Reading, K (2025) Unveiling the body: a creative exploration into (re)connecting with the body using performance-based practices. In: Embodied Voices Research Network Conference, 24- 25 April 2025, Warwick University.
Abstract
This paper will address the early stages of my research which is exploring how autobiographical theatre and performance-making can aid in repairing a sense of connection to the body for victims of sexual trauma. It asks: How might live performance, both the process of making and the live event, help to repair a ruptured relationship with one's body? Using a body-based approach to performance-making, the research project will explore the difference between the impact of the creative process (private) and the live event (public), in order to explore the impact of a creative approach to healing sexual trauma and dissociation. Using autoethnography as my methodology, (after Denzin, Spry), I will document and measure any changes in my relationship to my body by exploring my own lived experience. Autoethnography is an important methodology because ‘[…] It is more than performance. But it is performative. It is transgressive. It is resistance. It is dialogical. It is ethical. It is political, personal, embodied, collaborative, imaginative, artistic, creative, [...] intervention, a plea for social justice. […] Writing selves are performing new writing practices, blurring fact and fiction, challenging the dividing line between performer and performed, observer and observed’ (Denzin, 2018: viii). It offers an approach that is multifaceted - allowing the space to be reflexive. This research is informed by key works in adjacent fields such as academic, choreographer and creative-practitioner, Vicky Hunter’s exploration of site and body and theatre scholar, Miriam Haughton’s research into staging traumatic narratives (Haughton 2018). The proposed research is framed by theories on participatory performance, through an applied theatre lens. (Jackson 2011 and Kuppers 2007) and engages with Jill Bennet’s research into trauma and affect (2005). This paper will focus on the early stages of this investigation, and I am particularly interested in examining one of the key areas of the symposium: How do bodies mean and how do audiences ‘read’ them? Can words and actions be disentangled from one’s voice and body (for instance, can another achieve the same meaning by imitating the gestures of another? The ultimate aim is to share the methodology I develop with women who have suffered from sexual trauma and work with them to find a way to work with and through their bodies to reconnect and repair their relationships to their bodies. Once I reach this stage, the women I work with will find ways of working with the embodied voice and discovering if a reconnection to their sense of self can be found. Before I reach that stage however, I will work with my own lived experience and my own body. Therefore, within this paper I will share my early practice-as-research journey with a focus on the body. I want to discover if the practices rooted in theatre and performance that focus on the body can serve me in an act of repair and reclamation. The embodied voice through movement will be a key focus of the research and I want to find a way to weave my narrative through my own body. This will be documented through reflections, photographs and videos and it is this documentation and early research that I will consider within my paper. I am interested in exploring whether a performance platform can be a space for trauma survivors to reconnect with their bodies. This is a project that deals with acts of repair and personal discovery; it is a project rooted in events stored within the body, and I am finding ways to work within these boundaries publicly. The early stage of the research is focused on developing a method, rather than working with participants, therefore this paper will act as an enquiry into the next stage also.
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Divisions: | Bath School of Music and Performing Arts |
| Date Deposited: | 04 Sep 2025 16:21 |
| Last Modified: | 04 Sep 2025 16:21 |
| URN: | https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/17247 |
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