Matthew Reason
Biographic Data
| ID | 1709136 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Matthew Reason |
| GIVEN NAMES | Matthew |
| FAMILY NAME | Reason |
| SIGNATURE | REASON M |
| AFFILIATIONS | York St John University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0536-4236 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 25 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Cognitive Accessibility, Ethics, and Rights in Research
This paper is about doing research with artists with learning disabilities and autism. Artists with learning disabilities or autism need to say yes to doing research. Researchers need to explain what will happen in the research. Often, researchers think that people with learning disabilities and autism can’t say yes to being part of research. This means researchers don’t study things that are important to people with learning disabilities and aut…
Routledge Companion to Audiences and the Performing Arts
Improving, achieving, excelling
In 2021, York St John University and Mind the Gap collaborated to validate a Certificate in Higher Education (Cert HE) in the Performing Arts for learning disabled and autistic adults. This article presents context surrounding inclusive education, identifying the histories of ableism within assessment processes. We then discuss how we worked in consultation with learning disabled students to develop assessment criteria and processes that used lan…
Inclusive online community arts
Inclusivity is an underlying principle of community arts, particularly for learning disabled and autistic people for whom the arts can create spaces of equity and inclusive participation. The Covid-19 pandemic required practitioners to find ways of replicating this sense of inclusivity through online delivery. This “digital turn” raised two recurring concerns. First, the accessibility and inclusivity of online activities; second, the quality of a…
Leading or avoiding change
Despite years of concern and various attempts to address the issue, arts audiences remain persistently white, educated, middle class and middle-aged. The homogenous profile of arts attenders undermines the public value of subsidised arts organisations, arguably calling into question the creative vibrancy of the sector and threatening its sustainability. Diversifying audiences have traditionally been the role of audience development programs. Howe…
A prison audience
In 2017 the Donmar Warehouse presented The Tempest to women prisoners at HMP New Hall, UK. The production was part of a trilogy of Shakespeare plays directed by Phyllida Lloyd, each staged with an all-female cast and each set within a women’s prison. Over the five years of developing this trilogy the Donmar undertook extensive research and development into the prison context, including in collaboration with York St John University’s Prison Partne…
Representing Soldiers to Soldiers Through Dance
Representations of war recur throughout art, whether celebrating the glories and heroism of conflict, or depicting its horrors and follies. This paper uses qualitative audience research to examine soldiers' own responses to the representation of soldiers in choreographer Rosie Kay's dance performance 5 Soldiers : The Body is the Frontline . This article explores how for military audiences the satisfaction of an internalized sense of authenticity …
After Live
Reviewed by: After Live: Possibility, Potentiality, and the Future of Performance by Daniel Sack Matthew Reason AFTER LIVE: POSSIBILITY, POTENTIALITY, AND THE FUTURE OF PERFORMANCE. By Daniel Sack. Theater: Theory/Text/Performance series. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2015; pp. 272. Theatre and performance—axiomatically, selfevidently—takes place in the present, with the most famous articulation of this being Thornton Wilder's evocativ…
Storytelling, story-retelling, storyknowing
This paper presents a practice-led research project that investigates how people from diverse community and school groups understand and respond to oral storytelling. Run in collaboration with York Theatre Royal, the project uses art form workshops (drama, music, fine art) to actively invite participants to make the transition from listeners to storytellers. This paper places these workshops within a theoretical framework that draws upon understa…
Kinesthesia, Empathy, and Related Pleasures
Dance is frequently described as being “about” movement. “Dance,” writes Ann Daly, “although it has a visual component, is fundamentally a kinesthetic art” (Daly 1992, 243). Audience experiences of dance can therefore be conceptualized in terms of responses to movement, most prominently in terms of what has been described as “kinesthetic empathy.” What does it mean, however, to watch, respond to, or appreciate movement? And how does the historica…
Approaches to the newspaper archive
Glasgow’s year as European City of Culture in 1990 is perceived as an event marking a renaissance in perceptions of the city. This article examines how the contemporary press coverage can be used as a resource to trace the narratives and mythologies surrounding the event. To facilitate this research, a pre-existing archive of press cuttings, totalling over 5000 clippings, was employed. This article describes how the interests of the project, and …
Still Moving
Arnold Genthe's 1915 photograph of Anna Pavlova, taken as she leaps into the air, is perhaps the earliest photograph of free movement in dance (Fig. 1). Unlike many other early images, with long exposure times necessitating static poses or wires to hold up the dancers, this photograph depicts actual movement. This claim to authenticity and actuality is a powerful part of its appeal; looking at the image, viewers are sure that they are witnesses t…
Kinesthesia, Empathy, and Related Pleasures
Dance is frequently described as being “about” movement. “Dance,” writes Ann Daly, “although it has a visual component, is fundamentally a kinesthetic art” (Daly 1992, 243). Audience experiences of dance can therefore be conceptualized in terms of responses to movement, most prominently in terms of what has been described as “kinesthetic empathy.” What does it mean, however, to watch, respond to, or appreciate movement? And how does the historica…
Leading or avoiding change
Despite years of concern and various attempts to address the issue, arts audiences remain persistently white, educated, middle class and middle-aged. The homogenous profile of arts attenders undermines the public value of subsidised arts organisations, arguably calling into question the creative vibrancy of the sector and threatening its sustainability. Diversifying audiences have traditionally been the role of audience development programs. Howe…
Approaches to the newspaper archive
