This year’s Australasian Association for Theatre Drama and Performance Studies (ADSA) Conference, “Transcultural. Transnational. Transformation: seeing, writing and reading performance across cultures” kicks off at Monash University in Melbourne this Tuesday. I’m looking forward to hearing about the recent work of other performance and theatre studies researchers and feeling the conference buzz.
I’m presenting a short paper on mountain bikers’ senses of place as part of a phenomenology panel. If you’re interested, the abstract is below.
A sense of place, a sense of self, a sense of something else.
How does a transcultural, multi-placial performance practice manifest in an experience of selfhood? Considering mountain bike riders as a culture of mobility, this presentation draws together a series of phenomenological investigations of mountain bike racing to reflect on relations between senses of self and senses of place. Drawing upon Edward Casey’s application of Pierre Bourdieu’s habitus to the place-world, I argue that a deep immersion in performance practice develops a series of skills and strategies that extend beyond distinct place bound experiences into many.
I’ve been requested to write a plain English version of the above:
Riders like to ride in different places. This makes us happy and influences our off-bike life as well. Let’s talk about that…
Kath Bicknell 