Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Introduction To Theatre Oer Course, Carmen R. Meyers

Open Educational Resources

Study of theatre and performance throughout history and across cultures including an examination of European, Carribean, and North and South American theatrical styles and genres.

This course is organized for a hybrid/asynchronous format. Our class meets on-campus every week for 75 minutes and the other 75 minutes will be completed asynchronously with weekly learning modules on Blackboard.

The first half of the course focuses on the history of theatre from Ancient Greece through Modern Realism. The second half of the course, students engage in the procedures of professional theatre artists through writing and refining a dramatic text; enacting a performance; …

Revolutionizing The Stage: The Impact Of The Revolving Stage In 'Hamilton', Amanda L. Padilla

Publications and Research

This research delves into the captivating features of the revolving stage in the Broadway musical "Hamilton," examining both its significance in modern theater for the American Revolution, dynamically mirroring the ever-evolving political landscapes of the time. Focusing on design and engineering, the study sheds light on the motor-driven control of the central pivot point, enabling a unique 360-degree view that significantly heightens audience immersion. The research underscores the stage's role in enhancing visual clarity, unraveling complex scenes, and enriching the comprehension of choreography and narratives. Beyond its narrative function, the revolving stage plays a pivotal role in shaping the visual …

Body Movement Syllabus - The City College Of New York - Department Of Theatre - Prof Timothy Allen, Timothy J. Allen

Open Educational Resources

This course will explore three modules of learning.

1. Anatomy and Psycho-Physical Centering, will explore two foundations: (1) the start of our research and practical application of the human anatomy in regards to how our body moves; and (2) your ability to tune into movement centers within the body by utilizing Chakra as a guiding study. Please note: Anatomy will be a continuous study throughout the entire semester.

2. THE SECOND MODULE, Partnered Connection, will focus on partnering with lifts, counter-balances, falls, and rolls that will build to a partnering sequence of the tools presented.

3. THE LAST MODULE, Global Archetypes, …

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Gloria Rehearsal (Excerpt) A Feminist Mechanism For Metabolization, Eleanor Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Weaving embodied trauma studies with feminist theory, non-hierarchical creative structures, and research in dance improvisation, this thesis paper written by Eleanor Smith contextualizes the dance performance gloria rehearsal (excerpt). The performance piece was choreographed and performed by Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith, who have been co-choreographing feminist dances since 2006.

Ent 1100 Introduction To Entertainment And Emerging Media Technologies, Syllabus, Susan Brandt

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Desde El Fuego Que En Mí Arde: Performance, Literatura Y Cine Afro-Latinoamericano Producidos Por Mujeres Afrodescendientes En Perú, Cuba Y Brasil (1960–2000), Elena Ekatherina Chavez Goycochea

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines different films, literary, and performance art pieces created by contemporary afro-descendant women from Peru, Cuba, and Brazil after the sixties with emphasis on the most relevant works of Conceição Evaristo, Sara Gómez, Victoria Santa Cruz, and Lucía Charún-Illescas. I focus my research on the crucial role these artists played in the cultural identity formation of Latin America when inserting ‘race’ as a category of socio-political analysis and cultural production. How did their films, performances, and texts challenge national narratives and imaginaries after 1960? Although in the sixties, women improved their civil rights in different countries, the ‘mujer …

Baccio Del Bianco At The Court Of Spain: Early Modern Scenic Design In Context, Pamela Thielman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the life and work of seventeenth-century artist and architect, Baccio del Bianco, to imagine alternative research strategies for histories of theatre. Traditional scholarship of theatre design is rooted in art historical practices, which has limited the consideration of influences beyond visual culture. It has also posited Italian theatre culture as the driver of innovations in Early Modern theatre design. In this project, I argue for and engage in a practice of scenic design historiography that replaces Italy as the dominant actor in the theatrical scene of this period with a more nuanced approach that places emphasis on …

Dram 111: Introduction To Stage Design, Meghan Healey

Open Educational Resources

This is a course in Theater Design, which apparently this body does not recognize as a distinct discipline, but it is.

Eagle Eye Vs. Gear Jammer, Jessica Danielle Ellis

Theses and Dissertations

Where similarities in class struggle have historically operated as a unifying force globally, the American crafted mythos isolates the individual and dehumanizes those that do not fall within the parameters of the cowboy archetype. The national protagonist is turned into a class traitor and an extension of government power.

New Play Collaborations, Kathleen Potts

Open Educational Resources

This is a syllabus for a New Play Collaborations course, which explores the creative, collaborative process of creating a new play. It is comprised of sets of actors, directors, and playwrights, who will team up to create a number of original works for the stage.

In Search Of A Stimulating Visual Dance Art Medium: Overlapping Realities In Live And Screen Dance, Yael Levitin Saban

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis paper captures research into historical examples of artistic performance pioneers who integrated multiple layers of imagery into complex dialogue and describes how this research inspired and influenced the creation of an original 17-minute video work, “Overlay.”. My interest throughout my MFA Thesis Project has been to understand the effect of fusing or layering multiple movement-based art forms, the application and integration of modern technology to established traditional stage performance, and the creation of engaging new art form.

