Seminars usually take place on Thursday lunchtimes, 1.15pm to 2.05pm in the Café Space (MQ125) in the Foyle Arts Centre at Magee. Everyone is very welcome to attend, both staff and students. These seminars offer a developmental opportunity for researchers to try out ideas. They are further intended to provide a forum for the discussion of ideas and methodologies involved in current and ongoing research, across disciplines in the creative arts.

THURSDAY MARCH 8TH

IAN WILSON

Recent Work

Ian Wilson was born in Belfast in 1964 and obtained the first D.Phil. in composition to be awarded by the University of Ulster, which, in 1993, commissioned his orchestral work Rise in celebration of the tenth anniversary of its foundation. Hamelin, Ian’s first chamber opera, was composed while he was an AHRC Fellow in the Creative and Performing Arts at the University, between 2000 and 2003. His music has been performed and broadcast on six continents by artists such as the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, the Ulster, Belgrade Philharmonic and Norwegian Radio Orchestras, the London Mozart Players and the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Artis, Vogler and Vanbrugh Quartets, Lontano and Avanti! ensembles, Catherine Leonard and Hugh Tinney. Works have been performed at many festivals including the BBC Proms, Venice Bienniale, ISCM World Music Days, the Cheltenham, Spitalfields and Bath Festivals and the Ultima Festival in Oslo. Ian will talk about his recent and current compositions—all welcome.

THURSDAY MARCH 15TH

BRIAN RICE

The West Side Story percussion book; a contemporary viewpoint

West Side Story is renowned for its rich Latin American and jazz rhythms. This paper will examine how Bernstein fused the existing dance styles of cha cha, mambo and big band swing with elements of his own language to create numbers around Jerome Robbins’s choreographed dance routines. Employing practical demonstration, the paper will also discuss this author’s own interpretation of Bernstein’s parts and the performance techniques required to execute them.

Brian is in his final year of a PhD in performance looking at the utilization of drums in musical theatre.

MONDAY MARCH 26TH (NB different day)

ROSALIND HASLETT

The role of the dramaturg

The fluidity of the role of dramaturg ensures that it has defied definition, even description, since its introduction into UK theatre in 1908. Perhaps because there are a number of different titles for the role, the dramaturg has remained an elusive figure. Whether working as a ‘literary manager’, programming theatres and reading unsolicited manuscripts, a ‘development dramaturg’, working with playwrights on scripts that are still in progress, or as a ‘production dramaturg’, an active member of the production team, the input of these individuals is largely suggestive, difficult to credit, and therefore usually remains invisible.

This paper argues that the function of dramaturg as ‘critic’ has been undervalued and misunderstood in recent studies of the role. It calls for a re-evaluation of the critical function as an integral part of theatre-making processes, rather than something that is applied to them in the post-performance stage. The paper seeks to explore how the dramaturg’s engaged critical reading of scripts which are still in development affects the final text, with particular reference to Tinderbox Theatre Company’s work with playwright Lisa McGee on her play Girls and Dolls. Finally the paper will pose questions concerning the ethical issues at the heart of the playwright / dramaturg relationship – is it possible for the dramaturg to remain critically objective, or will personal bias inevitably emerge thus [leading to the danger of censorship]?

Ros is in the second year of a PhD looking at the role and function of the dramaturg in British and American theatre.

THURSDAY MARCH 22ND

DANIJELA KUZELIC-WILSON

The role of music in film viewed as an inherently musical medium

The subject I would like to talk about relates to my present interest in exploring the new aesthetics of film music practiced by some European and American independent film-makers, which differs significantly from the conventions of Hollywood film music practice. I intend to establish common ground for different examples of this “new film music aesthetics” by drawing on the argument from my PhD thesis that film is an inherently musical medium, which is also an idea shared by a number of film-makers (Anthony Minghella, Mike Figgis, David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch, Darren Aronofsky, etc.) who practice what could be called “a musical approach to film”. In the context of this approach music is not an element added in the last stages of post production but is present from the very beginning as an inspiration and a guideline for different stages of the film-making process. The traditional functions music usually fulfils in film (decorative, interpretative, affective and so on) are in this approach partly or completely replaced by music becoming one of the constitutive elements of the formal, rhythmic and kinetic aspects of film’s structure, which is considered musical in itself. Most importantly, in this approach the affective impact of music is treated as a welcome “pay-off” from its integration into film’s structure, as opposed to the usual Hollywood practice of exploiting music to extort particular emotional responses.

THURSDAY APRIL 19TH

ANTON HUTTON

The mobile internet

This seminar will be an exploration of mobile phone technology and the convergence between the mobile internet and the PC internet. There will be a focus on the architecture of web based mobile phone applications and the technical constraints, challenges and opportunities in that area. There will also be a bit of speculation