North West PARIP Meeting

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Summary by Robin Nelson

Stephen Joseph Studio, University of Manchester
Saturday, 2 November 2002

1. Convened by Barbara Kennedy and Robin Nelson, the meeting was attended by 22 people representing most HE institutions in the ‘North West’. Thanks are due to Viv Gardner and the Manchester Drama Department for facilitating the meeting (including an excellent selection of biscuits). Given sensitivities in defining as ‘NW Region’ a group involving colleagues from Glasgow and Belfast as well as NW England, it was agreed to call the group the PARIP NW Forum.

2. The day event afforded the opportunity for some critical reflection on both PaR in the RAE and on PARIP thus far. Overall, however, the discussion was consciously forward-looking and very positive. We confirmed a need for a supportive local environment in which those colleagues interested in engaging in, and promoting, PaR could exchange ideas and practices.

We agreed that:

• the NW Forum initiative should be ideas/inquiry-led not audit-led;
• provisional benchmarks would progress the debate since grey territory might be better explored in relation to reference points (in part accepting PARIP’s reluctance too soon to inscribe benchmarks, it was felt that the debate is currently going around in circles for lack of some anchor points);
• to hold a second event on 05/06 April 03 involving showings of PaR work;
• the examples to be shown should advance the overall PaR debate and that rigorous discussion of work shown should be built in to the programme. (Since the meeting, Barbara Kennedy has confirmed the likelihood of some financial support from Staffordshire University);
• that the event should aim for 30 –50 (max) persons to allow a good level of communal debate and include perhaps 5/6 presentations.;
• that a broadening of the disciplines represented should be encouraged;
• to consider a ‘festival’ event in late June/ early July if many people want to show work;
• proposals for inclusion at either event should be sent to Barbara Kennedy (b.m.kennedy@staffs.ac.uk) or Robin Nelson (r.a.nelson@mmu.ac.uk) as soon as possible.

3. Simon Macklin, tutor/researcher from Queensland University of Technology currently visiting lecturer at MMU Alsager, made a thought-provoking presentation outlining the arts educational context in Australia which distinguishes clearly between ‘professional practice’ routes (BFA, MFA, DFA) and ‘academic arts’ routes (BA, MA, PhD). Simon’s own Master’s research addresses the kinds of knowledge involved in PaR and his thesis includes practice as a PaR ‘chapter’. Simon questioned whether we can create knowledge solely through a performance asking, ‘where does the knowledge sit in a performed outcome?’ Professional practice, he posits, produces an aesthetic text; academic inquiry produces an academic text. Referring to insights into Mnouchkine’s research process, he distinguished an eight-hour outcome which was not aesthetically-pleasing from the two-hour professional performance text which was selected and shaped from the research material to be aesthetically pleasing. Stressing that, in his view, the point of knowledge is that other people can learn from it, he argued that we cannot document knowledge we cannot identify or which resides solely in the individual performer(s). Summing up the state of PaR as he sees it, Simon suggested that we understand the technicalities but not all the epistemologies or methodologies. We have not yet established a ‘how we do it’ of PaR though we might, and should, proceed to do so.

Simon’s presentation stimulated an excellent debate with too many well-made points to be summarised fully in these notes. By drawing clear benchmarks, Simon invited us to engage with specific aspects of the PaR debate. A keynote of response was that knowledge and understanding might be advanced in a negotiation between spectator/reader and work/creator. The ‘affective’needs to be embraced in this context. Knowledge may be produced in dialogue and it may be possible to rewrite ‘the aesthetic’ to include the processual.
For the rest, you should have been there!

4. Reflection on the place of PaR in the 2001 RAE and AHRB initiatives acknowledged that a significant advance in respect of inclusion of PaR work has been made. A number of points/ proposals were made, however, in the plenary session:

• Key question remains: where does research lie?
• Case studies are needed to identify codes and conventions of PaR and to establish a range of knowledges and new knowledge paradigms (hence the structure of the NW forum’s second event);
• (Auslander notwithstanding) live work was best experienced live and the video/DVD recording (though much improved on the 1996 RAE round) did not do PaR work full justice;
• To address the problem of access, it was proposed that a set of reviewers be nominated, perhaps through bodies such as SCUDD/SCODHE/AMPE, who might advise the next RAE panel. Individual PaR practitioners could ensure that their work was seen by nominated people who might offer a view to the panel as ‘refereed’ evidence. PARIP forums might have a role in such arrangements;
• pedagogic research in performance might be more overtly recognised in a PaR context;
• creative thinking is needed about the place of documentation in research, types of documentation, access to non-written, non-video/DVD forms of documentation.

5. The meeting identified some questions about the functioning of PARIP which Robin Nelson undertook to put to the PARIP Management Group.

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