Freedom through restriction : An artistic project which investigates movement, freedom of expression and the value of restrictions in creative processes.

Sammanfattning: Freedom through restriction is an artistic project which investigates movement, freedom of expression and the value of restrictions in creative processes, through my experience. Through this study, I aim to develop innovative methods to encourage myself and fellow practitioners to connect with the body, to expand awareness and knowledge of the circus practice through the self, and to think through movement for creative, artistic, and pedagogical purposes. The source material is videos of my movement research, relevant literature and texts that I have been writing throughout the two-year Master Programme at the Stockholm University of the Arts.I start by introducing the concept of restricted verticality, an involuntary alteration of the normalized environment of aerial disciplines, where the vertical space is stripped to the minimum. Adaptation, sensing, rope manipulation are methods extrapolated from the exploration of the limited vertical space. Learning to shift conditions voluntarily becomes a method to unlock new possibilities and to acquire deeper knowledge of the circus practice. The purpose of this thesis is to propose a less anthropocentric approach to circus apparatus and a shift in virtuosity that differ to the standardized ones of athletic prowess and dominance over the objects, to enable circus artists to become active creators and improve a sense of availability towards other animate and inanimate bodies. The last chapter is dedicated to my Final Major Project, a physical representation of my study at the end of the Master course, and how this experience informed my practice further.Restriction is throughout a framed space of investigation, where environment, bodies and task-based improvisation approaches are all intended as spaces within which there is an infinite number of possibilities to explore freely and discover their full potentialities. The mutual relationship between restriction and freedom of movement is opportunity for artistic research processes.