ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that some of the disciplined actions are non-representational or do not relate to conventional notions of plot or character. It demonstrates that through the use of mime and collaborations with actors, new music theatre reconceptualised performance by encouraging performers to think outside established performance practice traditions, bringing them into dialogue with artists from other performing backgrounds, and in some cases creating synergies between these forms. In the language of embodiment theory, new music theatre highlights the body’s role in creating meaningful musical acts and, arguably, reconceptualises music itself as performance. The chapter considers ways in which mime has contributed to the reconceptualisation of performance in instrumental and new music theatre, and the kinds of disciplined action and embodied technique that occur in this context. Erika Fox’s Round for Fourteen Strings also places musical ideas in a theatrical context and reconceptualises the performers by requiring them to move.
