Project Title: Site Specific Performance and the Development of Audiences for Theatre
Funding: 16k stipend for two years plus fees leading to MA degree. Registered at IADT, Dun Laoghaire and the Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media.

Supervision: Dr Elaine Sisson (Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media) and Dr Diog O'Connell (School of Business and Humanities, IADT)

Description of Project: This research project will examine the emergent relationship between site-specific performance, historic sites managed by the OPW, and the possibility of the emergence of new models of engagement for audiences and for theatre practitioners. In 2007 Ouroboros Theatre Ireland undertook a national tour of Brian Friel’s Making History using OPW buildings and sites as performance spaces. Initially conceived as a means of connecting Friel’s play about Hugh O’Neill to local historical contexts, the Company toured to sites with an historic or symbolic connection to the 1607 Flight of the Earls. The experience of audience members, OPW site managers, production crew and actors suggested that an innovative and potentially radical form of theatre was taking place. Using the ongoing collaboration (2007-2009) between the Office of Public Works (OPW) and Ouroboros as a primary case study, this project questions the effectiveness of existing cultural policy in relation to non-theatre venues and interrogates how the spatial relations of theatres and auditoria may effectively work against audience engagement.

Some of the research questions to be addressed include: Are there new models of practice possible for developing and consolidating theatre audiences which are currently outside the remit of existing cultural policy on touring and audience development? In site-specific work what is the relationship between the performance, the space and the audience? What is the relationship between history, interpretation and public space? Can histories of spaces be renegotiated through theatre? What are best practices for using or modifying the natural and architectural environment? In the case of an historic location, is the space changed by the performance? Is the space reconceived by the audience? If so, what are the cultural implications and benefits for managers running historic buildings/sites in the renegotiation or recontexualisation of a given space? How do economic considerations foster and/or limit site-specific practices?

Profile of Graduate to be recruited: This is an interdisciplinary project which requires an entry-level understanding of the professional, critical, and practical contexts of current cultural policy in arts programming. Candidates with an honours degree (2.2)in any of the following areas would be eligible: theatre/drama studies; film/media studies; literature; design; visual arts; sociology; anthropology; architecture, or related fields. The researcher will be part of the larger research community of the Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media (of which IADT is an associate). There is an opportunity for the researcher to advance to PhD after two years within IADT/The Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media. Candidates interested in progressing to doctoral study are strongly encouraged to apply.

Details: Closing date 4pm Friday 18 July. See www.iadt.ie for further details or email margaret.murray@iadt.ie.