Short Abstract:

A performative exploration of an ethnographer's bodily, sensorial and emotional dimension, and its potential for the foundation of a holistic ethnographic practice. We introduce performance training techniques as processes of conditioning our ethnographic methods and modes of representation.

Long Abstract:

This ethnographic performance lab is inspired by the pre-expressive body and voice conditioning and rehearsal techniques of Jerzy Grotowski, Peter Brook, Eugenio Barba, Richard Schechner and Wen Hui, as well as by Gestalt and Jungian methods of self individuation. We offer a practical exploration of affective, sensorial and emotional dimensions, and their potential for the foundation of a holistic ethnographic practice.

Participants are invited to try ritualistic and performance training techniques — as collaborative, multisensorial, and trans-disciplinary modalities— as useful processes of participatory ethnographic methods. We aim to negotiate the intersection of humanistic anthropology, theatre and performance studies, and experimental ethnographic practices. We ignite dialogues on how participatory rehearsal and performing activities help reframe our social engagement, collaboration, and self reflexivity, focusing our practice towards a genuinely shared authorship.

The laboratory needs a spacious empty room with a comfortable floor and sound speakers. Participants are suggested to wear comfortable clothes.