Dr. Lynne Kent
Lynne Kent is a creative arts practitioner and scholar having taught Theatre Studies at the VCA, University of Melbourne, Theatre and Drama La Trobe University and group devised performance at Queensland University of Technology. Lynne’s creative practice and research centres around the use of images and objects in performance with a particular focus on contemporary intermedial performance.
Lynne has collaborated with various arts companies around Australia and internationally including; Circus Oz, Terrapin Puppet Theatre, The Victorian Opera, Erth and Arts Centre Melbourne. She has created works at Arts Centre Melbourne, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, for White Night Melbourne, the Sydney Opera House, Brisbane Festival and as far afield as Amman, Jordan.
Research Interests
• Theatre directing and design
• Historiography of digital performance
• Creative arts pedagogy
• Puppetry and Objects in performance
Qualifications
• Doctor of Philosophy, La Trobe University
• Master of Arts by Research, Queensland University of Technology
• Post Graduate Diploma of Education, University of Queensland
Publications;
Conjuring unseen forces: Rainmaking in Australia with John Henry Pepper, Journal of Science and Popular Culture, Volume 2, Number 2, 1 October 2019 https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/intellect/jspc/2019/00000002/00000002;jsessionid=fksckp57960kk.x-ic-live-01
Working with Things: an exploration of materiality in the puppet theatre,Garland Magazine,https://garlandmag.com/article/working-with-things/Issue#12, September, 2018
www.thingmaking.net a series of ten audio interview podcasts with leading Australian arts practitioners,
Into the Shadows, La Mama Theatre, Melbourne, 2013.
Conference Papers;
Conjuring Unseen Forces: the science and magic of rainmaking at Imagineers in Circus and Science: Scientific Knowledge and Creative Imagination, The Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University, April 2018,
Screens of the Shadow Theatre: gateways between the material and immaterial at the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) conference in Stockholm, 2016, Intermediality Working Group,
Revitalizing the Puppet Theatre: using new technologies to play between the seen and unseen Australian Drama Studies Association Conference, 2016 Resilience: Revive, Restore, Reconnect,
Moving Screens: gateways between the material and immaterial PSi #21 Fluid States: Performances of UnKnowing, Australia – ‘Performing Mobilities’ Symposium in Melbourne, Australia, RMIT and University of Melbourne, 2015 and
Performing Objects: Working in the space between materiality and the imagination Transversal Practices: Matter, Ecology and Relationality V1 Conference on New Materialisms, 27-29 September 2015, VCA and the University of Melbourne.
Supervisors: Pf Norie Neumark and Dr. Kim Baston
Address: , Victoria, Australia
Lynne has collaborated with various arts companies around Australia and internationally including; Circus Oz, Terrapin Puppet Theatre, The Victorian Opera, Erth and Arts Centre Melbourne. She has created works at Arts Centre Melbourne, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, for White Night Melbourne, the Sydney Opera House, Brisbane Festival and as far afield as Amman, Jordan.
Research Interests
• Theatre directing and design
• Historiography of digital performance
• Creative arts pedagogy
• Puppetry and Objects in performance
Qualifications
• Doctor of Philosophy, La Trobe University
• Master of Arts by Research, Queensland University of Technology
• Post Graduate Diploma of Education, University of Queensland
Publications;
Conjuring unseen forces: Rainmaking in Australia with John Henry Pepper, Journal of Science and Popular Culture, Volume 2, Number 2, 1 October 2019 https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/intellect/jspc/2019/00000002/00000002;jsessionid=fksckp57960kk.x-ic-live-01
Working with Things: an exploration of materiality in the puppet theatre,Garland Magazine,https://garlandmag.com/article/working-with-things/Issue#12, September, 2018
www.thingmaking.net a series of ten audio interview podcasts with leading Australian arts practitioners,
Into the Shadows, La Mama Theatre, Melbourne, 2013.
