Where the Performer Meets the Image: Approaches to Training in Multimedia Theatre

In this paper I will communicate the results of a practice-as-research project I have recently been undertaking. The project is an investigation into the training and devising processes of the multimedia theatre practitioner. I have been exploring the skills, awareness’s and sensibilities that are utilised or required by a performer working in this field, and developing workshops to explore how these skills etc. can be cultivated in the performer. Central to the research is the notion of a compositional approach to performance, in which several elements (e.g. performer, space, projection) exist in relation to, and in combination with, each other to create meaning in the performance event. In terms of training the performer therefore has to view herself as one of a number of elements (as opposed to a central one around which others revolve), and so learn to explore how she relates to these. In the workshops this has led to an examination of the relationship between the body and light, through the performer investigating her relationship to the projection beam as opposed to the projected image.