Hind, Claire (2019) Cyclical Stages of the Dream Journey as Dramaturgy. York St John University.

Text Claire Hind REF 2020 Submission Cyclical stages of the dream journey as dramaturgy .pdf - Submitted Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (9MB)

Abstract

This research examines the relationship between the dreaming brain and performance making.

The key research questions were:

What play based strategies can engage city residents in the subject of dreaming (including their
own dreams) to contribute content to the performance?

How can the latest findings on dream research be appropriated as compositional strategies to
develop scripted material for ambulatory performance?

Gary Winters and I worked with Professor Mark Solms, a leading expert in sleep science at the University of Cape Town, who offered advice on how to dream recall. Dream recall techniques were then applied during the early stages of research that proved a generative way to engender conversation, collate material and gather audiences. The dramaturgical structure was composed
around scientific understandings of dream patterns throughout sleep, which include a repeated cycle of stages that look like this:

Awake, 1, 2, 3, 2, REM, 2, 3, 2, REM, 2, REM, 2, REM, late morning.

Writing creative material using this cycle in relation to each physiological sleep state allowed us to compose varying qualities (aspects, elements, characters) of written material produced according to a non-linear structure. The cycle set the conditions of the performance, moving away from a
typical practice that interprets dreams, and instead composing material to correspond with each
sleep stage as a phenomenological experience with site. In the resulting walking performances this cycle was used to map the route of the performance; a journey through the snickelways and yards in York, Norwich and New York, causing a playful, disorienting effect for the audience as if in a dream. This resulted in insights about the relationship between conceptual and structural dramaturgy impacting upon script development. The audience’s dream accounts complimented the physical embodiment of a sleep cycle as evidenced in claims that their perceptions.

Item Type:	Other
Status:	Published
School/Department:	School of the Arts
URI:	https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/4601

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