#tdpt

Playing the piano a little, it's very unpolished but came out alright. 色んな間違えるがあるけどいい考えと思った。

3D tracking: ThreeDPoseTracker and Vnyan Model made in Vroid Piano VST: EastWest Goliath Steinway B

Theatre, Dance and Performance Training (TDPT)

Special issue entitled Showing and Writing Training to be published July 2016

Call for contributions, ideas, proposals and dialogue with the editor

Guest editor: Mary Paterson (Independent Writer: [email protected] )

Background and context

This will be the fifth special Issue of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, following issues on sport, Michael Chekhov, politics and ideology and Moshe Feldenkrais. Our special issues do not necessarily follow the form and structure of generic issues of TDPT and we are open to adapting our shape and appearance to the material received. This special issue of TDPT is concerned as much with form as it is with content. We are interested in the ways that discourse and dialogue about training affect not only training and its stated aims, but also the ways in which these methods and devices are accessed, remembered or reproduced. In short, we want to show training as well as write it.

In a still primarily paper-based journal concerned with training in Theatre, Dance and Performance – broad terms for practices that very much concern bodies in motion and in relation to space – contributions tend to come up very quickly against the limits of written language in general and those modes of writing in particular that are the norms of academic literacy. Apart from words, the main other mode used in TDPT has been the still photograph, usually reproduced in black and white. The problem, if such it is, is not new and has long been recognised in attempts to represent and critique the specificity of performance in words. We believe that there may be a distinction between attention to the singularities of specific instances of training practice and attempts to discuss genres, types or categories. The term training may always imply that any instance of training has its place in a method or system. Since methods are often set out in words, this may reduce the problem but it is unlikely to be the written descriptions of methods on their own that lead witnesses to recognise the programmatic affiliations of any live example.

Expressions of interest

We are particularly interested in submissions that explore the function of the journal as a tool for training, for example by considering the way the journal is designed, the use of image, and the disruption of academic language and/or crossovers with the digital realm (an area we hope to extend for TDPT in the next year). We want this special issue to confront the constraints of translating training narratives from the studio to the (virtual or paper) page and invite expressions of interest through one or more of the following approaches:

articles that examine examples of the existing literature on this topic;

articles that take a conceptual and/or formalist approach to the perceived limits (as a possible example, a consideration of the extent to which phenomenological approaches have in any respects successfully addressed the problem);

articles that consider examples of writings that have attempted to address and perhaps transcend the problem;

articles which explicitly cross disciplines and art forms, or which play with the accepted boundaries between them;

experimental writings that demonstrate or test alternatives;

interviews with practitioners and artists who have wrestled with issues of ‘showing and telling’;

essays that are wholly or in part non-verbal and which explore the possibilities of the visual image in all its multiple manifestations.

We welcome submissions from people both inside and outside academic institutions and from those who are currently undergoing training or who have experiences to tell from their training histories. As part of our own interest in the subject, we are exploring ways that the normal peer review system can be revised to accommodate more experimental approaches to the journal article.

Questions to consider include

What is the difference between what you do and how you talk about what you do?

Who is unwelcome and how do they know?

What remains unsaid? What remains undone? What gets undone?

Would you say all this to someone you are training with?

What kinds of discourses are (in)credible?

What have you already assumed?

What is impossible to explain?

What can only be known in retrospect?

How does it feel?

What kind of person is produced by this process and how will they talk?

What is (in)substantial?

What will change if we do things the same way we talk about them? What will happen if we don’t?

What will change if we don’t change anything that we’re doing right now?

What is impossible to articulate in words?

What are the secrets of your method?

How do you know you belong somewhere?

Who do you think you are talking to?

To signal your interest and intention to make a contribution to this special issue in any one of the ways identified above please email an abstract (max 250 words) to Mary Paterson at:

[email protected]

Our first deadline for these is 31st January 2015.

Training Grounds: we will also be seeking contributions for the Training Grounds section of this special issue. Within TDPT, Training Grounds represents a playful space for shorter and perhaps more provocative and rhetorical contributions. Thus in our generic issues we have postcards (Training and …), responses to an ‘answer the question’, essais and reviews of events, workshops, conferences as well as books. Our Training Grounds section in special issues does not always follow this model but please contact Mary Paterson if you have ideas or would like to discuss possibilities with her.

Approximate timelines

31 January 2015: abstracts and proposals sent to Mary Paterson

End March 2015: Response from editor and, if successful, invitation to submit contribution

April to mid September 2015: writing/preparation period for writers, artists etc.

Mid Sept to end October: peer review period

November 2015 – end January 2016: author revisions post peer review

End March 2016: most articles into production with Routledge

April- June 2016: typesetting, proofing, revises, editorial etc.

