SECTION B: CONDUCTING PERFORMANCE RESEARCH

This section is in three parts. Part One offers some hints on methodology. Part Two discusses the ways in which performance as research conforms to common standards of research practice. Part Three discusses the ways in which it might vary, and opens debate on issues associated with modality, positionality, notation and documentation.

Part One: Methods and Approaches to Performance as Research

1. Making the Project: Performance and Research

The first issue confronting the potential researcher by means of performance is to decide what the relationship will be between the performance making activity and the research activity. 'Doing a play/making a dance' is not a research topic. 'Doing a play/dance /installation about X' where X is the nominal topic of research, is a statement which reduces or ignores the complex process of composition - translation, selection, transformation and reiteration - which is required before 'topic X' can be mediated by means of a performance form.

Potential research projects into and by means of performance have a much broader horizon than that canvassed by what we might call the generalist fallacy and the transparency fallacy represented by the two examples above. The following are some possible avenues for research - I have framed these in ways which might suggest a research approach.

Research might take place on, for example:

• a particular phase or phases of a performance process;
• the links or disjunctions between stages of training or rehearsal;
• the segmentation evident in a performance composition;
• differences of approach between two performance versions of the same originary text;
• the rehearsal practices of a particular performance ensemble;
• a comparative analysis of the compositional strategies of two or more groups or individuals;
• the assumptions underlying particular approaches to training;
• a survey of genre skills required of performers in particular contexts;
• observation, analysis and evaluation of new strategies in a training specialisation such as physical action or voice production;
• the effect of a particular context, the intervention of a particular artist or the implementation of a particular approach, on a performance process;
• the training implications of interdisciplinary performance making strategies;
• shifts in performers' preparation techniques in different contexts, or over time.

A research project may well wish to use performance to test a theory or an approach, where the performance based work is the outcome of the research process. However, this does not necessarily imply a full scale production.

Research might take place on, for example:

• a comparison of the effects of casting for gender, race or body shape on a particular piece of performance material;
• the effectiveness of different workshop methods for generating performance material;
• the effect of different kinds of directorial intervention on actors working on a scene;
• the impact on a test audience of different choices in presentational strategies, or alterations e.g. in lighting or the position of stage objects;
• the effect of transforming the same originary material into more than one performance modality, style or genre.

This is not of course to say that a researcher who wishes to rely on or to include performance making in their research project can or should be able to formulate a research hypothesis with the degree of specificity demanded of someone working in the natural sciences. Performance is generative - the performance result may well not be forecast at the start of the process, and may well not be the same as that which another project with similar intentions will achieve. It is far from desirable that research by means of performance should either rely on or produce predictable, boring performance!

However, the researcher will always be an observer, whether or not they are a participant. Whatever the performance style, it is important for any researcher to be as clear as possible about the question they are asking about, and within, the performance process. As Pierre Bourdieu argues, a researcher must also as far as possible be reflexively aware of the effect of their own perspective and assumptions on their research activity and its outcomes (Bourdieu 1990).

2. The Role of the Researcher

There are a number of obvious perspectives from which research by means of performance can be undertaken. The researcher may observe and record the efforts of others; and the researcher could be the project leader who assembles the forces and resources required in order to conduct the research, including the performance component. However, these by no means exhaust the possible perspectives from which research into and by means of performance might be undertaken. The researcher may be a design or lighting expert wishing to explore the application of new technology, a stage manager wanting to test the effectiveness of systems of communication, a choreographer or a performer interested in experimenting with proxemics, a chorus member keeping a log on the effectiveness of hierarchical compared with consultative styles on the part of management or musical director ...

The basic requirement is that you assess the question you want to ask, and the resources you have at your disposal, in the light of the effect your position is likely to have. How many extra resources will you require? What effect is your project likely to have on the dynamic of the performance process in which you are engaged? It would be a good idea to know:

• How many other people will be affected by your investigation?
• What stake do they have or might they have in the project or its outcomes?
• How much information/advice/consultation with others is required?
• What effect will their level of skill and/or attitudes have on your work?

3. Audit of Resources

It is one thing to have an exciting idea for a performance as research project - it is quite another to amass the resources to carry it out. Necessary resources might include space, personnel, equipment, additional expertise, administrative or technical support, materials for the construction of settings or costumes, etc.

What resources are available to you without cost? What budget restrictions will you need to work under? What need do you have for financial support, and what opportunities are there to acquire it? No professional performance project goes ahead without a budget; the same should be the case for the research project at both undergraduate, postgraduate and staff level.

