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Holy Body/Monstrous Body: The Life And Practices Of Saint Catherine Of Siena., Melissa B. Miller
Holy Body/Monstrous Body: The Life And Practices Of Saint Catherine Of Siena., Melissa B. Miller
Dance (MFA) Theses
This research examines the violent misogyny and contempt for the female body in, but not limited to, Western Christian environments using as a lens the life and practices of Catherine Benincasa, a mystic and tertiary Dominican sainted in 1461 as Saint Catherine of Siena. Further, the research looks at the use of the abject and grotesque in performance, as well as transformative storytelling, as a means of making lived experience visible, and is explored as a liberatory response to such systems of domination and violence. Though this research is framed in a religious context, contempt towards female-presenting bodies is not …
Dancing Between Worlds: Afrofuturism, Hybridity, Transculturalism, And The Orixás, Alicia Nascimento Castro
Dancing Between Worlds: Afrofuturism, Hybridity, Transculturalism, And The Orixás, Alicia Nascimento Castro
Dance (MFA) Theses
This research uses a multicultural lens to analyze the intersections of race and geography. It aims to acknowledge the corporeality of spiritual practices to investigate creative movement. Afrofuturism becomes a theoretical framework utilized as a space for liberation into the past, present, and future. Hybridity is adapted to examine identitdade dupla regarding national, racial, cultural, and lingual identities. The research explores Transculturalism by centering Blackness and interrogating the political powers of race in both the United States and Brazil. The physical manifestation utilizes the Black imaginary with choreography, set design, costuming, and musical composition as ideological frames for time travel …
Elliot, Eleanor Gresham
Elliot, Eleanor Gresham
Senior Projects Spring 2024
“Not Every Bard Boy” and “Local Man” ask: when and where can gender become a character? Through drag-based performances as my male alter-ego Elliot, I explore gender and gender performativity. The pieces are satirical, dark comedies that explore misogyny and Elliot’s alt-masculinity. His world is male-driven, pretentious, egocentric, and humorous. In developing a thorough understanding of Elliot and the world he inhabits, I found that gender becomes a character when it is performed with heightened realism. This thesis discusses my work’s roots in gender performance and drag, my textual, experimental, and observational research, and the process of world-building.
A Poetically Embodied Out-Of-Body Experience, Natalie Sunseri
A Poetically Embodied Out-Of-Body Experience, Natalie Sunseri
Honors Theses
The choreographic project Euphoric Dysphoria emerged as a response to the choreographer’s gender dysphoria and personal observations about the way that feminine-presenting people are perceived and approached in dance spaces, particularly in comparison to masculine-presenting people. The dance originated as a choreographic exploration of extreme femininity and masculinity, and it evolved into a manifestation of performative gender and experiential gender. The choreographer was guided by her poem “Uneven Envy” when developing movement and building relationships among the dancers. She considered the contributions of Judith Butler, a scholar who writes about gender manifesting in the body due to socialization, and Laura …
Subverting The Nature Of Thing: Gender Agency In Spiritual Systems And Contemporary Performances Of Zimbabwe's Shona People, Rujeko S. Dumbutshena
Subverting The Nature Of Thing: Gender Agency In Spiritual Systems And Contemporary Performances Of Zimbabwe's Shona People, Rujeko S. Dumbutshena
Theatre & Dance ETDs
Gender, ritual and performance in the Shona cultures of Zimbabwe, are inexorably linked. They demonstrate how the flexibility of the Shona spiritual systems offers agency to ritual leaders and practitioners. The story of Murumbi Karivara, a Shona rainmaker from the 19th Century, provides the inspirational imagery for the researcher’s Masters of Fine Arts thesis concert DE RERUM NATURA - the way things are (performed on September 2 and 3, 2018). The researcher positions herself among contemporary Shona artists living in Zimbabwe and abroad who negotiate the spaces they occupy during ceremonies, on concert stages, and in institutions; to find autonomy …