Training for live art: process pedagogies and New Moves International’s Winter Schools

Abstract

New Moves International (NMI)’s Winter School was an annual programme of artist-led courses offering training and development for independent artists and students in tertiary education. Staged in Glasgow, UK, between 2003 and 2011, it emerged from NMI’s commitment under the artistic directorship of Nikki Millican to fostering opportunities that might allow emergent and established practitioners to step outside their familiar creative process and critically assess their work. This essay offers a history of the Winter Schools and their significance to the development of Live Art in the UK during the 1990s and first decade of the new millennium. In doing so, it argues that the Winter School’s emphasis on process-based pedagogies allows for further understanding of Live Art’s resistant relationship to conventional forms of performer training, especially those characterised by ‘masterclass’ teaching.

Keywords:

• live art
• New Moves International
• Goat Island
• National Review of Live Art
• experiential learning

Notes

1 The Goat Island summer schools – directed by the members of Goat Island – were established in 1996 with the aim of providing an opportunity for artists to work and study together in developing new theories and practices in art/performance. Originated at Glasgow’s CCA through funding from Arts Council England, the Scottish Arts Council and Glasgow City Council, later schools were held in Bristol and at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. See http://www.goatislandperformance.org/education.htm.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephen Greer

Stephen Greer is Senior Lecturer in Theatre Practices at the University of Glasgow. He is the author of Contemporary British Queer Performance (2012) and Queer exceptions: solo performance in neoliberal times (2018). His current research focuses on the histories and practices of Live Art in Scotland.