Can We Talk About Death? Adaptation of Autobiographical Performance and Participant Response in the Development of Performance to Enhance Conversations Around Death and Dying

McCormick, Sheila

Abstract

The Can We Talk About Death? Adaptation of Autobiographical Performance and Participant Response in the Development of Performance to Enhance Conversations Around Death and Dying project happened in 2023 at the University of Salford with a test performance (Can We Talk About Death?) taking place in the May of that year. The project built on an earlier Practice as Research (2019) entitled The Death, Dinner, and Performance: A Study of the Efficacy of Performance to Enhance Conversations Around Death and Dying project. While that project aimed to look at autobiographical performance as a prompt for difficult conversations in an intimate setting, the Can We Talk About Death? project looked to adapt the earlier practice into a public performance for an audience and in doing so, to explore that adaptation strategies used in the process.

In order to create the performance Can We Talk About Death? creative adaptation was explored and a performance text developed using verbatim and autobiographical material as well as contemporary performance devising techniques.

The materials in this portfolio (particularly the Complementary Writing document) evidence the research processes and practices undertaken in the adaptation of material from Death Dinner and Performance Project for the Can We Talk About Death? Public performance. It explores the new practice undertaken and provides insights and new knowledge discovered through the practice as research in terms of the outcomes from Can We Talk About Death? and how those differs from the earlier PaR Death Dinner and Performance Project. The findings are based on the experience and methodology develop to create Can We Talk About Death? as well as reflections on the performance itself and post-performance feedback both from the participants of the earlier Death Dinners and new audience members not familiar with my original project.

• Online Publication Date: May 2, 2025
• Publication Date: May 2, 2025
• Deposit Date: May 2, 2025
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.17866/rd.salford.c.7772726.v1
• Collection Date: May 2, 2025