in the 1990s, our main crime detective writer was Ngaio Marsh. “Nobody came close to equalling Ngaio Marsh in terms of success except for [the late] Laurie Mantell,” says Dr Lawn, who teaches New Zealand literature and media studies papers at Massey’s Auckland campus.

Mantell, who worked as an accountant in Lower Hutt and died aged 93 in 2010, wrote five detective novels in the late 1970s and early 1980s all set in and around Wellington, and had an international following. Marsh, on the other hand, was an anglophile who set the majority of her 32 novels in Britain.

Paul Cleave, New Zealand’s most internationally acclaimed crime writer since Ngaio Marsh, has an international following in France and the United States. His first book The Cleaner (2006) has sold over a quarter of a million copies.

“All of Cleave’s seven novels are set in his home city of Christchurch, which breeds evil as refuse breeds flies: the picturesque Avon River is a cesspit of urine, weed, and used condoms; the Port Hills are regularly cordoned off where ‘some poor kid is being peeled off the asphalt’ (The Killing Hour),” she writes.

For a blood-spattered, high body count, you can’t beat Cleave’s 2010 grisly thriller Blood Men, says Lawn. So it’s no surprise he has apparently had people come up to him at overseas literary festivals saying they won’t be visiting New Zealand after reading his books, she says. Crime fiction, by the likes of Ben Sanders and Chad Taylor, is typically set in urban environments; “often in the seedy part of town, also linking the wrong side of tracks to the right side of tracks,” she says.

“You have the salubrious leafy suburbs or corporate downtown mirrored sky scraper feeding off, or trafficking into, the down and out suburbs. You have the social ecology of crime in these novels.”

Character in New Zealand crime fiction is efficiently sketched, says Lawn, sometimes through wise-cracking one-liners, like the portrayal of Bryce Spurdle in Paul Thomas’ Inside Dope; “watching [him] eat was like watching a paisley shirt in a tumble dryer.”

Kiwi crime authors freely extend conventional genres, creating hybrids by grafting detective elements onto romance, historical and domestic fiction. Unlike the 1930s and 40s American hard-boiled, loner detective, the New Zealand detective is “typically self-deprecating or self-doubting” and more likely to work in a team.

Largely missing is the figure of the femme fatale of early American crime novels. Instead, the amateur female sleuth is out in force in many a Kiwi crime book, her presence rendering the femme fatale irrelevant, Dr Lawn says.

When it comes to murder weapons, Kiwi authors are distinctively quirky. “Guns are generally shunned in favour of more improvised methods of disabling the criminal, such as a frying pan, spade, bronze horse sculpture, can of aerosol fly spray, or strategically-inserted wireless telephone aerial,” she notes.

Does she think this murderous literary trend offers any insights into our national psyche?

It might reflect a growing distrust of police by some, she suggests. “Many crime novels now have a corrupt current or former police officer as one of its investigators. It’s become part of the genre to have a compromised investigator teaming up with a straight or protocol-obeying member”.

“One of points of genre fiction is that you are writing for a market, so you’re thinking about what out there is of interest to people. It’s writing for the market rather than ‘how do I want to express myself?’”

“When writing for a market you are probably tapping into existing social desires, picking up on a vibe. It’s often said that genre fiction is a better index of popular interests and desires than the more elite, high-brow novels”.

Dr Lawn’s article also gives an update on the genres of sci-fi and political dystopia, and notes the emergence of newer literary species such as paranormal romance, steampunk, and eco-dystopia.

These are all hopeful signs at a time of retrenchment and general gloom in the publishing industry, she says, with e-book, self-publishing and fan sites supporting new niche genres and the “plurality of voices, identities, genres, and audiences” they cater to both locally and globally.

Academy puts spotlight on humanities research
Sex worker story to prize-winning play
Ihimaera winner in Māori book awards at Massey
‘Bookcrossing’ spreads word on learners with differences

Media Students Excel

Norman Zafra’s documentary ‘A Friend in Sight’ has been selected for competition and screening in the Documentary Edge Film Festival (Auckland and Wellington, May-June).

Norman made the documentary for Radha O’Meara’s paper Media Practice and Global Culture in 2013.