4. Project Design

It is important to arrive at a design for your research project. This will identify

• the type of performance project or activity concerned;
• the aspect of performance under investigation;
• the general aims of the research project;
• as far as possible, a specific research question or questions;
• the context of the performance project or activity, and its organisation. You should differentiate where appropriate between social, economic and aesthetic issues affecting the organisation of the project;
• the body of theory that might inform your investigation - this could be a general category (such as feminist, marxist, phenomenological, behaviourist or hermeneutic), a particular theorist (such as Stanislavski or Kristeva) or approach (such as action research), or something quite specific such as Bloggs' contention that only leather masks can be truly effective in commedia dell'arte.

It will also provide a framework for the process, including

• an appropriate method by which it is proposed that the performance activity be documented, notated and analysed;
• a review of the relevant literature, and/or relevant non print material, and/or a listing of the human 'sources' it is proposed to consult;
• a timeline showing important phases in the process and when they might be expected to occur. As the design firms up, this should include deadlines that are as firm as possible; and
• an outline of the methods you might employ to check, evaluate and validate your findings.
• It is also vital that the research design include a consideration of
• the position and role of the researcher with regard to
  a) the particular research focus and
  b) the performance making process as a whole;
• the equipment and resources required to carry out the research;
• the tasks required of the researcher, in the service both of the research and the performance activity;
• the craft or specialist vocabulary employed by those engaged in the aspect of performance under investigation;
• the key practices under observation and analysis;
• the level of negotiation the researcher will need to engage in, and the number of people involved; and
• provision for any ethics clearances required by authorities organising the performance context, and/or by the researcher's host institution.

5. Documentation, Notation and Analysis

We can begin this topic by stating quite confidently that as yet, no adequate or universally applicable system for documenting, notating or recording performance has been developed! However, that doesn't mean the attempt shouldn't be made, or that the resulting record will be useless. Far from it - even those who think they have an iron grip on the proceedings and a faultless memory may be very glad of the opportunity to revisit their notes, or the audio or visual record, either for a refresher or for a new perspective on detail they may have missed.

For those who have not had the opportunity to be present at the performance itself, such a record will be the only available means they have to imaginatively reconstruct, 'read' and assess the project. One aim of research is to disseminate improved methods and useful findings, so as to provide the opportunity for future reflection and so that an assessment can be made of the project's contribution to the body of available knowledge. The compilation of adequate documentation and the provision of a notation are important aids to both current and future researchers' analytic capacity.

There are many possible ways of attempting to build and preserve such a record.

Documentation and notational resources basically offer a choice of

• writing
• drawing
• diagram (including formal music or dance notations) and
• technology - written, audio or visual recording by means of analogue or digital process.

Documentation

The ideal documentation is a record of the entire process - as we have acknowledged, this is both theoretically and practically impossible. The researcher is thus faced with the task of amassing the most accurate and helpful record possible. It may be appropriate to attempt a videotaped record, but hours and hours of bad visual footage is not necessarily much help. If you have access to the budget and the technical support, go ahead - an edited version may be very useful. If not, save the video for the 'peak moments' including the performance itself if included, and consider the keeping of journals, the making of sketches, interviews, a regiebuch - whatever works most clearly and succinctly.

Notation

A codified record of the actual performance product or other output as appropriate. It may include a script, a musical score, set, costume or lighting designs, and a dance score or outline of use of space or choreographed movement. It may also include diagrams, sketches, photographs, and/or supporting audio or video tapes; since once again there is no single satisfactory method of notating a complete performance, it is more than likely that you will need to include more than one form of notation, backed up by documentation.

Analysis

The framework for the analysis will have been supplied in your original research design. Refer to this, and to any subsequent statements and/or referees' reports, when analysing and evaluating the project as a whole. When you have completed your analysis, and are ready to formulate your conclusions, do also make time to include a reflection on your own development, and what you have learned personally from the experience. You may well find that this exceeds what can be comprehended within the formal analysis and evaluation - it is from within this 'excess' that the germs of future investigation can often be found.

If all this looks daunting, it's not surprising! Research by means of performance undoubtedly creates an increased workload compared to that of the 'civilian' performance maker. However, many of the requirements are quite similar to those asked of performing arts students already, and the benefits in terms of increased understanding, clarity of thinking and the creation of resources for future work are soon apparent.

