A new body of order: designing social meaning through performance

Jenkin, Juliet

A new body of order: designing social meaning through performance

Thesis / Dissertation

2023

Abstract

This study identifies an absence of order in contemporary social life and offers a design-based response to that absence, theorising order as a living phenomenon of regulation, meaning and authority that may be generated through the participatory, symbolic, embodied, creative and relational practice of performance. This participatory interpretation of order motivates the study's methodology which proposes performance as a mode and method of design and suggests that order may be designed through performance. An initial case study (reflecting on the process of a theatre production) presents a design methodology based on the identifying elements of performance, namely: embodiment, mimesis, ephemerality and agon. The practice of designing order is tested through two participatory design projects that identify an absence of order and address that absence using an exploratory process of performance-as-design. The first project investigates an order of authority in a classroom context, and the second an order of consent in response to participant concerns around physical intimacy. Both projects build embodied, relational structures that enact regulation, meaning and authority and demonstrate that designing order through performance is possible, productive, and effective.

Keywords

Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies

Reference:

Collections

PhD / Doctoral

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