Virginia O’Connor is one of four women who have made a mockumentary webisode series ‘Capital Culture’, which was profiled in the Dom Post:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/local-papers/the-wellingtonian/9874108/Webisodes-capture-Capitals-creative-life

Virginia was a writer and key creator of the series, and she plays the role of Frankie, who features especially in episode 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXP3aehMeCk&feature=share&list=UUdu45nVrAocOd8AqP5VkMMQ&index=5

Virginia has completed several papers in Expressive Arts, including Radha O’Meara’s Media Script Writing and Documentary papers, and Emma Willis’s theatre papers.

Writers Week partners with the School of English and Media Studies

School of English and Media Studies Partners with the New Zealand Festival of the Arts

The School of English and Media Studies 2014 Writers Read series kicked off in style last week with a partnership with the New Zealand Festival of the Arts Writers Week. Massey partnered with Writers Week to host New Zealand events in Wellington and Palmerston North for world-renowned Indian-born Canadian novelist, Jaspreet Singh. School lecturer, Stuart Hoar, also launched his new play, PASEFIKA, at Circa Theatre as part of the wider festival, and two new novels by School tutors were launched at Writers Week, Tina Makereti’s Where the Rēkohu Bone Sings and Mary McCallum’s Dappled Annie and the Tigrish

Massey’s School of English and Media Studies 2014 Writers Read series kicked off in style last week with a partnership with the New Zealand Festival of the Arts Writers Week. Massey partnered with Writers Week to host New Zealand events for world-renowned Indian-born Canadian novelist, Jaspreet Singh. In Wellington Jaspreet joined Senior Lecturer, Dr Ingrid Horrocks, in conversation about his latest novel, Helium. The novel sifts through the anti-Sikh pogroms that took place in India in 1984 and “teases out the complicated intersection of family, love, politics, and hate” (Publishers Weekly). The event was held at the Embassy Theatre and attracted a large, attentive audience. The School also brought Jaspreet to Palmerston North, where he spoke at the Palmerston North City Library on Friday night, also as part of our Writers Read series.

The School’s own media script writing lecturer, Stuart Hoar, was also a featured guest at Writers Week, and followed this by opening the Wellington end of our Arts on Wednesdays events in Wellington, now in their third year. Stuart talked about his new play, PASEFIKA, playing at Circa Theatre as part of the wider New Zealand Festival of the Arts.

Two of our current teaching staff also launched and celebrated new books during Writers Week: Dr Tina Makereti’s launched her first novel, Where the Rēkohu Bone Sings and Mary McCallum her first novel for children, Dappled Annie and the Tigrish. Tina and Mary have both been working for the School of English and Media studies for many years, and have contributed to our fiction and life writing papers. Our in-coming Artist-in-Residence, Alice Miller, also a former Massey tutor, launched her first collection of poetry, The Limits.

In other Massey involvement with the 2014 Writers Week in Wellington city, Dr Horrocks hosted an edgy event on Jane Austen with Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities at Stanford, Terry Castle, once described by Susan Sontag as “the most expressive, most enlightening literary critic at large today”; while Professor Peter Lineham, of the School of Humanities, convened a conversation with Diarmaid MacCulloch, one of Britain’s most distinguished living historians and Professor of History of the Church at the University of Oxford.

Congratulations to all involved!

writers week ems

Where the Rekohu Bone Sings by Tina Makereti

Tina Makereti, BA and Masters at Massey, has lectured and tutored for Massey for a number of years. Her first novel ‘Where the Rekohu Bone Sings’ was launched with Random.

http://www.unitybooks.co.nz/counterculture/launch-update-where-the-rekohu-bone-sings-by-tina-makereti/

f Tina reading at the launch!

“Hemi’s Way” by TJ Hoekstra is recognised by the 2013 Pikihuia Awards

The School of English and Media Studies is proud to announce that former creative writing student TJ Hoekstra (nee Corrigan) has had her story ‘Hemi’s Way’ recognised by the 2013 Pikihuia Awards and published in Huia Short Stories 10. Please visit the Huia Publiishers page for more information: https://www.huia.co.nz/shop&item_id=5226