Part Two: Performance Is Research

Performance research/ research by means of performance, like any other research process, is distinguished

a) by rigorous reflection and investigation, b) by the clarity and specificity of its research questions, and c) by the openness of its processes to question and evaluation by others.

Like other fields of research, it has the general aim of contributing to knowledge by

a) generating new kinds of knowledge, and/or b) offering new interpretations or perspectives on existing knowledge.

As in other fields of research, a useful theoretical distinction may be drawn between 'pure' and 'applied' research - although, as in other experimental processes, this may have more to do with the focus and organisation of the materials than with the presence or absence of a practica/material component in the research design.

Debate on the status of the creative arts within academic institutions has focused on the difficulties of establishing the reliability and validity of evaluative processes where works of art are concerned. Can meaning be securely established? Is commonality of interpretation desirable or possible? Is it either possible or desirable to apply standards of scientific enquiry to activities where individual opinion and taste may be at issue?

Opposition to the establishment of disciplines of enquiry such as performance research has most often been articulated from a scientistic position which emphasises universal standards of truth, and the invalidity of research which cannot be expressed quantitatively. Emphasis on the importance of measurement and quantification can be found, for example, in standard texts on research methodology such as Paul D. Leedy's Practical Research: Planning and Design (Leedy 1993). In other respects, however, the 'heuristic circle' of performance research conforms to the process model Leedy outlines. This may be characterised as

1. Identification of a field or problem, and design of a project including:
2. Accumulation of relevant 'data' and/or information
3. Formulation of a research question or questions
4. Articulation of an actionable hypothesis
5. Articulation of a research methodology
6. Testing the hypothesis (may include the accumulation of more data)
7. Analysis of results
8. Formulation and publication of conclusions.

Research by means of performance shares characteristics of other experiment based research, in that 'actioning' the research question involves the elaboration of methodical practices by means of which the enquiry can proceed.

It is clear however that these practices may vary considerably from one context to another. Since the performance event is characterised by collaboration and co-presence, performance research is interested less in standardising methodology than in interrogating practice from a variety of positions. In particular, research by means of performance offers an opportunity to research 'from the inside' as well as 'from the outside' (see Schechner 1988). While the researcher may be purely an observer, or have an 'overview' position such as that of the director or animateur, this is by no means certain. It is useful therefore for performance researchers to be self-reflexive, and to query both the traditional ascription of 'objectivity' to the researcher, and the distant and hierarchical relation traditional between researcher and the subject or object of research.

On these issues, Performance Research might usefully adopt strategic positions advanced in the debates on research in other cultural arenas. Researchers in social theory, language and literature, cultural studies, anthropology and feminist/ women's/ gay/ queer studies, for example, have engaged in extensive discussions around issues of positionality, ideology, observation, translation and interpretation. I would particularly recommend Shulamit Reinharz' excellent book Feminist Methods in Social Research (Reinharz 1992), for her coverage of the practical and ethical, as well as the epistemological, issues involved in choosing appropriate research methods, considering dilemmas of distance and closeness, and conducting cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary enquiry (for other possibly useful texts, see Bibliography).

The 'quantitative/qualitative' debate has now been raging for some decades. If nothing else, growing awareness of the current and future importance of global geopolitical and cultural diversity has alerted Western researchers to the pitfalls of assuming that their own position and values can automatically be classified as clear and universally applicable, and that 'objectivity' can automatically be assigned to a particular set of research procedures.

In the process, the confidence once exhibited by Popperian positivism has been modified; Paul Feyerabend, for example, has been instrumental in challenging mainstream science to argue for, rather than simply to assert, its superiority over such bodies of knowledge as astrology or even voodoo. To quote Queensland philosopher of science A.F. Chalmers:

'Philosophers do not have the resources that enable them to legislate on the criteria that must be satisfied if an area of knowledge is to be deemed acceptable or "scientific". Each area of knowledge can be analyzed for what it is. That is, we can investigate what its aims are ... and we can investigate the means used to accomplish those aims and the degree of success achieved. It does not follow from this that no area of knowledge can be criticized. We can attempt to criticize any area of knowledge by criticizing its aims, by confronting it with an alternative and superior means of attaining the same aims and so on. From this point of view we do not need a general category "science" with respect to which some area of knowledge can be acclaimed as science or denigrated as non-science' (Chalmers 1982: 166)

In this climate, those working in Performance Research, including research by means of performance, have a new opportunity to have their voice heard, and to have their field of enquiry acknowledged and respected.