Glasgow’s year as European City of Culture in 1990 is perceived as an event marking a renaissance in perceptions of the city. This article examines how the contemporary press coverage can be used as a resource to trace the narratives and mythologies surrounding the event. To facilitate this research, a pre-existing archive of press cuttings, totalling over 5000 clippings, was employed. This article describes how the interests of the project, and …
Inclusive online community arts
Inclusivity is an underlying principle of community arts, particularly for learning disabled and autistic people for whom the arts can create spaces of equity and inclusive participation. The Covid-19 pandemic required practitioners to find ways of replicating this sense of inclusivity through online delivery. This “digital turn” raised two recurring concerns. First, the accessibility and inclusivity of online activities; second, the quality of a…
Still Moving
Arnold Genthe's 1915 photograph of Anna Pavlova, taken as she leaps into the air, is perhaps the earliest photograph of free movement in dance (Fig. 1). Unlike many other early images, with long exposure times necessitating static poses or wires to hold up the dancers, this photograph depicts actual movement. This claim to authenticity and actuality is a powerful part of its appeal; looking at the image, viewers are sure that they are witnesses t…
Still Moving
Arnold Genthe's 1915 photograph of Anna Pavlova, taken as she leaps into the air, is perhaps the earliest photograph of free movement in dance (Fig. 1). Unlike many other early images, with long exposure times necessitating static poses or wires to hold up the dancers, this photograph depicts actual movement. This claim to authenticity and actuality is a powerful part of its appeal; looking at the image, viewers are sure that they are witnesses t…
Approaches to the newspaper archive
Glasgow’s year as European City of Culture in 1990 is perceived as an event marking a renaissance in perceptions of the city. This article examines how the contemporary press coverage can be used as a resource to trace the narratives and mythologies surrounding the event. To facilitate this research, a pre-existing archive of press cuttings, totalling over 5000 clippings, was employed. This article describes how the interests of the project, and …
Kinesthesia, Empathy, and Related Pleasures
Dance is frequently described as being “about” movement. “Dance,” writes Ann Daly, “although it has a visual component, is fundamentally a kinesthetic art” (Daly 1992, 243). Audience experiences of dance can therefore be conceptualized in terms of responses to movement, most prominently in terms of what has been described as “kinesthetic empathy.” What does it mean, however, to watch, respond to, or appreciate movement? And how does the historica…
Storytelling, story-retelling, storyknowing
This paper presents a practice-led research project that investigates how people from diverse community and school groups understand and respond to oral storytelling. Run in collaboration with York Theatre Royal, the project uses art form workshops (drama, music, fine art) to actively invite participants to make the transition from listeners to storytellers. This paper places these workshops within a theoretical framework that draws upon understa…
Representing Soldiers to Soldiers Through Dance
Representations of war recur throughout art, whether celebrating the glories and heroism of conflict, or depicting its horrors and follies. This paper uses qualitative audience research to examine soldiers' own responses to the representation of soldiers in choreographer Rosie Kay's dance performance 5 Soldiers : The Body is the Frontline . This article explores how for military audiences the satisfaction of an internalized sense of authenticity …
After Live
Reviewed by: After Live: Possibility, Potentiality, and the Future of Performance by Daniel Sack Matthew Reason AFTER LIVE: POSSIBILITY, POTENTIALITY, AND THE FUTURE OF PERFORMANCE. By Daniel Sack. Theater: Theory/Text/Performance series. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2015; pp. 272. Theatre and performance—axiomatically, selfevidently—takes place in the present, with the most famous articulation of this being Thornton Wilder's evocativ…
A prison audience
In 2017 the Donmar Warehouse presented The Tempest to women prisoners at HMP New Hall, UK. The production was part of a trilogy of Shakespeare plays directed by Phyllida Lloyd, each staged with an all-female cast and each set within a women’s prison. Over the five years of developing this trilogy the Donmar undertook extensive research and development into the prison context, including in collaboration with York St John University’s Prison Partne…
Leading or avoiding change
Despite years of concern and various attempts to address the issue, arts audiences remain persistently white, educated, middle class and middle-aged. The homogenous profile of arts attenders undermines the public value of subsidised arts organisations, arguably calling into question the creative vibrancy of the sector and threatening its sustainability. Diversifying audiences have traditionally been the role of audience development programs. Howe…
Routledge Companion to Audiences and the Performing Arts
Improving, achieving, excelling
In 2021, York St John University and Mind the Gap collaborated to validate a Certificate in Higher Education (Cert HE) in the Performing Arts for learning disabled and autistic adults. This article presents context surrounding inclusive education, identifying the histories of ableism within assessment processes. We then discuss how we worked in consultation with learning disabled students to develop assessment criteria and processes that used lan…
Inclusive online community arts
Inclusivity is an underlying principle of community arts, particularly for learning disabled and autistic people for whom the arts can create spaces of equity and inclusive participation. The Covid-19 pandemic required practitioners to find ways of replicating this sense of inclusivity through online delivery. This “digital turn” raised two recurring concerns. First, the accessibility and inclusivity of online activities; second, the quality of a…
Cognitive Accessibility, Ethics, and Rights in Research
This paper is about doing research with artists with learning disabilities and autism. Artists with learning disabilities or autism need to say yes to doing research. Researchers need to explain what will happen in the research. Often, researchers think that people with learning disabilities and autism can’t say yes to being part of research. This means researchers don’t study things that are important to people with learning disabilities and aut…
Art (8 works) · Visual arts (7 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Aesthetics (5 works) · History (5 works) · Psychology (5 works) · The arts (5 works) · Theatre and Performance Studies (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Literature (4 works)