Reframing The Family Portrait: The Surrogate Mother In U.S. Theatre And Film 1939–1963, Alison Walls

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Reframing the Family Portrait: The Surrogate Mother in U.S. Theatre and Film, 1939–1963 investigates the U.S. plays, films, and musicals of this period that abound with heroines who mother children to whom they are not genetically tied. This dissertation asks why such a figure was so resonant in this era between the beginning of World War II and the emergence of more radical 1960s politics. Newly in the spotlight as a romantic protagonist, the “surrogate mother,” as I have chosen to call her, re-envisions the archetypal mother through a contemporizing lens, distinctive in her mother/not-mother status. Critical analysis of Penny …

In Support Of Abstraction: Physical Interiority Beyond Postmodern Dance, Irene Hultman Monti

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

I investigate how speculative philosophy informs critical thinking about dance and its performance, encompassing both the act of creating and the action of executing. Speculative thinking augments and draws out new experiences and realities in the artistic body. I will argue that speculative theories widen the understanding and implementation of dance and its performance through a combination of human and nonhuman forces. This broadened understanding encourages progress, transformation, and evolution within the field of dance. I discuss the human (that which is experienced through sensibilities, therefore tangible and understandable on a cognitive and practical level) and the nonhuman (forces beyond …

Opera And Children’S Literature: 1895-Present, John P. Delooper

Publications and Research

This presentation discusses the findings resulting from the creation of a comprehensive bibliography of English Language children’s opera books published from 1895 to present. Historically opera was often assumed to be an elitist art in the United States and was thus seldom discussed in library collection development literature, and equally rarely highlighted in children’s literature periodicals. Recently, two librarians, supported by a Carnegie Whitney grant from the American Library Association, investigated the impact of opera themed children’s books by compiling a bibliography which documented instances of opera in published English Language children’s literature over the last 125 years. By analyzing …

Someday We'll Look Back On This And Laugh, Ben Masten

Capstones

The People's Improv Theater was an oasis for young New York comedians. Its own success-- and a volatile owner-- changed that. Project contains a narrative journalism piece and an an audio documentary.

Full Project here: https://medium.com/@benmasten/someday-well-look-back-on-this-and-laugh-e6b1dc8468db

A Deep-Er Practice For Educators: Reflecting, Unpacking And Confronting Racism Through Critical Performative Pedagogy, Natalia Ortiz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the current political climate, we have seen time and time again the killings of black and brown youth, witnessed the separation of immigrant families, and the mass murders caused by nativist xenophobic white rage. Teachers in schools across our country need to be better prepared to engage in critical race dialogues and need to understand their location in the larger educational system so to contest, rather than reproduce, racism. This study is based on the premise that teachers are not adequately learning about structural oppression that impact the experience of school children and are not trained in the art …

Embodied Nostalgia: Early Twentieth Century Social Dance And U.S. Musical Theatre, Phoebe Rumsey

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I claim the collective emotional connections and historical explorations characteristic of musical theatre constitute a nostalgic impulse dramaturgically inherent in the form. In my intervention in the link between nostalgia and musical theatre, I look to an area underrepresented in musical theatre scholarship: social dance. Through case studies that focus specifically on how social dance in musical theatre brings forth the dancer on stage as a site of embodied history, cultural memory, and nostalgia, I ask what social dance is doing in musical theatre and how the dancing body functions as a catalyst for nostalgic thinking for …

Dance Of Exile: The Sakharoffs’ Visual Performances In Montevideo (1935–1948), Pablo Munoz Ponzo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the life-work chronology of the dancers and choreographers Clotilde von Derp (whose surname then was Sakharoff) and Alexander Sakharoff, who were exiled in Montevideo, Uruguay, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, between 1941 and 1948. During their stay in the Rio de la Plata region, the Sakharoffs stirred up the art scene by performing extremely detailed dances with great attention to costume design. This thesis begins with a review of the reception of the dancers’ performances by the artistic and cultural circles in Montevideo, arguing that the Sakharoffs’ “queer” trajectory resonated with the Uruguayan artistic community, influencing the creation …

Performing Queerness, Jasmina Sinanovic

Open Educational Resources

This is a syllabus for a course Performing Queerness

"Must Be Heavyset": Casting Women, Fat Stigma, And Broadway Bodies, Ryan Donovan

Publications and Research

This article surveys how contemporary Broadway musicals cast fat women and focuses on Hairspray. The use of fat suits and contractual weight clauses figure into the discussion of fat stigma and casting practices. Seemingly body-positive musicals both celebrate and undermine the identities staged in them.

