Speaking Cancer: One-to-one performance practice and Fun with Cancer Patients: Kanazawa
- Submitting institution
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Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- RBREF2021006
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
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- Location
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- Brief description of type
- Fun with Cancer Patients: Kanazawa was a live performance installation and practice research project commissioned by 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa and built in collaboration with Hanaume Cancer Support Centre.
- Open access status
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- Month
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- Year
- 2016
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
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- Criminology
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- Interdisciplinary
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- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
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- Reserve for an output with double weighting
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- Additional information
- Brian Lobel’s research project, Fun With Cancer Patients: Kanazawa (2016-2017) was commissioned by the 21st Century Museum for Contemporary Art, for the Kanazawa Fringe Programme. Lobel employed methodologies from both intimate and one-to-one performances and patient focus groups to explore the silence around illness and the difficulty of having challenging conversations, particularly in a Japanese context. This built on previous site-specific research he conducted in London and Birmingham, England and Ghent, Belgium, which also explored questions of silence and the parallels between ordinary language and what Lobel has theorised as Cancer English (or Cancer Japanese, etc.), or language informed by a lived experience of illness.
In collaboration with the Hanaume Cancer Support Centre, and supported by funding from Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and British Council, Lobel engaged a team of over 50 participants to develop the project over the two year research period. This included workshops with patients and healthcare professionals, such as ‘We Have to Talk About Cancer’ (June 2016), an overnight research retreat (June 2017), and a workshop for doctors and nurses (June 2017). This resulting three-day multimedia installation (3-5 November 2017) featured over 30 cancer patients, medical professionals, support workers and bereaved family members (the performers) who created one-to-one performances in the gallery spaces. The work consisted of an introductory monologue by Brian, after which audience members were paired with a performer and taken through a benri (tool of convenience) for conversations about cancer as they moved through the museum. It was attended by over 450 people. The piece was subsequently presented as a Keynote Project and Presentation at the Japanese Psychosocial Oncology Conference (September 2018). The submission here includes the performance’s video introduction and performance artefacts (including benri box and translations). Contextual content includes the final project report and Conference programme.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
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- English abstract
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