Part Three: Performance Research Specifics

Performance Research requires an acknowledgement of, and familiarity with, the characteristics and the contexts of the performance event and its contributory processes. Almost as important is an appreciation of the structures and modalities by means of which and through which performance is organised, the practices by means of which it may be made manifest, and the sign-systems or 'vocabularies', including the non-verbal, employed by its practitioners.

It is not my intention here to engage in an extended discussion of the various theoretical and practical approaches which may inform performance research. There are already a number of contending schools of thought; however, if one may broadly link Performance Research with its support discipline in Performance Studies, the influence of structuralist and post-structuralist thinking is evident. Borrowings from anthropology, ethnology, phenomenology, social and cultural theory, semiotics and feminist scholarship have fruitfully informed the understanding of performance phenomena which now underpins research in the field. Theatre semiotics, despite having failed to achieve the profile in Australian and other English speaking cultures that it has had in Europe, remains an important source of intellectual stimulation, particularly with regard to issues of performance segmentation and analysis.

Descriptors of Performance

I would like to offer the following list of suggested descriptors of performance for the consideration of researchers in the field:

• Performances are social events. Performance depends on interaction between the spectator or audience (the person or group of people who are watching and/or listening) and the performance makers. These latter may include people embodying the performance material in the chosen space, but will always include people who prepare and shape both the physical and non-physical aspects of the performance experience for the audience (see Goffman 1974). Successful performances negotiate meanings, ideas and emotions with resonance for the social contexts in which they take place; this is true whether the performance has an aesthetic intention or whether it has real consequences, as in the case of 'social dramas' (see Turner 1986, Boal 1985). From the point of view of the social, genres, traditions and contexts of performance are positioned on what might be called axes of performativity:
  - the axis of locatability. This includes social as well as spatial 'location'.
  - the axis of recourse or responsibility. This includes the degree to which the performance maker is held accountable for, or is identified with, the claims and events presented during the particular performance, i.e. the extent to which the performance is, can be or should be believed.
  - the axis of metaphoricity (see below). From the point of view of those in social authority, it is important to establish by means of codes or convention the recognisability of, and hence the degree of permission granted to, the play of metaphor in performance. Administration of this axis, in combination with the axis of recourse, can be difficult in practice. It continues to cause a great deal of anxiety to censors everywhere, as well as to scholars arguing over that hoary old question of the extent to which the performer is 'lying' (see Barish 1985).
   
• As a consequence of this, attendance at a performance event or participation in a performance process creates a situation in which learning can occur, to a greater or lesser extent.
   
• Performance is embodied. This seems obvious where the performer is concerned (less so where performance has been pre-recorded, or where non-human 'actants' may take the place of the human actor). However, both the process of preparation and the actual performance event imply the embodied experience of audience members as well as performance makers (Fraleigh 1987, Schwartz 1992). The impact of co-presence, its organisation, degree and intensity, is another important variable in performance research (Hanna 1983).
   
• Performance is framed and organised in space and time. The performance event is characterised by its particularity in space/time; its diachronic boundedness. Preparation for performance, or work on aspects of performance making, will be characterised by different or variable locations and durations (this is especially so where there is no immediate or direct temporal link between a performance making activity, or a process of reflection, and an intended performance demonstration).
   
• Space is a basic element of performance through which other modalities are translated; every aspect of a performance, from its site, the shape of the performance space, the relation between actors and audience, through to the presentational codes and the implications of the stage fiction, are dependent on the manipulation and transformation of space in its relation to time (McAuley 1993).
   
• Performance is a process, which is always at some point a social process. Just as the performance event develops in time, so too do the stages of performance making leading up to and away from the event. Interaction between the performance makers is an important aspect of the performance process, even if much of this interaction takes place in the absence of the audience (unless performance makers are intended as each others' audience), and/or selected parts of the process involve individuals working in isolation. Richard Schechner's notion of the 'whole performance sequence' is useful here in identifying phases of a performance process, which he suggests may include training, workshops, rehearsals, warm-ups, performance, cool-down, and aftermath (Schechner 1985). The researcher may well find that the aims, focus and combination of characteristics in evidence vary considerably from one phase of the process to another, and that research into a particular phase of performance making requires the elaboration of quite specific observational strategies and research methods.
   
