From 2011–2018, the Performance Program investigated how emotions were thought, felt, understood, displayed, transferred and constructed through performance and the visual arts.
Emotions power performance. In Europe, 1100-1800, emotions were performed and expressed through art, music and theatre. The Performance program facilitates understanding of historic emotions through the visual arts and connects them with a modern audience.
The Performance Program ranges from an association with staged theatrical and musical performance through to the enactment of social and cultural rituals, some in more formal settings like in the courtroom or at a public execution site, whilst others have been domestic or religious performances, taking place in private, intimate settings.
This research covers a range of disciplines including history, literature, theatre, musicology, the performing arts and performance studies, psychology, and art theory. Whilst these projects all sit well within Performance, there is a strong and inevitable connection with all three other research programs.
This approach to definition has provided opportunities for the development of some fascinating projects. Moreover, and crucially, this program has been central to the development of CHE’s Arts Industry Partnerships, with mutually developed works coming to fruition on the stage, through the written word and in conferences and collaboratories that have generated much international debate.
Performance Program Projects
Image: Project Rameau, Sydney Dance Company. Image by Wendell Teodoro.
