The creative embodiment of music : practice-based investigations into staged and embodied interpretations of instrumental music

• Main Author: Hubrich, Sara
• Published: Birmingham City University 2014
• Subjects: 780
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.680195

Within the last century, composers including John Cage, Mauricio Kagel, Georges Aphergis or Michael Nyman, and movements such as the Futurists or later Fluxus have shown an increasing interest in a work’s performance itself and experimented with integrating performative and theatrical elements within their compositions in order to achieve a ‘theatricalisation of music’ (Kesting 1969). This focus on performances was preceded or paralleled within the theatrical arts and in a progression from dance to Dance Theatre, requiring actors and dancers to be increasingly creative and independent. Similarly, in this practice-based research the performer of a piece of instrumental music is regarded as a creative and independent source in addition to the composer. The research inquiry of this thesis is guided by the following three research questions: - How can performers of instrumental music be creative beyond the aural realisation of the score within a performative space? - With the performer’s body and own perspectives on the music as the starting point, what kind of techniques does the performer need for a creative embodied performance and which theatrical elements and techniques are accessible for the performing musician? - What kinds of methods are conducive to a process that leads to a creatively enhanced performance and what kind of interactivity between performer and work do they facilitate? The thesis investigates a practice evidenced by a set of case studies undertaken from 2001 to the present, which are described through their processes of development, their purpose within the research and their performances, documented on the enclosed DVD. The outcomes of this practice-based research and analysis contribute to the practice of performance and interpretation through a set of key protocols for practice as a suggested guide for performers of instrumental music intending to pursue a comparable path of interdisciplinary research on embodied performance its practice.