Special issue entitled Showing and Writing Training to be published July 2016 / Call for contributions, ideas, proposals and dialogue with the editor / Guest editor: Mary Paterson (Independent Writer: marypaterson [at] gmail.com)

Background and context

This will be the fifth special Issue of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training (TDPT) following issues on sport, Michael Chekhov, politics and ideology and Moshe Feldenkrais. TDPT is an international journal devoted to all aspects of ‘training’ (broadly defined) within the performing arts. We are now entering our sixth year. Our target readership is both academic and the many varieties of professional performers, makers, choreographers, directors, dramaturgs and composers working in theatre, dance and live art who have an interest in and curiosity for reflecting on their practices and their training. TDPT was co-founded by Simon Murray (University of Glasgow) and Jonathan Pitches (University of Leeds) who have co-edited the journal since its launch in 2009.

Our special issues do not necessarily follow the form and structure of generic issues of TDPT and we are open to adapting our shape and form to the material received. This special issue of TDPT is concerned as much with form as it is with content.  We are interested in the ways that discourse and dialogue about training affect not only training and its stated aims, but also the ways in which these methods and devices are accessed, remembered or reproduced.  In short, we want to show training as well as write it. 

In a still primarily paper-based journal concerned with training in Theatre, Dance and Performance – broad terms for practices that very much concern bodies in motion and in relation to space – contributions tend to come up very quickly against the limits of written language in general and those modes of writing in particular that are the norms of academic literacy. Apart from words, the main other mode used in TDPT has been the still photograph, usually reproduced in black and white. The problem, if such it is, is not new and has long been recognised in attempts to represent and critique the specificity of performance in words. We believe that there may be a distinction between attention to the singularities of specific instances of training practice and attempts to discuss genres, types or categories. The term training may always imply that any instance of training has its place in a method or system. Since methods are often set out in words, this may reduce the problem but it is unlikely to be the written descriptions of methods on their own that lead witnesses to recognise the programmatic affiliations of any live example.

Expressions of interest

We are particularly interested in submissions that explore the function of the journal as a tool for training, for example by considering the way the journal is designed, the use of image, and the disruption of academic language and/or crossovers with the digital realm (an area we hope to extend for TDPT in the next year).  We want this special issue to confront the constraints of translating training narratives from the studio to the (virtual or paper) page and invite expressions of interest through one or more of the following approaches:

articles that examine examples of the existing literature on this topic;

articles that take a conceptual and/or formalist approach to the perceived limits (as a possible example, a consideration of the extent to which phenomenological approaches have in any respects successfully addressed the problem);

articles that consider examples of writings that have attempted to address and perhaps transcend the problem;

articles which explicitly cross disciplines and art forms, or which play with the accepted  boundaries between them;

experimental writings that demonstrate or test alternatives;

interviews with practitioners and artists who have wrestled with issues of ‘showing and telling’;

essays that are wholly or in part non-verbal and which explore the possibilities of the visual image in all its multiple manifestations.

We welcome submissions from people both inside and outside academic institutions and from those who are currently undergoing training or who have experiences to tell from their training histories. As part of our own interest in the subject, we are exploring ways that the normal peer review system can be revised to accommodate more experimental approaches to the journal article.

Questions to consider include

What is the difference between what you do and how you talk about what you do?

Who is unwelcome and how do they know?

What remains unsaid? What remains undone? What gets undone?

Would you say all this to someone you are training with?

What kinds of discourses are (in)credible?

What have you already assumed?

What is impossible to explain? 

What can only be known in retrospect?

How does it feel?

What kind of person is produced by this process and how will they talk?

What is (in)substantial?

What will change if we do things the same way we talk about them?  What will happen if we don’t?

What will change if we don’t change anything that we’re doing right now?

What is impossible to articulate in words?

What are the secrets of your method?

How do you know you belong somewhere?

Who do you think you are talking to?

To signal your interest and intention to make a contribution to this special issue in any one of the ways identified above please email an abstract (max 250 words) to Mary Paterson at:

                                marypaterson [ at] gmail.com

 Our first deadline for these is 31st January 2015.

Training Grounds: we will also be seeking contributions for the Training Grounds section of this special issue. Within TDPT, Training Grounds represents a playful space for shorter and perhaps more provocative and rhetorical contributions. Thus in our generic issues we have postcards (Training and …), responses to an ‘answer the question’, essais and reviews of events, workshops, conferences as well as books. Our Training Grounds section in special issues does not always follow this model but please contact Mary Paterson if you have ideas or would like to discuss possibilities with her.

Approximate timelines

31 January 2015: abstracts and proposals sent to Mary Paterson

End March 2015: Response from editor and, if successful, invitation to submit contribution

April to mid September 2015: writing/preparation period for writers, artists etc.

Mid Sept to end October: peer review period

November 2015 – end January 2016: author revisions post peer review

End March 2016: most articles into production with Routledge

April- June 2016: typesetting, proofing, revises, editorial etc.

July 2016: publication.