From a dead place: Presence of suspension in the handling of post traumatic material in performance creation

This written thesis is an exegesis of the theoretical landscape surrounding this complex practice-as-research doctoral inquiry exploring the presence of suspension in the handling of post-traumatic material in the creation of performance, specifically child sexual abuse. The author’s own strategies of suspension developed in childhood are revealed as foundational to the composural handling of traumatic material from the ‘dead place’ of trauma: the suspended existential state between deadness and aliveness in response to trauma’s annihilation of being. It was not the purpose at the outset of the research and development process to directly engage with the author’s first remembered sexual assault by the male parent. The R&D was in pursuit of materials toward the performance I Maybe Sometime. However, two years into the process (extended by COVID) the 11-minute film sue-upside-down came into being. The complexities of handling are contextualised through Miranda Fricker’s construction of Epistemic Injustice and Jean François Lyotard’s proposition of Le Differend. This thesis gently unravels the conditions and complexities of handling deeply traumatic material from the ‘inside eye/I’ perspective of the artist. Questions and curiosities are ‘handled’ from the narrow frame of their own practice but will speak to all artists, most significantly lead artists, who handle autobiographical trauma in the pursuit of performance, as well as creative collaborators, producers, programmers, funders who may want to reflect on the enactment of epistemic injustice in their processes. The research works to broaden understanding within and beyond the field of performance studies to include choreographic studies, survivor, trauma and life-writing studies.