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Antigone

Taylor Theatre Playbills

Taylor Theatre presents Sophocles’ timeless tragedy “Antigone,” translated and directed by Joe Ricke.

Performed September 29-October 2, 2016 at the Mitchell Theatre.

In this story, the bold yet cursed princess Antigone, daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, chooses to confront her unmovable uncle/king about his decision to dishonor her brother by refusing his burial. Her choice to defy him shocks the entire city of Thebes. Ultimately, all concerned, including the audience, are forced to wrestle with the relationship of divine law to human laws.

This striking production, translated and directed by Joe Ricke, explores this universal question in the ancient context …

Doctrines And Laban Kinetography In A Hungarian Modern Dance School In The 1930s, János Fügedi, Lívia Fuchs

Journal of Movement Arts Literacy Archive (2013-2019)

The article introduces the early years of modern dance in Hungary, focusing on one outstanding personality, Olga Szentpál, and her school. The dance creation system and dance education methods are discussed with attention to Szentpál’s unique doctrines. The doctrines are built of theorems and functions to approach the structural, contextual, compositional, and expressive characteristics of the new dance. The overview of the theories is supported by a selection from a comparatively large amount of Laban kinetography, found in Olga Szentpál’s legacy. The use of notation in the Szentpál School comprised historical and traditional dance research just as well as introducing …

Ouachita And Henderson Collaborate To Perform To Kill A Mockingbird Sept. 29-Oct. 10, Mattie Alexander, Ouachita News Bureau

Press Releases

The Ouachita Baptist University and Henderson State University theatre programs are partnering to produce and perform To Kill a Mockingbird. The play is adapted by Christopher Sergel from the classic novel by Harper Lee. The show will be performed Sept. 29-Oct. 1 at 7:30 p.m. and Oct. 2 at 2:30 p.m. in OBU’s Verser Theatre and Oct. 6-8 and Oct. 10 at 7:30 p.m. in HSU’s Arkansas Hall Studio Theatre.

Circus As Idée Fixe And Hunger, Anna-Sophie Jürgens

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Circus as idée fixe and Hunger" Anna-Sophie Jürgens discusses circus fiction in which characters often display extreme, intense psychological traits. They are for example irascible, pyromaniac, sadistic, or megalomaniac. Particularly striking are protagonists with alternative psychological attitudes in fictional circus texts of the twentieth century such as Franz Kafka's hunger artist, Michael Raleigh's ringmaster Lewis Tully or Richard Schmitt's aerialist Garry, who can be seen as incubators of circus-related idées fixes. These literary circus characters develop fixations on circus that manifest themselves as a physical sensation of desiring circus like food, in other words: in circus …

Enhancing The Effects Of Theatre Of The Oppressed Through Systems Thinking: Reflections On An Applied Workshop, Jennifer Luong, Ross Arnold

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

In this essay, we explore the idea that the use of Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) techniques in the quest for social justice, transformation, and liberation can be enhanced through application of a skill set called systems thinking. We facilitated a workshop at the 2015 Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed conference in which we presented a brief introductory course in systems thinking, led guided practice using the method, and invited sharing and reflection about the fusion of systems thinking and TO. We explain the workshop in detail, discuss its impact on participants, and offer future directions for considering the …

Beyond The Wall In Dheisheh Camp: From Local To Transnational Image-Making, Philip Hopper

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

Murals and graffiti on the Israeli separation barrier near Bethlehem have been well documented by journalists and discussed in academic journals. Though the image and texts on the barrier may be “transnational” they are of little consequence to the local population. Murals and graffiti within the nearby Dheisheh Palestinian Refugee Camp consolidate local public opinion, generally about the occupation and dismemberment of the West Bank and specifically about individual martyrs or shaheed. The performative nature of these images goes beyond the act of painting them. Children from the Camp pose with these images, identifying with the abstraction of justice and …

Students Staging Resistance: Pedagogy/Performance/Praxis, Patrick Santoro, Uriah Berryhill, Lois Nemeth, Rebecca Townsend, Deirdre Webb

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

This essay archives and reimagines a collaborative student performance—inJUSTICE—developed as part of a performance and social change course. Working within the framework of critical pedagogy, the intents of this piece are several: to offer strategies for teaching a course on performing resistance and mentoring students in the development of original work; to provide insight into how students, primarily at the undergraduate level, process performance in the context of social change, as well as apply course concepts and practices in their own performance work; and to affirm a body-centered, performative pedagogy in the classroom. Also included is a video of the …

Imaginative Acts Of Resistance: Dramatic Storytelling In An Elementary School Classroom, Shannon K. Mcmanimon

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

This critical ethnographic project draws upon literature on imagination, critical literacy, and theatre to explore a sixth-grade class’s participation in a critical literacy and creative drama program. Through examples from the storytelling practices of the Neighborhood Bridges program, I outline how students and teachers (including a teaching artist) imagined, co-created, and revised storylines in their classroom; this collaboration provides an alternative to the common narrative of the constrained urban public school classroom. The resulting imaginative acts of resistance: 1) encourage and empower urban elementary students to enact relevant, collaborative community in their classrooms; 2) engage meaningful—not just functional—literacies; 3) ask …