NUTS NZ. Issue #1. March 2014

Editorial

Welcome to the inaugural edition of NUTS NZ – the Newsletter for University Theatre Studies New Zealand.The purpose of the newsletter is to help us communicate more effectively as a community of scholars interested in Theatre and Performance. We hope this initiative will insure we are better able to support each other, collaborate together, and present a more united front in terms of important issues facing our discipline area in NZ. To insure we stay connected, NUTS NZ will provide updates on current research, seminars, events, and initiatives. Each newsletter issue will comprise stories, pictures, news items and potentially short interviews. NUTS NZ will focus specifically on theatre initiatives in New Zealand/Aotearoa. We will also have a segment in each newsletter in which we profile an academic AND a postgraduate student. This is a great opportunity to stay connected with “our” people and keep abreast of what one another are doing. In our first edition, we are pleased to be profiling Dr Laura Haughey and masters’ student Mihailo Ladjevac. In order to bring you the best updates in our area, we will be calling for submissions from each and every one of you. Thank you to all of you who have provided material for this edition and we look forward to working with you throughout the year to ensure this new initiative is a success.

NUTS NZ editors: Jane Marshall and Rand Hazou.

Below is a reminder of when our next issues will be “published” and the dates by which all relevant information is required.

Submissions for the following editions should be sent to the NUTS NZ editor Jane Marshall: j.g.marshall@massey.ac.nz

Newsletter Issue	Information Required by	Date of Circulation
Issue 2	30 April 2014	16 May 2014
Issue 3	31 July 2014	15 August 2014
Issue 4	31 October 2014	30 November 2014

NUTS People

In each edition of NUTS NZ we will be profiling an academic and a post graduate student to show case “our people” and their current research/interests. It is our pleasure to be profiling Dr Laura Haughey – who is new to the University of Waikato – and Waikato post graduate student Mihailo Ladjevac in our first issue of NUTS NZ. As part of the profile, NUTS NZ asked each of them to answer the following questions: “What is your research about,” “What theatre/performances have you seen recently,” and “What have you been reading lately?”

Dr. Laura Haughey – University of Waikato.

Laura trained as a physiotherapist who practised part time whilst touring and performing with a dance theatre company around the UK and Europe. She then undertook her MA in Physical Ensemble Theatre at the University of Huddersfield, where she went on to complete her PhD in ‘Practical Proprioception: An Examination of a Core Physiological Foundation for Physical Performance Training.’ Laura has worked professionally as a movement director, actor trainer, theatre director and workshop practitioner across the UK and in Europe and has taught at the University of Huddersfield, Edge Hill University and the University of Glamorgan.

Research: psychophysical actor training, physical theatre, neuroscience and inclusive theatre practice.
Theatre: The last theatre show I saw was Theatre AdInfinitum’s ‘Translunar Paradise’, a beautiful and delicately precise physical performance about bereavement, told entirely without words. It was an incredibly moving piece of theatre, and has toured internationally.
Reading: I am currently immersed in Antonio Damasio’s ‘The Feeling Of What Happens: body, emotion and the making of consciousness’, as I develop my research into areas of neuroscience.

Mihailo Ladjevac – University of Waikato (Postgraduate Student)

Mihailo Ladjevac is from Serbia Europe and has a Diploma in Acting from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. He plays flute, piano, saxophone and speaks three languages; and has acted in television, film and TVCs. Since 2001Mihailo has been a full time actor with the National Theatre of Belgrade, in such productions as Don Quixote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Scenes from an Execution, Homebody/Kabul, The Glass Menagerie, Romeo and Juliet, Love’s Labour Lost, The Public Enemy, Ivanov, The Seagull, The Wedding, The Idiot, and Tartuffe. Mihailo’s awards include several Best Actor awards between 2005 and 2012.

Research: For my research, I’ve picked a topic related to the biography and teaching method of Professor Bejcetic – my Acting lecturer. I believe his approach to students of acting is somewhat unique and universal. No matter where they come from, and what language they speak, I feel that Professor Bejcetic’s teaching technique brings the core of acting to the surface of every future actor; and I wanted to share this, for me, remarkable experience with people around me.
Theatre: In the past six months I’ve seen a few performances, but I would like to highlight two. The most exciting to me was the New York Broadway musical Wicked at the Civic Theatre in Auckland and The History Boys, directed by Prof. Gaye Poole, at the Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts at the University of Waikato in Hamilton.
Reading: At the moment, all my attention has been focused on the biographies of Chekhov, Eugenio Barba and Konstantin Sergeievich Stanislavski.

