Stripping Bare...!

Applied to performance, the words “stripped bare” often suggest an honesty of approach, or even a guarantee of some kind of authenticity or, perhaps, a connection with a real or imagined original truth. 

Do we really learn anything of value by retracing the past? By getting back to basics? By challenging accepted knowledge?

Ever since Stella Adler claimed that Strasberg had ‘got it wrong’ and that the emphasis of the American method on affective memory was based on a misconception of Stanislavski’s work, the controversy over the ‘correct’ interpretation of Stanislavksi’s actor training system has continued. 

Recent work by Sharon Carnicke and others has sought to correct past misconceptions by re-examination and re- evaluation of Stanislavski’s work, with the result that the practice of active analysis is now being seriously employed in directing processes and actor development.

Just how does a director create a nude scene?

The Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies (ADSA) invites participants to interpret the implications of this theme in any way they choose. The organisers would particularly welcome an emphasis on practice.

Please respond to the theme by March 31st 2010 in ANY of the following ways:

1. submit an abstract of 300 words for an individual paper
2. submit a proposal for a themed panel
3. submit a proposal for a performance, presentation or workshop
4. suggest a mode of presentation

The interpretation of themes might include (but is not confined to) the following:

• minimalism
• fundamentalism
• authorial intention and performance interpretation
• revelation; unveiling
• the actor stripped bare
• vulnerability
• censorship
• histories – burlesque, striptease, nudity…
• the body
• exposure
• directing the nude
• exhibitionism
• uncovering the hidden
• back to basics
• what is truth?
• risk-taking
• ancient theatre
• technologies
  

Email expressions of interest to Cate Clelland cathie.clelland@anu.edu.au