Eleanor Bauer's public defence

The public defense includes a brief presentation of the research by doctoral candidate Eleanor Bauer. It is therefore recommended to attend the Making Public and/or review the documented artistic research project (doctoral thesis) materials online prior to the public defense.

Opponent: Martin Hargreaves

Examination committee:
Sher Doruff
Jeroen Fabius
Jenn Joy
John-Paul Zaccarini (deputy)

Principal supervisor: Juliette Mapp

Supervisor: Chrysa Parkinson

Chair of defence: Cecilia Roos, Vice-Rector for Research at SKH.

Scheduled proceedings

•  13:00 – Welcome by Kristine Slettevold, Head of Institute of Dance.
•  Introduction by chair Cecilia Roos, Head of Research Center.
•  20 minute presentation of research by Eleanor Bauer, PhD candidate. 
•  40 minute response to the doctoral project by Martin Hargreaves, opponent.
•  Questions and conversation between Martin Hargreaves and Eleanor Bauer.
•  Pause (25 min). Refreshments in the foyer.
•  Questions from committee to candidate.
•  Questions from public to candidate.
•  Pause (indefinite). Committee deliberates privately, refreshments in foyer.
•  Committee announces the results in the foyer.

Reception in the foyer until 19:00, welcome to Brasserie Elverket thereafter.

Biographies 

Eleanor Bauer is a choreographer and performer working at the inter-sections of dance, writing, and music. Her work is rooted in a synthesis of embodied intelligences in her practice of making sense with the senses in performance. From solos to talk shows to large ensemble pieces, her versatile works range in scale, media, and genre, traversing categories of performance with wit, humor, and aplomb, and have toured internationally to critical acclaim.

Bauer has worked as a performer with, among others, Matthew Barney, Trisha Brown, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker/Rosas, Xavier Le Roy, Boris Charmatz, David Zambrano, Every Ocean Hughes, The Knife, and Ictus contemporary music ensemble. Bauer has been commissioned as a choreographer by Cullberg (Stockholm), Schauspielhaus Bochum, Corpus (Copenhagen), and Nora (London), among others. 

Bauer created her own performances via GoodMove vzw, a production structure she initiated in Brussels from 2007-2020, and was artist in residence at Kaaitheater in Brussels from 2013-2016. Musician, composer, programmer and improviser Chris Peck has been a cornerstone in Bauer’s artistic practice since 2004. Together they have collaborated on numerous projects and commissions.  

Together with Ellen Söderhult and Alice Chauchat, Bauer co-founded the open-source format for exchange of practices in the performing arts called Nobody’s Business in 2015, which has since been adapted by myriad practitioners and local organizers worldwide. 

Bauer continues to teach, write, lecture, and co-create contexts for exchange of knowledge in the arts. Past and ongoing educational, performative, and discursive projects include BAUER HOUR, PROTO TALKS, Dr. Dance and A class for a cause, as well as two podcasts: How Dance Thinks from 2018, and Sleeping Giant Dreams in 2020.

Bauer joined the research community at Stockholm University of the Arts in 2017 for the opportunity to deepen and extend the research-orientation of her work, to participate in an interdisciplinary culture of experimentation and learning, and to engage in a context with colleagues who support and challenge her interests. Her doctoral thesis was made public on 28 April 2022 and can be found online in the Research Catalogue and DiVA. 

External Opponent 

Martin Hargreaves is a dramaturg, writer, and performer and his interests vacillate between boredom and hysteria. His PhD was entitled Performativity, Spectrality, Hysteria and his research areas continue to circle around performativity and include the recent histories of contemporary dance, queering practices and camp misunderstandings. He is the Director of Research and Postgraduate courses at London Contemporary Dance School.

Examination Committee Members 

Sher Doruff, PhD works in the visual, digital, and performance arts in a variety of capacities. For the past twenty years her work has been situated in the expanded field of artistic research practice as an artist, writer, mentor, and supervisor. Her research practice explores fabulation and fictive approaches to writing in and through artistic research. She mentors and supervises artist PhD candidates in several European university programs including the Amsterdam University of the Arts, Stockholm University of the Arts, Leiden University, Zurich University of the Arts, Roehampton University, Wellington University among others. Her novella Last Year at Betty and Bob’s An Actual Occasion (2021) completes the Betty and Bob trilogy, published by 3Ecologies/punctum books. She has published numerous texts in academic and artistic contexts. 

Jeroen Fabius is currently artistic leader of DAS Choreography, master program, within the DAS Graduate School of the Amsterdam University of the Arts. He teaches courses Dance History and Concept Development at the School for New Dance Development since 1991. He graduated in Communication Studies in 1985 at the University of Amsterdam and in choreography at the School for New Dance Development (SNDO) in 1990. He has worked as choreographer, and as dancer and performer, and regularly works as dramaturge in artistic projects.He is doing his PhD research with the University of Utrecht. He has edited the book Talk / SNDO 1982-2006 (2009) about the history of the School for New Dance Development.

Jenn Joy is a writer, critic, surfer and analyst-in-training. She taught in the graduate Sculpture department at Yale School of Art (2016-2020) and at Rhode Island School of Design (2005-2016). She founded collective address, a choreographic research space in Brooklyn (2014-2016) and jennjoygallery in San Francisco (1998-2000). She published visions (2018) and The Choreographic (MIT Press, 2014). A Contributing Editor in Performance for BOMB magazine and Assistant Editor for Psychoanalytic Perspectives; she edited Planes of Composition: Dance, Theory and the Global with André Lepecki (Seagull Press, 2009), and co-edited the catalogs Diary of an Image and JUDSONOW with Danspace Project; other writing has been published in Sentient Archive: Bodies, Performance, Memory (Wesleyan, 2018); DANSE: An Anthology (Les Presses du Réel, 2014); DANCE, (Whitechapel/MIT Press, 2012), BOMB.

Substitute committee member, Prof. Dr. John Paul Zaccarini (internal) has worked as a circus artist, dancer, performance artist, choreographer and director in a variety of contexts and was curator of the gallery Studio 29, London. He was awarded his doctorate at DOCH in 2013, where he adapted psychoanalytic procedures for the production of unconscious knowledge in circus.

choreo | graphy :

PhD thesis is now published

Documented Artistic Research Project (Doctoral Thesis)
in Performative and Mediated Practices with a Specialisation in Choreography
Stockholm University of the Arts, Institute of Dance
Link to: choreo | graphy Research Catalogue exposition
Link to: publications for download from DiVA
Link to: Nora the Many: a choreo | graphic novel for download from DiVA