Handspun, The Role of Collaboration and Embodiment as Compositional Process—A Transdisciplinary Perspective

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the process of creating Handspun. In order to meet this aim, collaboration, embodiment, and transdisciplinarity were identified as the primary aspects of the creative process. Different forms of working relationships arose between myself, musicians, and artists from other disciplines. Embodiment of extra-musical elements took place and formed part of a compositional decision-making process. Through the lens of transdisciplinary theory insight into how my music might connect to the extra-musical to form an autonomous synthesis is gained. Collaboration, embodiment, and transdisciplinarity are contextualised in respect to my practice through an investigation into different forms of working relationships and a view of Handspun as a work of music theatre. A case study into the process for creating Handspun reveals the nature of collaborative working relationships and the range of extra-musical elements that I embodied. The case study will also consider Handspun from a transdisciplinary perspective. I interrogate my compositional process and its products through practise-led research, to these ends.

Keywords:

• Collaboration
• Embodiment
• Transdisciplinary
• Contemporary Music
• Music Theatre

Notes

1 An online video of Handspun can be viewed via https://youtu.be/NtQduNfmXgM

The full score can be viewed via http://lukestyles.com/Luke_Styles_Composer/Opera_theatre_files/Handspun%20PhD%20Version.pdf

2 I am using the term musical to include the sounds of a work that have been intentionally crafted and extra-musical to refer to the other disciplines and elements in a work that are not crafted sound.

3 In a collaborative theatre environment ‘We can talk of the actor as creator, the stage manager as deviser, the director as performer’ (Lavender, 2001, p. 217). Artists and collaborators are not restricted to one role when collaborating.

4 There may be a number of different disciplines combined in a work and it is their integration rather than their separation that is of interest in perceiving a work’s transdisciplinarity. Music and composition will not be viewed as independent of the other elements in a work.

The recognition of the existence of different levels of reality governed by different types of logic is inherent in the transdisciplinary attitude. Any attempt to reduce reality to a single level governed by a single form of logic does not lie within the scope of Transdisciplinarity. (Nicolescu, 1994)

5 Handel—‘Handel as a Man of the Theatre’ (Trowell, 1961, p. 17); Verdi—‘When Falstaff was staged in Rome in 1893, a committee of musicians came to pay homage to their country’s “greatest composer”. “No, no, don’t say great composer”, Verdi interrupted; “I am a man of the theatre”’. (Van, 1998, p. 30); Britten—‘In the thirty-year span of his career he wrote sixteen original works for the stage, together with a couple of adaptions’ (Diana, 2011, p. 9).

6 Here the term experimental is used to describe the exploration of creative ideas, such as sounds or types of movement. Experimental does not refer here to the environment, such as the rehearsal or performance venue itself being experimental or non-traditional, such as a car park or hot air balloon.

7 This tends to break down simply; if I want or expect a full collaborative (along the lines of Taylor, Hayden and Windsor) working relationship with a performer then I include them (or they include me) at the outset of the process. If I see the relationship as directive with a hierarchical way of working, then I include them as late as possible. What I have tended to favour in my work has been a middle ground of interactive (Hayden & Windsor, 2007) working, in which the performer is involved at the workshop stage, but not in the earlier phases of the creative process.

8 ‘We put forward the proposition that intermediality in theatre and performance is about the process of how something that appears fixed becomes different, and our conceptual framework reflects the processes of change’ (Chapple & Kattenbelt, 2006, p. 12).

9 Since its premiere Handspun has gone on to have several more productions; 14, 15 September 2013 at Sirkuslandsbyen, Torshovparken Oslo, Norway, 10 May 2014 at the Helsinki Music Centre as part of Cirko Festival, Finland, 7 October 2014 in Trutnov, Czech Republic, 28, 29 November 2014 at Jackson’s Lane Theatre, London, 11, 12 February 2015 at Dansens Hus, Stockholm as part of Subcase Nordic Circus Fair, 20 March 2015 at the Kokkolan Festival, Finland, 13 September 2015, Finish Radio Symphony Orchestra Chamber Series, Helsinki, Finland, 18, 19 March 2016 Oulu Music Festival, Finland.

10 This refers to a way of speaking to one another wherein we know to a certain extent how our ideas expressed in words might turn into a performance. We also know that when we are talking about the work we are speaking as collaborators engaged in the joint task of making the entire work, as well as being aware of the requirements of our individual creative contributions.