Cyclical Stages of the Dream Journey as Dramaturgy
- Submitting institution
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York St John University
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 272
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
-
-
- Location
- -
- Brief description of type
- A performance at multiple venues and journal article
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month
- -
- Year
- 2016
- URL
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http://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/4601/
- Supplementary information
-
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This research examines the relationship between the dreaming brain and performance making. The key research questions were: How can the latest findings on dream research be appropriated as compositional strategies to develop scripted material for ambulatory performance?
What play based strategies can engage city residents in the subject of dreaming (including their own dreams) to contribute content to the performance of Dream Yards?
Clare Hind and Gary Winters worked with Professor Mark Solms, an expert in sleep science at the University of Cape Town, who offered advice on how to dream recall. Dream recall techniques were then applied during the early stages of research that proved a generative way to engender conversation, collate material and gather audiences. The dramaturgical structure was composed around scientific understandings of dream patterns throughout sleep, which include a repeated cycle of stages that look like this:
Awake, 1, 2, 3, 2, REM, 2, 3, 2, REM, 2, REM, 2, REM, late morning.
Writing creative material using this cycle in relation to each physiological sleep state allowed us to compose varying qualities (aspects, elements, characters) of written material produced according to a non-linear structure. The cycle set the conditions of the performance, moving away from a typical practice that interprets dreams, and instead composing material to correspond with each sleep stage as a phenomenological experience with site. In the resulting walking performances this cycle was used to map the route of the performance; a journey through the snickelways and yards in York, Norwich and New York, causing a playful, disorienting effect for the audience as if in a dream. This resulted in insights about the relationship between conceptual and structural dramaturgy impacting upon script development. The audience’s dream accounts complimented the physical embodiment of a sleep cycle as evidenced in claims that their perceptions were altered.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