Linda Collazo: A Bronx Aria, Jose A. Giralt

Capstones

This video project follows Linda Collazo, a mezzo-soprano from the Bronx, as she prepares for various performances during fall of 2018. She describes the training in vocals, music, and acting she undergoes in order to break into the highly competitive field of operatic singers.

https://giraltjschool.exposure.co/linda-collazo-a-bronx-aria

Murmur/Murmuro, Paola M. Di Tolla

Theses and Dissertations

By using repetition or misplacing intonations and accents, etc. one can imitate the slipperiness of spoken language. However, it is the accidental slippage that I find most revealing and exciting because it allows for two conversations to exist in one. Once spoken language is transcribed as text, it is put through another filter and the risk of [accidental] slippage increases by a different measure. Fingers don’t keep up or autocorrect insists on taking matters into its own hands.

Being In Performance: A Philosophical Account Of The Embodied Actor, Brad M. Krumholz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation I present and analyze three distinct actor-training exercises primarily through the lens of the Embodied Cognition (EC) branch of contemporary philosophy, which attempts to frame human understanding as a fully embodied interaction with the environment. Drawing from neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, and other branches of philosophy, EC provides both an excellent set of tools and a strong theoretical framework to help explain how people encounter meaning in life. I apply its unique perspectives to this philosophical account of the embodied actor as I analyze the various elements at play in actor training praxis, which allows me to shed …

The Other At War: Performing The Spanish-Cuban-American War On U.S. And Cuban Stages, Juan R. Recondo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Spanish-Cuban-American War, declared by the United States on April 25, 1898, marks a colonial shift in the history of the Caribbean and solidified the expansionist thrust of the United States outside national borders. Theatres in turn-of-the-century New York, which at this point was one of the theatrical centers of the nation, debated for audiences the imperialist character of the U.S. The Cuban struggle and the resulting Spanish-Cuban-American War permeated U.S. drama, thereby portraying a Caribbean in need of salvation by the military intervention of the United States. New York stages of the time became locations where various cultural representations …

The Lines Between The Lines: Stage Directions As Fluid, Affective Collaborations Between Theatre Texts And Theatre Makers, Sarah Bess Rowen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project contends that certain kinds of stage directions can affectively engage the bodies of actors, and the imaginations of directors and designers, resulting in a collaboratively created performance of a given theatre text. As opposed to more literary treatments of stage directions, this project contends that theories of embodiment, especially affect theory, is a useful lens through which to explore the range of potential performances present in various stage directions. By analyzing the ways in which stage directions allow for more agency than has traditionally been considered in theatre scholarship, I seek to encourage theatre makers and scholars alike …

Starting Over On Stage, Keydra Manns

Capstones

RTA is a non profit organization based out of New York that uses the arts as a way to rehabilitate inmates. Research shows that this type of rehabilitation strongly impacts an inmates behavior, self esteem and possibly reduces their likelihood to return to prison. This is one man’s story on how practicing theater during his prison sentence changed his life.

https://medium.com/@keydra.manns/starting-over-on-stage-3614e7bc0dd9

Nervous Salomes: New York Salomania And The Neurological Condition Of Modernité, Margaret K. Araneo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In January 1907, New York City had its first major encounter with the figure of Salome. Appearing on three large stages in the city simultaneously, the archetype of the dancing girl quickly became an object of controversy. Her appearance at the Metropolitan Opera House in its staging of Strauss’s Salome resulted in public debate and the ultimate closure of the performance by the Met’s Board of Directors. The event brought attention to the Salome archetype’s already contested character. Salome arrived in the United States from Europe where she had been the subject of a quarter century of debates about how …

Embodying Rhythm Nation: Multimodal Hip Hop Dance As A Site For Adolescent Social-Emotional And Political Development, Lauren M. Roygardner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This exploratory study employed qualitative methodology, specifically values analysis, to learn more about how being involved within Hip hop dance communities positively relates to adolescent development. Adolescence was defined herein as ages 13-23. The study investigated Hip hop dance communities in terms of cultural expertise (i.e. novice, intermediate and advanced/expert) to look specifically at dance narratives (i.e. peak experience narratives and “I dance because” essays) and hip hop dance performances. The primary purpose of this dissertation was to (1) explore how adolescents use multimodal Hip hop dance discourse for social-emotional development and critical consciousness, and to (2) understand how values …

Theatre Translation As Historiography: Projections Of Greek Self-Identity Through English Translations During The European Crisis, Maria Mytilinaki

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project focuses on theatre translation from Modern Greek into English through the examination of three plays translated in the early years of the ongoing Greek crisis (2012-2014). Currently Greek culture is received internationally through two important frames of reference: Hellenism, the admiration for the ancient Greek spirit, and the more recent negative associations with modern Greece provoked by the Eurozone crisis. The three translations I examine challenge these dual external projections onto Greek culture by promoting a more nuanced image that recontextualizes the Greek past. In their capacity to travel between cultures, often in bilingual iterations, these theatrical translations …

The King’S Daughter, Reout Essiminy Feldman

Theses and Dissertations

The King’s Daughter is a spatial video installation that depicts an oversized projection of a woman’s head. Her eyes are closed, and there are necklaces with words coming out of them. The necklaces disappear into the black surface. The King’s Daughter happens in a black room, where the viewer can only view the installation through a window.