Performances

As part of each issue, NUTS NZ will give readers a “heads up” of the performances that are being produced throughout the year. There are some exciting performances being produced over the next few months across the campuses. Here is the line up from Massey and the University of Auckland:

The BITSA Performance Season:

Massey University Theatre Society (MUTS) will be presenting a double-bill of two student plays as part of the BITSA performance season. Aspiring Albany student playwrights were invited to enter the inaugural playwriting competition last year. Named the Bitsas, the competition involves “Bits-A-Writing, Bits-A-Performing”. The two winning entries will be presented as part of a short season from Wednesday 19 to Friday 21st of March. The performances will be presented in the Theatre Lab at the Massey Albany campus. Doors open at 8pm. Entry is by Koha/Donation. For more information or to book tickets please email: masseyunimuts@gmail.com

‘Between the Cracks’ by Kate Davis. Set on Auckland K’Rd, Between the Cracks is a play about an unlikely friendship between a sex worker and a middle-class woman. Written by Kate Davis, Massey student and former sex industry worker and regional coordinator in Auckland for the New Zealand Prostitutes’ Collective, the play provides an insider’s perspective to demystify the world of sex workers, and their diverse personalities, sexual identities and life stories. For more information click here.
‘Lines of Literature’ by Georgina Forrester. Lines of Literature is about a group of middle-aged Auckland woman who meet as part of book group. Written by Massey student Georgina Forrester, the play explores the lines between fiction and reality and how the women seem more invested in the ‘fiction’ of the romantic novels they read rather than in the ‘reality’ of their real lives, marriages, and businesses that seem to be crumbling around them.

University of Auckland Drama 2014 Productions:

That’s the Story, Morning Glory and Mockingbird. Thurs-Sun, 9, 10, 11, 12 October, in the Musgrove Studio, Maidment Theatre:
- That’s the Story, Morning Glory. Written and directed by Juliet Monaghan. On the edge of separating one minute, irresistibly drawn together the next, Johnny and Daisy have no choice but to ne- gotiate the cloudy waters of their eccentric pairing. That’s the Story, Morning Glory chronicles the lives of Johnny and Daisy as they discover new dimensions to the meaning of love.
- Mockingbird. Written and performed by Lisa Brickell. Directed by Ruth Dudding. With music by Sarah Macombee. Tina’s journey into the past is also a quest to find a new beginning. An original play about family secrets, about four genera- tions of women and about the unequivocal love we have for our children.
The Wrong Way Kids. Written and directed by Russell King. Thurs-Sun, 16, 17, 18, 19 October in the Drama Studio, Arts 1 Building. Chase and Kelsey have run away from home. Fed up with their home lives, the two find themselves squatting in a derelict housing project, but life couldn’t be better. However, this all changes when their older brother, a small-time criminal tracks them down and invites himself to stay. A play about family, tough decisions, and what it really means to be a grown-up.
Oh, What a Lovely War! by Joan Littlewood Directed by Alex Bonham and Performed by the Drama 204 class. Thurs-Sun, 18, 19, 20, 21 September in the Musgrove Studio, Maidment Theatre
Songs, battles and a few jokes! This landmark production of 1964 celebrates the courage and endurance of the ordinary soldier, and sweeps away any lingering views that the First World War may have been ‘Great’. From the jingoistic recruitment drives of 1914 to the realities of trench life, the story of the conflict is told through the songs and entertainments of the time in an extraordinary piece of theatre that is both deeply moving and thoroughly entertaining.
Endgame by Samuel Beckett Directed by Rina Kim. Performed by the Drama 710 class. Thurs-Sun, 22, 23, 24, 25 May in the Drama Studio, Arts 1 Building. Beckett wrote in his well-known letter to Alan Schneider who was directing the first production of Endgame in 1957: “My work is a matter of fun- damental sounds (no joke intended) made as fully as possible and I accept responsibility for nothing else. If people want to have headaches among the overtones, let them. And provide their own as- pirin.” Bearing this warning in mind and equipped with plenty of aspirin (no joke intended), Drama 710 class invites you to join their exploration of “fundamental sounds” in Endgame.
Assorted Shorts: An evening of original short plays written, directed and performed by BA Hons students of Drama 730. Thurs-Sun, 7, 8, 9, 10 August in the Drama Studio, Arts 1 Building. Working as a class company, sharing the roles of writing, directing and performing, the students of Drama 730 present a collection of thematically connected short plays. Be prepared for a high-energy evening of fresh original theatre.

