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In September 2001 the Australian Research Council (ARC) announced
that the Victorian College of the Arts School of Dance with
its University and Industry partners had been successful
in obtaining substantial funding for a major new research
project.
Titled Conceiving Connections, the three-year study
(2002-2005) builds on Unspoken Knowledges - the team's
earlier research into choreographic practice, an investigation
that focused on the
nature of choreographic thought or ‘choreographic cognition’. www.ausdance.org.au/unspoken
The new research addresses issues associated with audience development
that have been identified by the dance industry as critical to
its viability among the contemporary performing arts in Australia.
It is seen as a significant initiative in Arts - Industry related
research.
In summary,
the aim of the Conceiving Connections project is to investigate
how audiences respond to highly evolved dance-works. We define
such works as those of considerable complexity and subtlety
but which do not reveal their meanings readily. The project
explores the kinds of meaning communicated by such works, and
the value assigned to them by tutored and untutored audiences.
Methods for enhancing audience engagement are being tested
through studies in both metropolitan and regional centres.
Dance-scholars, artists and cognitive psychologists are collaborating
with three industry partners to identify and address significant
concerns for artists, presenters, advocates and funding bodies,
and to train postgraduate researchers in inter-disciplinary
modes.
The researchers are asking questions like these:
*What elements encourage audiences to respond to dance works
with insight, pleasure and understanding?
*How do previous knowledge, experience, and information about
new works affect audience responses?
*What can we discover about the relationship between cognitive,
aesthetic, emotional and kinaesthetic responses to particular
dance works?
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