Aerial Scenography Working Group

Description

This project aims to develop a collaborative network of practice-based researchers and pedagogues across the fields of aerial arts, physical theatre, choreography, and scenography to explore the pivotal role of touch in the creative process, practice and pedagogy of aerial arts.

Aerial arts is a growing field within academia and also as a recreational sporting activity. There is a growing body of research that shows the value of recreational aerial arts activities (hoop, silks, trapeze, rope, etc.) in providing a sense of community and building confidence and creativity among participants. This proposal is for an exploratory/scoping phase that, long term, we hope to develop further and reach wider non-academic audiences. We are proposing new methods of working and ways of articulating practice and process, in a field where this is often neglected. Through embodied and bodily tactile encounters with aerial arts and scenographic materials (light, sound, fabric, costume), the project will engage with diverse and innovative forms of practice-based research and social circus pedagogy, with the following aims:

1. To investigate how embodied knowledge may be collectively created, understood and disseminated with rigour

2. To give recreational aerialists and their instructors alternative ways of understanding and developing their practice through the medium of tactility and touch

3. To examine how social circus pedagogical practices might be brought into the academy and/or recreational teaching environments and what benefits this might have

Three activities are being proposed throughout the year. The first is an ongoing Zoom seminar series, with guest speakers presenting across aerial arts, scenography and pedagogy (aims 1 and 2). The second is two exploratory practice days, building on preliminary work in June 2024 (aims 1 and 3). These sessions are designed to enable collaboration through shared bodily experiences with aerial apparatus and scenographic materials. They will also be used to explore principles of social circus pedagogy as a method of reflection on our practice. The year will culminate in a symposium structured around “wit(h)nessing” and enabling collaboration through shared bodily experiences (aims 1, 2, 3).

Period	2024 → …
Event type	Conference