The Values and Practice of “Performance Research” for University Schorlars

Abstract

This article examines background concerns and issues that are important to understanding Performance Research. These concerns arose at
our annual seminar to discuss the progress of our research project called “Doing Creative Research in Thai Contemporary Theatre” which was funded by Thailand
Research Fund. The eight projects sponsored under this performance research program all use the ideas of “practice as research” to focus on doing
creative performance as a form of research -- collecting data through different methods to analyze the work they do in designing, rehearsing and performing their creative performance work.
The article explains "practice as research" as a systematic way for performing artists to analyze the creative work that they do in order to gain new insights about their working process, along with the goals and results of their work. Before beginning any performance project, the artist-researchers need to pose a question that they aim to answer through analyzing the process they use to create their performance. They then need to link their question to a set of research methods and materials which they will use to answer this question as they create their performance. Analyzing the creative process they use to create the performing is the way that that will answer their research question. During the process of creating the performance, the researchers are asked to pay close attention to the process by recording each phase of its evolution in detail and collect data on the different stages of the creative process. They should pay special attention to the reasons that the performance evolves in the way that it does and how it is performed. Beyond these activities, the artist's research also needs to design the collective methods of data in the studio, rehearsals, and other stages in the design and creative process. By analyzing the data and information derived from the creative process in making the performance and in relationship to the research question, the artist researcher will not the important moments that the performance changed, adjustments that affected the development of the piece, all in a way to help answer the basic research question. The research results may take various forms. So in our case one took the form of a clip of the live performance, another as a documentary of how to develop the process and research performance, and a third as a longer research article that reflects the new knowledge and insights that the artist research er has learned.
The goal of this type of research is to provide diverse examples of how artists can turn their creative work into important pieces of research on performance. This will allow the artists to become researchers and to discover new knowledge based on doing performance research.