Bookings: Tickets can be reserved for all productions (except Oh, What a Lovely War!, That’s the Story, Morning Glory and Mockingbird) by telephoning the Drama Studio Ticket Line on: (09) 3737599 ext 84 226. Please leave a contact phone number when you book. Method of payment: CASH ONLY at the door at the time of performance. All reserved tickets should be collected 15 minutes prior to the start of the performance to guarantee admittance. The University may re-sell any tickets not collected by this time. Performances may be subject to change. Please contact the Ticket Line to confirm details. For Oh, What a Lovely War!, That’s the Story, Morning Glory and Mockingbird please book through the Maidment booking line (09) 308 2383. A transaction fee may apply when you book through this line.

New and Exciting

E(LAB)ORATING PERFORMANCE

In semester 1 2014, the Massey University Expressive Arts paper ‘139.220 Applied Theatre’ will be delivered as part of a transnational teaching and learning project entitled e(LAB)orating Performance. The project is an ongoing collaboration between Dr. Rand Hazou – Massey University (New Zealand), Nandita Dinesh – UWC Mahindra College (India), Sara Matchett – University of Cape Town (South Africa), and Nicola Cloete – University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa). The pilot project is funded by the Brown University International Advanced Research Institute (BIARI) on ‘Theatre and Civil Society’. The project seeks to facilitate creative engagements by students enrolled at participating institutions to foster conversations around performance praxis and collaborative pedagogies. As part of this project, Dr. Rand Hazou attended a curriculum development meeting in Pune, India in January. As a result, students enrolled in the paper 139.220 Applied Theatre will be encouraged to interact with students in India and South Africa. As part of a short creative exercise entitled ‘Performing the Self(ie)’ Massey students will be required to write a short monologue based on pictures or ‘selfies’ that students at UWC Mahindra College will provide. The task encourages students to respond creatively to ideas around performing racial and engendered identity and consider the status of a ‘picture’ as a document. The monologues that are created will then be ‘fed-back’ to students in India who will respond with short performances based on the texts. e(LAB)orating Performance will also give Massey students the opportunity to collaborate with youth in Cape Town, South Africa as part of the verbatim theatre group project. As part of this task, students will be given the opportunity to interview youth from the Langeberg Youth Arts Project in South Africa. The Langeberg Youth Arts Project is an initiative of The Mothertongue Project, an NGO co-founded by Sara Matchett who is one of the lead researchers on the e(LAB)orating Performance project. This exciting and ambitious project will help consolidate international networks in teaching and research and offer new opportunities for transnational collaboration. This a project that will potentially offer exciting new models of pedagogy and education delivery that will help foster transnational citizenship and engagement.

‘New Bachelor of Performing Arts Up and Running at the University of Otago’

The newly created Bachelor of Performing Arts (BPA) at The University of Otago has recently accepted its first intake of 22 students. This distinctive, exciting collaboration between the university’s programmes in Theatre, Music and Dance gives students a rare opportunity to study more than one performing art form – music, theatre and dance – within a single named specialist university degree. Students will be guided to develop their knowledge and skills in areas such as acting, dance, directing, devising, bicultural theatre, music performance (singing or instrument), composition, song-writing, technical production and the theoretical foundations of Theatre, Music and Dance. The BPA includes conservatoire training in classical or contemporary vocal or instrument and composition – previously only available to those undertaking the specialist Bachelor of Music. The degree is housed within the Department of Music and Theatre Studies and also offers teaching staff the opportunity to work across multiple disciplines. For any queries, please contact: Dr. Suzanne Little – Bachelor of Performing Arts Degree Programme Coordinator, University of Otago. Email: suzanne.little@otago.ac.nz

Workshop with international performance artist VIOLETA LUNA. The Body in Action: Paths Towards a Personal Cartography

This workshop has been created for artists of performance, dancers, actors, spoken word or visual artists interested in performance art and in exploring the intersection of the personal, the theatrical and the political through stage actions. Workshop participants will make use of their personal memory and identity as the expressive territory where they will chart a vocabulary of stage actions. Drawing on their use of body, participants will also work on imagery related to their individual and social understanding of gender, sexuality and race. Some thematic threads in the workshop include: Body (fiction and non-fiction, presence and inner strength, body as subject/object;) Space (internal and external, spatial relationships, the intervention of public and private space;) Time (real-time, fictional-time, ritual-time;) Action (site-specific, action – reaction, responses to real and imagined stimuli, audience interaction, the creative accident.)

