Pitch. How do I curate my selves?

Abstract

This research exists in a multimodal format, comprising a written thesis, live performance and DVD documentation. It asks, how do we curate our selves, identities, and behaviours? It takes the stance that on a second by second basis people make conscious and unconscious choices about how they reveal themselves, and hence how they construct, curate or pitch their interior self. The research considers how similar choices in dance making can lead to the conception of a composite figure that curates multiple selves on stage. In dialogue with feminist, and poststructuralist theories of subjectivity, this study reflects on ideas of lived experience (Barbour, 2005, 2011), reveal/veil (Tamas, 2008), differance (Derrida, 1968), the other (Cixous, 1997) and spectatorship (Rancière, 2009). Through embodied practice the research explores how gesture and behaviour can be re-imagined and applied using mimesis (Bell, 1999; Xu, 1995). The method of practice acknowledges the necessity of doing, moving and making (Haseman, 2006) to play with how I construct and curate my history and selves. PITCH uses intentional fragmenting, appropriating and deliberate cutting to sculpt the aesthetic (Louppe, 2010). The research took place in the studio and the public forum of the stage to draw attention to the method, message and meaning. My auto-narrative (Bowman, 2006) and the compilation of fictionalized selves is used as a strategy to become ‘other’. To realize myself as Camelle the performer and interrogate this fictionalized self. This research realizes that choices are ongoing and that we are in a constant state of performance. It follows a process of archival through the mode of dance. The research takes an emergent thematic approach to examine the trends within PITCH (Ryan, 2006). This investigation reveals that we are constantly making choices and living with them. It examines myself as performer and forced me to acknowledge details of my practice and the way I relate to others and my own experience. The research considers how perceptions of and experience of somatic sensation can articulate the embodied practice-led research. It recognizes that there is room to develop the role of social media within this study.