Practice as Research in Performance (PARIP), a five year research project led by Bristol University's Department of Drama: Theatre, Film and Television culminates this month with an international conference to be held at the University of Leeds from Wednesday 29 June to Sunday 3 July 2005.
PARIP aims to explore, encourage and document a wide range of performance media practices currently being undertaken by researchers in higher education institutions. Examples of such practices include devised theatre (collaborative performance making), site-specific performance, experiments in historical stage reconstruction and approaches to multi-screen and interactive cinema.
PARIP engages with the idea that performance practices constitute research activities in their own right. For most people, the term 'research' conjures up images of conscientious students and academics reading books in libraries or of scientists in laboratories developing experiments to find out what they need to know.
PARIP's contention is that new kinds of creative practitioner-scholars - directors, dancers, actors and film-makers - are doing their own kind of research, but not necessarily in libraries and laboratories. It aims to demonstrate that research can take place on stage, in the studio or on screen too and asks what kinds of knowledge performers and practitioners can produce from this kind of research.
The conference, PARIP 2005, will involve contributions from more than 70 practioner-researchers drawn from all over the world. It will consist of panel sessions, workshops, presentations, performances and screenings.
PARIP 2005 will also see the launch of the PARIP Explorer, a database of practioner-researchers in the UK, searchable through an innovative Semantic Web search-engine.
Professor Baz Kershaw, Director of PARIP said: "Just as scientists and engineers need laboratories and test beds, so creative researchers in the performing and screen arts need studios and technical systems; and just as sociologists and psychologists need people as subjects, so practice as researchers need participants and audiences.
"PARIP 2005 is a cutting edge for university creative researchers working in performance and screen media, who have set its agenda through earlier PARIP-initiated symposia, a conference, seminars and inter-university local groups in several UK regions.
"We are delighted to collaborate with the School of Performance and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds to produce and host this international conference which will be a fitting climax to the innovative and exciting journey PARIP's researchers have taken over the last five years. "