Conference Papers;
Conjuring Unseen Forces: the science and magic of rainmaking at Imagineers in Circus and Science: Scientific Knowledge and Creative Imagination, The Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University, April 2018,
Screens of the Shadow Theatre: gateways between the material and immaterial at the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) conference in Stockholm, 2016, Intermediality Working Group,
Revitalizing the Puppet Theatre: using new technologies to play between the seen and unseen Australian Drama Studies Association Conference, 2016 Resilience: Revive, Restore, Reconnect,
Moving Screens: gateways between the material and immaterial PSi #21 Fluid States: Performances of UnKnowing, Australia – ‘Performing Mobilities’ Symposium in Melbourne, Australia, RMIT and University of Melbourne, 2015 and
Performing Objects: Working in the space between materiality and the imagination Transversal Practices: Matter, Ecology and Relationality V1 Conference on New Materialisms, 27-29 September 2015, VCA and the University of Melbourne.
Supervisors: Pf Norie Neumark and Dr. Kim Baston
Address: , Victoria, Australia
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Papers by Dr. Lynne Kent
Lynne Kent
ORCID 0000-0002-0396-4345
Abstract
This paper puts forward a theory of mesh theatre as an approach towards understanding the shifting hybridity of transnational theatre collaborations such as Now and Tomorrow, a Jordanian/Australian children’s shadow theatre production between Haya Cultural Centre, Amman, Jordan and Terrapin Puppet Theatre, Tasmania, Australia. The boundaries in this mesh theatre, between human and nonhuman performers are blurred and inextricably
linked at the same time, creating a mesh of intersecting facets. Space and screen, light and image in the shadow theatre interact to change what is seen on stage at any one moment. Digital imagery can merge with traditional shadow imagery in a post-traditional shadow theatre. Performer and light and space and shadow all work together to sometimes confuse and confound the viewer into an uncanny questioning of who or what is leading the action. Recent scholarly thinking has characterized Arab theatre as defined by its hybridity. Khalid Amine (2006) locates Arab theatre ‘at the crossroads and a continuum of intersections, encounters, and negotiations’ (145). These intersections can provide a rich site of exchange. Theatrical collaborations between the west and Arab/Islamic worlds have been marred by the persistence of deep binary opposition between the two worlds. Theories of Orientalism as argued by Edward Said (Said, 2014), are applicable to the existing cultural stereotypes of Arab and Islamic cultures seen in the West that have either fetishized Arab/Islamic shadow theatre as something exotic and primitive, or have focused on the sensational and violent- overlooking the sophistication and visual poetics found in this theatrical form. Understanding the mesh of both Arabic/Islamic theatre and of post-traditional shadow theatre, can provide a framework for successful cross- cultural theatrical encounters to flourish.
key words: shadow theatre, hybridity, Arab/Islamic theatre, cross-cultural collaboration, shadow puppetry
Lynne Kent
ORCID 0000-0002-0396-4345
Abstract
This paper puts forward a theory of mesh theatre as an approach towards understanding the shifting hybridity of transnational theatre collaborations such as Now and Tomorrow, a Jordanian/Australian children’s shadow theatre production between Haya Cultural Centre, Amman, Jordan and Terrapin Puppet Theatre, Tasmania, Australia. The boundaries in this mesh theatre, between human and nonhuman performers are blurred and inextricably
linked at the same time, creating a mesh of intersecting facets. Space and screen, light and image in the shadow theatre interact to change what is seen on stage at any one moment. Digital imagery can merge with traditional shadow imagery in a post-traditional shadow theatre. Performer and light and space and shadow all work together to sometimes confuse and confound the viewer into an uncanny questioning of who or what is leading the action. Recent scholarly thinking has characterized Arab theatre as defined by its hybridity. Khalid Amine (2006) locates Arab theatre ‘at the crossroads and a continuum of intersections, encounters, and negotiations’ (145). These intersections can provide a rich site of exchange. Theatrical collaborations between the west and Arab/Islamic worlds have been marred by the persistence of deep binary opposition between the two worlds. Theories of Orientalism as argued by Edward Said (Said, 2014), are applicable to the existing cultural stereotypes of Arab and Islamic cultures seen in the West that have either fetishized Arab/Islamic shadow theatre as something exotic and primitive, or have focused on the sensational and violent- overlooking the sophistication and visual poetics found in this theatrical form. Understanding the mesh of both Arabic/Islamic theatre and of post-traditional shadow theatre, can provide a framework for successful cross- cultural theatrical encounters to flourish.
key words: shadow theatre, hybridity, Arab/Islamic theatre, cross-cultural collaboration, shadow puppetry