Efficacy and the Arts with Special Reference to Contemporary Dance Theatre: The Ethical, Aesthetic and Spiritual - A Performative Discourse a view from Within: a Reflective Practitioner’s Revisionary Point of View
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Author(s)
Primary Supervisor
Harrison, Scott
Balfour, Michael
Year published
2013
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In that every form of knowing represents a way of en-acting, relating and being-in-the- world, every form of knowing has an ethical dimension and concerns efficacy. Contemporary research points to significant gaps in relation to the way the arts are presently perceived and justified. In the minds of many the arts have failed to develop an adequate public conception of their true significance.
This thesis seeks to re-present, re-ground and re-vision the way we think about the arts; have the arts, and dance more specifically, re-cognized and re-legitimized in terms of their intrinsic and ethical nature, their own ‘form of ...
View more >In that every form of knowing represents a way of en-acting, relating and being-in-the- world, every form of knowing has an ethical dimension and concerns efficacy. Contemporary research points to significant gaps in relation to the way the arts are presently perceived and justified. In the minds of many the arts have failed to develop an adequate public conception of their true significance. This thesis seeks to re-present, re-ground and re-vision the way we think about the arts; have the arts, and dance more specifically, re-cognized and re-legitimized in terms of their intrinsic and ethical nature, their own ‘form of life’. Today we think of the performing arts primarily in terms of entertainment and recreation, with little significance other than providing ephemeral and escapist pleasure, a gloss upon the surface of life, a harmless indulgence – one driven in the main by economics and politics rather than the internal and ethical energies of the forms themselves. Along with such authors as Abbs (1996, p.29), I see the arts as ‘indispensable vehicles for the development of human consciousness; a primary quest for meaning and understanding, apprehending and exploring reality’; at their most profound and typical, formally heuristic rather than merely hedonistic; and, ‘far from escaping life [they] have a way of drawing us into life, allowing us to participate more immediately and deeply in the basic stuff and process of life’ (Westerhoff 1981a, pp.5–15), re-minding artists and arts audiences, arts legislators and educators that beyond the functional and material there exists, as has always existed, a close alliance between aesthetic knowing and spiritual knowing; ‘an alliance not dictated merely by historical accident or practical need but one rooted in the very essence of both’ (Pope John Paul II 1999).
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View more >In that every form of knowing represents a way of en-acting, relating and being-in-the- world, every form of knowing has an ethical dimension and concerns efficacy. Contemporary research points to significant gaps in relation to the way the arts are presently perceived and justified. In the minds of many the arts have failed to develop an adequate public conception of their true significance. This thesis seeks to re-present, re-ground and re-vision the way we think about the arts; have the arts, and dance more specifically, re-cognized and re-legitimized in terms of their intrinsic and ethical nature, their own ‘form of life’. Today we think of the performing arts primarily in terms of entertainment and recreation, with little significance other than providing ephemeral and escapist pleasure, a gloss upon the surface of life, a harmless indulgence – one driven in the main by economics and politics rather than the internal and ethical energies of the forms themselves. Along with such authors as Abbs (1996, p.29), I see the arts as ‘indispensable vehicles for the development of human consciousness; a primary quest for meaning and understanding, apprehending and exploring reality’; at their most profound and typical, formally heuristic rather than merely hedonistic; and, ‘far from escaping life [they] have a way of drawing us into life, allowing us to participate more immediately and deeply in the basic stuff and process of life’ (Westerhoff 1981a, pp.5–15), re-minding artists and arts audiences, arts legislators and educators that beyond the functional and material there exists, as has always existed, a close alliance between aesthetic knowing and spiritual knowing; ‘an alliance not dictated merely by historical accident or practical need but one rooted in the very essence of both’ (Pope John Paul II 1999).
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Thesis Type
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Degree Program
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School
Queensland Conservatorium of Music
Copyright Statement
The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise.
Item Access Status
Public
Subject
Recognition of the arts
Performing arts
Arts and human consciousness
Contemporary dance theatre