Tess Needham

17 years after graduating from my PhD in performing arts, I felt I had enough time and distance from the experience to reflect on it.

While writing that post, I read my entire 70,000-word thesis for the first time since submitting it. Since it’s fresh in my mind, I thought I’d offer more insight into my doctoral research project itself.

My complex research question

In my thesis, Provocative and Transformative Performance (also published as a book), I sought to answer the question: 

Can performance change its audience’s attitudes and behaviours? 

Performance has changed me: the inspirational and galvanising lyrics of Ani DiFranco, blaring through my headphones as I walked the streets of New York City. A play about body image that left me glued to my seat after the curtain call, unable to see my way out the theatre through the tears. 

In the early days of my doctoral candidacy, still feeling out my research topic, I reflected on my own experiences. Many performers and performances had shaped my own attitudes and behaviours. Surely this phenomenon could be observed in others? Perhaps, I thought, I could work from my own experiences to explore broader answers to this question.

However, the question was a tricky one to answer, in various ways. First, what constitutes “transformation” is anecdotal, subjective, and open to interpretation. Also, there’s a long-standing reticence to consider that something as frivolous as performance (whose primary goal is entertainment) can have enough impact to cause change. 

That’s how I landed on this hedging-my-bets hypothesis statement:

“Some people, but perhaps not all people, are transformed by performance. This transformation may take on many different forms, and it may be conditional on many factors unrelated to the performance itself. My research project attempts to interrogate the nature of this transformation.”

Grappling with this uncertainty in the thesis, I eventually decided to embrace it. Acknowledging that there are limitations to determining the nature and extent of transformation through performance doesn’t mean that the whole question needs to be thrown out the window.

My approach to dealing with uncertainty was to embrace a bricolage of methodologies, piecing together my argument as a story told through multiple lenses. Autoethnography, a qualitative research methodology that foregrounds the researcher’s own experience, was particularly useful. I wove stories about my own transformation throughout the thesis, as an avenue to discuss more general experiences.

Another important element in the structure of my thesis was alchemy.

Alchemy and performance

In 1999, I discovered alchemy through a course at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London. The course was run by Mark Rylance, then the artistic director of the Globe (later, an Academy Award winner!). In the course, we used the alchemical underpinnings of Antony and Cleopatra(the current play in the Globe) as a doorway into a discussion of Shakespeare’s underlying mystical and spiritual themes. Shakespeare used alchemy to give his work depth and a mystical undertone, and to subtly rebel against the religious repression of his time. We learned about the alchemical cycle of earth->water->air->fire->light, how its rituals and symbols relate to Shakespeare, and participated in alchemical exercises culminating in giving an offering back to the Thames.

There’s a rich history of alchemy’s connections to performance, and in my thesis I explore these. The alchemical idea of correspondences on different levels, “As Above, So Below,” was of particular interest. What happens in the alchemist’s vessel, the alembic, mirrors the internal processes within the alchemist. And this alembic was:

“[a] glass O, an amphitheatre of strange and tonic revelations, like the ‘wooden O’ of the playhouse. And what we see revealed there, the alchemist and dramatist both insist, is something hidden inside ourselves.”

—Charles Nicholl, Shakespeare’s Chemical Theatre

I also used alchemy as a poetic metaphor for transformation throughout the research project, as this is the culmination of the “Great Work”:

“The alchemist is a dreamer who knows what he wants: to transform the world to change life, and hence liberate man to transform the world.”

—Arturo Schwarz, Alchemy, Androgyny and Visual Artists

(Fun fact! In 2025, alchemy is now possible: Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider turned lead into gold – by accident.)

Projection

The concept of projection is another theme woven throughout the thesis. Projection is an alchemical concept (the culmination of the work of alchemy, when the philosopher’s stone is cast onto the base metals, transmuting them into gold), but it also has audiovisual, psychological, and metaphorical applications. 

For example, projected images or amplified audio add multiple meanings when placed in live performance. This can affect audience members’ psychological projection, as they connect the work to their own lives. The juxtaposition of the performance zone with the projection zone provokes the audience to draw connections between the two.

(As a side note, this makes me think about the juxtaposition of imagery and words in comics, which can provoke the reader to draw connections between the two.)

Case studies

I looked at many examples of provocative and transformative performance in my thesis. I wove in personal stories from performances I had seen (In Our Name, Honour Bound, and Fat Pig, among others) as examples of performance that transformed me. Also, I developed the main argument of the thesis from deep-dives into three performances: Merlin Luck’s protest at his eviction from the TV show Big Brother, Michael Moore’s acceptance speech at the Academy Awards, and my own doctoral performance work, Bodily.

Bodily was a one-woman show I wrote and performed as part of my doctoral research. Its theme was body image. In particular, I wanted to present a perspective on the body image conversation that was multifaceted and representative of the struggle I felt within—“this conflict between what is known and what is done.”

Through investigating the intentions of the performers in each of these case studies, and the reception of the audience (gathered from news articles and online forums, or in the case of Bodily, from focus groups and surveys held after the performance), I identified certain components of provocative and transformative performance.

A framework for provocative and transformative performance

My conceptual framework of transformation through provocative performance comprises three main areas: the intention of the performer, the instrumentation used to provoke, and the manner in which the audience may be illuminated. I find this set of terms (drawn from alchemy) meaningful because they cover both the creative process and the reception of performance in a concise way.

Intention

Intention describes the intention of the performance maker to provoke audiences, through the messages of their performance. Evidenced by:

• Performance makers’ statements. 
• The context in which the performance occurs.

Instrumentation

Instrumentation covers the specific tools the performance maker chooses to convey their point of view. These tools are:

• Confrontation: doing something unexpected in its context, presenting confronting issues, or using humour.
• Projection: amplified voice, projected image, or psychological projection. 
• Contradiction and paradox: creating cognitive dissonance and therefore increasing the likelihood of acting to resolve it.
• Repetition: of images, words, or ideas.
• Choice of place and space.
• Conclusion: leaving the performance unresolved denies catharsis, and prompts the audience to seek fulfilment through real action.
• The performer’s use of their body.

Illumination

Illumination is a change in either the performance maker or the audience member, or both. Illumination can happen through:

• Affect: immediate visceral or emotional affect like laughter, gasping, booing, crying, clapping, or cheering.
• Affirmation: performance can transform attitudes when it affirms beliefs. 
• Identification: how much the audience members identify with the characters or situation.
• Transformation: attitudinal and behavioural changes reported by audience members.

Beyond the PhD

Since completing my doctorate, I’m more aware of performances that fit into my definition and framework of provocative and transformative performance. If I suspect a performance fits the framework, I test it against the instrumentation I identified. Did it leave the ending unresolved? Did it use humour? Were there projected images?

One such example is the Netflix show Adolescence, which has recently provoked a lot of discussion among parents and in the media. It seems that since watching the series, parents are looking at their teens’ behaviour in a new light. 

In episode three, Jamie asks for the psychologist’s approval: “Do you like me?” This brought me right back to the final question in my performance, Bodily: “Do I look OK?”