• Performance is ostended. While the notion that performance is action, as well as a representation of action, is as old as Aristotle, the point is worth re-rehearsing in the era of film, multimedia and performance installation, where it can by no means be guaranteed that the actor (or actant) is either embodied, or co-present with the audience. Nevertheless, all performance forms are things done, and designed to be shown, or are at least show-able (see Eco 1977).
   
• Performance is polymodal. Whether or not they are actively interdisciplinary in intention, performance forms invariably negotiate with their audience by means of more than one communicative modality. Body, space, shape, sound, colour, speech, rythym, story ... performance resists prescription; the purity and isolation of elements proposed as an ideal in natural science experiments must be replaced by an emphasis on attention. While it is possible, and may be important for research purposes, to distinguish these elements or groups of elements in analysis, they will in practice behave as part of the dynamic flow of the performance as a whole (see Bassnett-McGuire 1980).
   
• Performance is heteroglossic. Whatever the attempted dominance of narrative closure, authorial or directorial intervention, or indeed hegemonic cultural reading, the subversions of multivocality inevitably emerge in performance. It has become a staple of deconstructionist analysis that subversive readings, or misreadings, are possible with any text. In performance however heteroglossia is instantiated, not only through the convention of dialogue, but through the interventions and slippages of multiple discourses and modalities. Many voices speak, or are available to be heard, in performance; I am indebted to Gay McAuley for this notion.
   
• Performance is mediated by means of signs. It is also mediated through perception and experience (both semiotic and presemiotic) which is organised, is in the process of being organised, or has the potential to be organised, by means of codes or conventions. The negotiation of these signs and conventions is an important element in the social exchange between performance makers and audience within the performance event; this is true whatever the location, or level of formality, of the performance, and applies to social performance as well as to aesthetic performance (see Burns 1972, Pavis 1992).
   
• Performance is polysemic. Whatever the intended narrowness or focus of meaning within the space/time of a performance, it is impossible to identify with confidence a single sign or meaning attaching to any object or moment within a performance, or to a performance event as a whole. This may be attributed partly to the polymodality identified above; a 'slice' of any performance event will reveal a multitude of co-present signs and syntagmatic relations ( Pavis 1982). An equally important contributing factor is however the dynamic interpretive relationship obtaining between the performers (if any) in the performance space, and members of the audience. Even if performance makers and audience share a stock of cultural codes, meaning will be dynamic rather than 'fixed' (see Bennett 1990); the relationship is especially complex where there is cross-cultural interaction between performance and audience, or where audience members derive from different cultural backgrounds (see Shevtsova 1993).
   
• Performance is metaphoric. Performance events are rarely literal in their ostension of action and objects within the theatre space. Stage objects (including performers) frequently 'stand in' metonymically as representative of a class of such objects or their attributes, or synecdochically where a selected part implies a whole (i.e. a hat implying an entire costume). Verbal or story-based performance may rely heavily on reference to things, people and events outside the performance frame (Ubersfeld 1991) , and iconic, symbolic or deictic relations may obtain between what is actually shown and their intended denotative or associative meanings (Elam 1980).
   
• Performance situations, and individual performances, may vary in their compositional parameters - in formality, in aesthetic intention, in degree of intensity and in what might be called presentational interlock:
  - the precision with which performance elements are shaped,
  - the method and ordering of elements into sequences and their segmentation, and
  - the tightness with which both elements and sequences are bound together.
  In order to adequately analyse a particular performance, or a genre or tradition of performance, for the network of craft practices, the aesthetic, and the articulated and tacit assumptions and codes which organise its observable practices, an extensive accumulation of data, as well as a familiarity with the epistemological landscape of the ideas presented, is demanded of the researcher.
  
• Performance is constructed and organised polysituationally,although in practice it is difficult to analyse the performance process, and describe the performance experience, from more than one position at a time. A performance may be designed to be viewed from the perspective of an ideal or privileged observer; indeed, the deconstruction of such framing, and the assumptions behind it, may form an important part of a performance making process or a performance analysis.
   
  However, there is no one position from within the performance making process or in the performance event which is ipso facto more privileged than any other from the point of view of Performance Research. Indeed, the investigation of performance process from 'non-standard' perspectives (such as, for example,that of the stage manager or an orchestra member) or fleshing out an analysis using a multiperspectival approach, are exciting possibilities for the researcher as they may reveal important and useful information. This may be accomplished by observation and interview, by a team approach to research, or by participant or 'native'observation, in the case of research by means of performance (see above). The researcher must be aware that information obtained from the point of view of the 'outside observer', from extended participant observation, and from 'the native's point of view' is likely to differ substantially in both ideology, organisation and epistemological reach.
   