Photo: Nora Raggio

Who should apply: Professional or students of performance, spoken-word, actors, dancers and visual artists. All applicants should have a basic understanding of the discipline of performance art. Wellington, June 21-23, Massey University Wellington. Limited to 16 places. $150 per participant. To register interest, please Email Emma Willis: emmacreagh@gmail.com

Publications

Theatricality, Dark Tourism and Ethical Spectatorship: Absent Others by Emma Willis

Palgrave Macmillan, 2014

About the book

Theatricality, Dark Tourism and Ethical Spectatorship: Absent Others builds upon recent literature concerning theatre and ethics and offers a uniquely interdisciplinary approach. With a focus on spectatorship, it brings together analysis of dark tourism – travel to sites of death and disaster – and theatrical performances. At dark tourism sites, objects and architecture are often personified, imagined to speak on behalf of absent victims. Spectators are drawn into this dialogical scenario in that they are asked to ‘hear’ the voices of the dead. Theatrical performances that depict grievous histories similarly gain power through paradoxically demonstrating the limits of their representational ability: spectators who must grapple with absences and incomprehensibilities. This study asks whether playing the part of the listener can be understood in ethical terms. Sites surveyed span a broad geographical scope – Germany, Poland, Vietnam, Cambodia, New Zealand and Rwanda – and are brought into contrast with performances including: Jerzy Grotowski’s Akropolis, Catherine Filloux’s Photographs from S21, Adrienne Kennedy’s An Evening with Dead Essex and Erik Ehn’s Maria Kizito.

Contents

Notes for the Traveller: An introduction to the Journey Ahead1. Landscapes of Aftermath2. Performing Museums and Memorial Bodies: Theatre in the Shadows of the Crematoria3. Vietnam: ‘Not the Bullshit Story in the Lonely Planet’4. Here was the place: (Re)Performing Khmer Rouge Archive of Violence5. Lost in our own Land: Reenacting colonial Violence6. The World Watched: Witnessing GenocidePhantom SpeakWorks Cited

Reviews

“Emma Willis’s worthy project, Theatricality, Dark Tourism and Ethical Spectatorship, places works for the theatre in dialogue with place-based memorials. Willis offers us practice-centered analysis for diverse objects of study. Following Willis as she takes on the challenges of these ethical/aesthetic encounters, readers will appreciate the book’s thorough research, sound argumentation, and elegant prose. An ambitious project effectively realized, this is insightful scholarship about a timely subject.” – Laurie Beth Clark, University of Wisconsin, USA

Applied Drama/Theatre as Social Intervention in Conflict and Post-Conflict Contexts edited by Hazel Barnes and Marié-Heleen Coetzee

Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014.

About the Book

This book explores the use of drama or theatre texts about, as approaches to, or methodologies for, interventions in conflict and post-conflict contexts. It maps the role of drama/theatre in the centre and in the aftermath of overt and direct conflict, traces how the relationship between drama/theatre and conflict is shaping the socio-cultural, political, and aesthetic landscapes of these contexts, and engages with drama/theatre as methodologies to address or forge new relationships around conflict. As such, it deals with the transformative abilities of drama/theatre in contexts where conflict or violence is overt or covert in its effects, expressions and modes of social control in a range of geographical constituencies. It includes chapters predominantly from South Africa, but also from rural Nigeria and New Zealand, reflecting work on conflict in prisons, tertiary and secondary education, cities, villages and families. It also contains two new original play scripts, both resulting in acclaimed performances: Hush, on family violence in New Zealand, and The Line, on xenophobia in South Africa.

Conferences/Scholarships/Prizes

CFP: ADSA Conference 2014 – Restoring Balance: Ecology, Sustainability, Performance, hosted by Victoria University of Wellington and Massey University, New Zealand, 25-28 June 2014.

The Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies (ADSA) has issued a call for papers for the annual conference in June 2014. Confirmed Keynotes at the conference include Ric Knowles, Mexican performance artist Violeta Luna, and Baz Kershaw ( via virtual attendance). Please remember that a recurring highlight of the conference is the ‘New Zealand Delegates Dinner’ that provides NZ theatre scholars and practitioners a chance to meet, caucus and socialise. ADSA is also seeking nominations for ADSA prizes in 2014. ADSA recognises outstanding scholarship in different areas of theatre, drama and performance studies through the following awards:

Marlis Thiersch Prize – for research excellence in an English-language article published anywhere in the world in the broad field of theatre and performance studies.
Philip Parsons Prize – for a senior student (third year, honours or postgraduate) undertaking a performance as research project.
Rob Jordan Prize – for the best book on a theatre, drama or performance studies related subject published in the previous two years.
Veronica Kelly Prize – for the Best Postgraduate Paper presented at an ADSA conference.
Geoffrey Milne Bursary – to assist two eligible postgradutes to attend each ADSA conference

Get your applications in for the prize now – or if you know someone who should be considered for a prize – please nominate them as soon as possible.

Upcoming Seminars

‘When Shakespeare Was New: Reading the 1623 Folio’ by Dr Emma Smith (University of Oxford) – Alice Griffin Shakespeare Fellow 2014.

Thursday 3 April, 6.30pm. Old Government House Lecture Theatre The University of Auckland

Early readers of Shakespeare encountered almost half of his works for the first time in the collected plays of 1623, the First Folio. The Tempest, Julius Caesar, Macbeth and Twelfth Night were among the plays first printed here. Dr Smith discusses how readers – actual and imagined – engaged with this ‘big book’ and its individual plays, using manuscript annotations and other evidence to understand what it was like to read these works in such a large format. Whereas most studies of the First Folio have been concerned with its production, this lecture looks at reception and about the way the book engages, and sometimes bewilders, its readers.

Dr Emma Smith (Hertford College, Oxford University)

Dr Emma Smith (Hertford College, Oxford University) is the author of The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare, of a series of Guides to Criticism of Shakespeare’s plays, and of 30 Great Myths About Shakespeare as well as of numerous scholarly articles on topics such as “Hamlet and Consumer Culture” and “Was Shylock Jewish?”. She is currently Lecturer in Renaissance Literature at Oxford University and is a regular podcaster on Shakespeare.

New FB page for Welly Arts on Wednesday

Are you in Wellington? Arts on Wednesday at Wellington campus has a new FB page to keep you up to date.

We don’t have an advance schedule of our events as we’re adding things all the time – so to make sure you don’t miss out, join us at https://www.facebook.com/WellyArtsWednesdays to get news of new things as we add them (got some improv and some other exciting stuff in the pipeline).

Wellington Arts on Wednesday

This week (March 12) at Wellington campus we welcome multi-award-winning playwright, radio dramatist, film scriptwriter and novelist Stuart Hoar to Massey Wellington’s Arts on Wednesdays Series to talk about his work, his inspirations, his creative processes, and the role of the arts in Aotearoa New Zealand society in the 21st Century.

March 12, 1p Stuart Hoar 2 m to 1.45pm, join us in the Theatre Lab, Room 5D14, for tea, coffee, biscuits and Stuart’s wisdom on the creative work of play- and script-writing.

You are welcome to bring your paper-bag lunch!

This is a free event, all welcome.
See us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/WellyArtsWednesdays

Palmerston North Media Lab Refurbishment

For the beginning of the 2014 academic year the media lab at Massey’s Palmerston North Campus has seen an extensive refurbishment, which has seen both production and post-production equipment overhauled.

In terms of production equipment, the lab, which is used during media practice and expressive arts papers including media practice I and II, creative communication, creative processes, new media and digital cultures and documentary filmmaking, has been kitted out with Canon 70D DSLRs which will be used to teach both still photography and HD video and Canon C100 cinema cameras, which belong to Canons prestigious Cinema series, other models of which were used on feature films nominated for this year’s best cinematography Oscar. Alongside the new, high definition solid-state cameras there are new shotgun microphones, solid state sound recorders and fluid-head tripods.

For post-production, the lab has been equipped with workstation class computers with a dual full HD monitor setup, which will run a range of industry-standard production software including Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, Premiere and After Effects alongside Avid Media Composer and Davinci Resolve for high end video post-production.

English and Media Studies at Massey

English | Media | Expressive Arts | Academic Writing