  These issues have been debated extensively in the anthropological, ethnographic and ethnomethodological literature (see, as a starting point, Geertz 1983). Translated into the language of performance, there are always three possible positions to take up with reference to any situation within the whole performance sequence:
   
  - performer
  - audience, or
  - observer.
   
  These three basic positions can of course be multiplied by the number of roles within the specific situation: teacher, trainee, technician, director and so on. However, in each case these three positions organise the available perspectives from which the interactions of that role can be experienced. For example, a member of an audience is also a performer, for whom the performer is audience, observed with chagrin or pleasure by the critic and differently perhaps by the entrepreneur. An awareness of the importance of positionality in performance research opens dynamic possibilities to the researcher. This is especially so in the area of research by means of performance, where participant observation or 'native ethnography' on the part of the researcher (providing of course that they have or are willing to obtain the relevant skills) promises a richer degree of understanding, and a new horizon of information, open to be explored by those teaching and researching in academic institutions.
   
  All this of course implies that:
   
• Performance research requires a developed ethic of observation, participation, and ostension. Performance negotiates emotionally invested cultural and behavioural constructs, ideologies and belief systems. Particular performance exchanges may express, support, confirm, celebrate, question or transgress marginal as well as dominant power/knowledge systems. Some performances, such as those involved in social self-presentation, may be intended to be accepted as 'real'; others may be accepted as more or less fictional and/or more or less effective in connecting the everyday with the imagined world implied in the performance (see axes of performativity above). The researcher may encounter or challenge deeply-felt notions about the border between 'the real' and 'the illusory', between the accepted and the deviant, or between the sacred and the profane. Where such difficulties may emerge, such as in the investigation of religious ceremonies or cultural belief, in the analysis of such phenomena as trance states, possession or invocation - or, in the case of research by means of performance, where the researcher may be involved in presenting a work which impacts on invested belief systems and practices - a thorough understanding of the ethical position is required, and an assessment of risk in what Clifford Geertz calls 'deep play' and Schechner 'dark play' should be undertaken (Geertz 1987, Schechner 1993).

Finally, it may be useful to consider some of the pitfalls that can await the unwary researcher. I have cast this section in the form of a dialogue: I should hasten to acknowledge that while this imaginary debate has been flavoured from experience, the 'Interrogator' was not always me and the 'Claimant' was not always somebody other than myself!

When is 'research' not research?

I have spent some time arguing for a broader understanding of research than that articulated by those defending quantitative or laboratory based research in the natural and social sciences as the norm, and have tried to show how the term 'research' can be legitimately applied to the investigation of activities surrounding performance. Unfortunately however, the term also has something of a vogue as a coverall claim, which makes the work in question sound deep and important. The criteria outlined in Part Two above can be applied to interrogate some of the woollier ways in which performance makers might be tempted to describe what they are doing as 'research'. An imagined dialogue might go like this:

Claim One: "I'll just research that for you".
Interrogation: "What is your question? What are your assumptions? What is the process by which you intend to test the value of your results?"

Although every process of enquiry has the potential to throw up lines of research, not every effort, attempt or initial exploratory essay has sufficient clarity, focus or precision to count as research. A rigorous process of research formulates a problem, and tests its assumptions as much as its results - just because it occupies and/or feels new to you, it may not prove either interesting or useful to anyone else.

Claim Two: "Well of course my work is theoretically informed".
Interrogation: "That's great. Which theory? At what level of abstraction is it aimed? Just what exactly did John Cage/Judith Butler/Rudolf Laban say that you think will be relevant to the enquiry you wish to undertake by means of performance? In forming your hypothesis, can you predict to what extent your work will support, modify or contradict the theories you refer to?"

'Theory' is another term subject to misuse. Scholars in the arts and humanities (including those aspiring to the condition of 'science') like to use it because they are deprived of anything as grand as a 'law'. There is no such thing as 'theory' - only particular compositions of ideas with different epistemological and axiological claims. Theories are tools: they may be extremely useful, but only if you have the right one for the job. On the other hand, there is no such thing as a 'fact' without an informing theory, and it is a good idea to find out what that theory might be - just try to approach the business of building and using abstractions as precisely as possible, with a critical eye on their applicability to the case at hand.

Claim Three: "My work is based on my research into X".
Interrogation: "What did you investigate? What methods did you use? What is the relationship between your original sources and the performance outcome? What new insights or contributions to knowledge have emerged in the process?"

While a detailed dramaturgical enquiry may well be evidence of or result in a high quality of applied research, this is not necessarily the case whenever 'sources' are involved. As in other fields of enquiry, the work or the research of others may simply have been replicated or even diminished; to qualify as research, the maker of new work must be able to demonstrate and defend both the originality and the significance of their contribution.

Claim Four: "My research is private/personal/pre-verbal/non-verbal".
Interrogation: "Could you begin to articulate or at least describe in outline the ways in which you are working and the reasons for the choices you make? What language do you use to share or pass on cues or important information about your process? If you can't talk about it, or if you won't write about it, in what other ways can you demonstrate the solidity of the knowledge you feel you are acquiring, and the way(s) in which it is organised?"

The claim that performance activity is 'pure unto itself' and consequently has no need for verbal explanation, is put with passion by some performance makers. It is currently the cause of controversy in some universities, where debate is occurring over whether or not creative arts research degrees ought or ought not to require a written exegesis.

The issue may be less acute where the publication of 'creative work' per se is an appropriate and acceptable activity. I also have some sympathy for the effort to make the performance, rather than the exegesis, the central research activity; we certainly cannot assume that all non-verbal performance modalities will have an exact or satisfactory verbal expression. However,

a) all performance activity is complex and polysemic. If a performance activity is to qualify as research, an observer who has not been involved in the process must be able to understand the research question, and to pay attention to that aspect of the performance which tests or demonstrates the researcher's response.

b) all performance behaviour is expressive; the need to communicate is of paramount importance. The researcher in a non-verbal modality should be able to

• articulate the basic vocabulary in use
• demonstrate their ability to manipulate and analyse that modality in ways available to a reasonably informed observer, and
• demonstrate and defend the originality and significance of their research activity.

If this cannot be done, they would be well advised to consider the inclusion in their documentation of supporting or exegetical written material. They may of course simply require

• more time
• more skill, or
• the help of an outside observer or co-researcher.

If the speaker in this case is putting in a significant effort to solve these problems, their work may be classifiable as 'basic research', and we should wait to see if they can indeed come up with a method of analysis that can be appropriately conducted in the absence of a supplementary verbal support. If they actively resist the exercise, the status of the activity as 'research' must be treated with a degree of scepticism.

Claim Five: "Oh well, it's all research really, isn't it?"
Interrogation: "Could you specify the aim of your activity? What are its goals, and possible outcomes? Do you have a thesis, or at least a set of articulated questions in mind, which organise your focus? How many different kinds of activity are you engaged in here, and can you distinguish between them? Can you suggest some criteria, and a procedure, by which these activities and sub-activities might be assessed and evaluated? If you can, what are they?"

These questions relate to the stages common to all academic research, supplemented by the demands of performance research as a particular field. As in any other field of research, the work being done may be of greater or lesser substance, greater or lesser significance, and be making a greater or lesser contribution to new knowledge in the field. It is of professional importance for us as scholars within the broader academic community to be able and willing to hold our work up for examination and dissemination; this includes self-examination and the capacity to distinguish within one's work on the basis of its rigour and application.

It doesn't really help matters for academics or practitioners to claim that 'every little thing they do' is research.

This is, of course, not to discount the 'happy accident' or the sudden insight gained in the course of routine pursuit of one's craft. Neither is it to deny that one's everyday activities are rich with opportunities for research; it's just that unless they are followed up rigorously, they remain opportunities rather than achievements.

These issues apply with particular force to those engaged in research by means of performance. Precisely because of the complexity of the performance process, it is quite possible for the researcher to become overwhelmed by information, or to have their attention distracted entirely - for example, by the need to come to terms with an organisational or skill-based problem or an emotional difficulty.

In order to keep a clear focus on the research question, the researcher needs to make regular space in order to:

• review
• reflect
• reconsider, and in some cases
• try again.

Those making a concerted ( even if temporarily unsuccessful) effort to come to grips with these issues may be said to be engaged in a genuine process of research, or are at least engaged in learning about research. If not, their process is simply not rigorous enough to qualify. Their experience may result in learning; later, when they have an opportunity to reflect, they may be able to use their experience as the basis for a subsequent research process. Right now, however, they are not researching.