Underrepresented: In The Margins Of Education, Jennifer L. Erdely

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

This poem documents and serves as a call to action to confront our perceptions in spaces of learning. The format of the poem serves as a way to “give perspective” (Faulkner 2009, 92) to those who are marginalized while contemplating voice, ownership, and responsibility. This poem’s importance lies in its margins—in those blank spaces where we as teachers, scholars, and students can write how we decide to engage our own identities, pedagogies, and performances with what is on the page. Poems allow space for other voices to be expressed—the blank space on the page is the place of freedom for …

Online Only Classes And Critical Dialogue: Toward A Faustian Bargain Ideal For Virtual Education, C. Kyle Rudick

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

As distance learning and Online Only Classes (OOCs) become more prevalent in higher education, it becomes increasingly urgent that critical-democratic educators continue to work toward a better understanding of liberatory praxis through technology. The goals of this essay are to explain why critical dialogue cannot be realized in OOCs, describe how blended brick-and-mortar/virtual classes may be advantageous for a critical agenda, and help orient future scholarship concerning critical pedagogy and technology toward a “Faustian bargain” ideal argued by Neil Postman. In order to reach these goals, I outline two types of educators that I believe have the most at stake …

Shaking The Hands Of Our Mentors: Boal And Freire And Us, Katherine Burke, Mariana K. Leal Ferreira, Mark Weinberg

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

This collection of three personal narratives documents the ways in which a radical mathematics educator, a socially conscious but disillusioned theatre-maker, and a social activist seeking tools for change discovered the techniques of Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed and met the wonderful men who developed them.

Editor’S Introduction To The Inaugural Issue Of Pto Journal, Jennifer L. Freitag

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

This brief note from the editor provides an introduction to the journal, the philosophy that has driven its development, what makes it similar to and different from other professional journals, and the individuals and organizations responsible for its inception.

Steps In Time: An Exploration Of Tap Dance Education, Sara Pecina

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Tap dance is an indigenous American art form that not only holds a valuable presence in the world of entertainment but also boasts an important historical background. From the slave quarters on plantations to Hollywood’s silver screen, the development of tap dance mirrors the story of American history. Tap dance must be preserved because of its cultural significance in American history; likewise, it is imperative for dancers to understand its development in order to appreciate the art and for today’s artists to continue the growth and presence of tap dance in America. However, many dance educators today focus solely on …

All They Want To Do Is Dance: A Study Of Dance Education In K-12 Public Schools, Kelsey Jean-Baptiste

Dance Summer Fellows

This project involves investigating the value of dance within a student’s life. The research has included a variety of facets of dance - how it is related to brain/neuroscience research and motor skills; how it is fun and an opportunity to learn in a different way; and how it enhances academics, mental stability, and social interactions. The bulk of the study included examining past and current national studies that investigated the effects of dance education within the K-12 school setting. Also included were two on-site visits pertinent to the study: one was a visit to a Philadelphia dance classroom, in …

Changing Through Laughter With “Laughter For A Change”, Laurel J. Felt, Ed Greenberg

Occasional Paper Series

This paper describes systematic observation, research, and analysis of Laughter for a Change (L4C)’s 2011–2012 after-school improv workshop, revealing the program’s multiple impacts. Our data suggest that improvising creates a “safe space,” a supportive context in which participants feel empowered to take risks and play freely.

Take A Bow - 07/2016, Department Of Theatre

Theatre Newsletter

WMU Theatre News

Igor Stravinsky (Primitivism & Cubism), Dan Rager

Dan Rager

University Theatres Should Open People's Eyes To New Ideas, Heather Gibson

UCF Forum

Content guides and advisories, which list all of the parts of a production that a viewer might find offensive, are becoming commonplace with theatre companies.

Animal Studies Journal 2016 5 (1): Cover Page, Table Of Contents, Notes On Contributors And Editorial, Melissa J. Boyde

Animal Studies Journal

Cover page, table of contents, contributor biographies and editorial for Animal Studies Journal Vol. 5 No.1, 2016.

Through The Eyes Of A Bee: Seeing The World As A Whole, Adrian G. Dyer, Scarlett R. Howard, Jair E. Garcia

Animal Studies Journal

Honeybees are an important model species for understanding animal vision as free-flying individuals can be easily trained by researchers to collect nutrition from novel visual stimuli and thus learn visual tasks. A leading question in animal vision is whether it is possible to perceive all information within a scene, or if only elemental cues are perceived driven by the visual system and supporting neural mechanisms. In human vision we often process the global content of a scene, and prefer such information to local elemental features. Here we discuss recent evidence from studies on honeybees which demonstrate a preference for global …

[Review] David Wilson, The Welfare Of Performing Animals: A Historical Perspective. Berlin: Springer, 2015, Peta Tait

Animal Studies Journal

This book makes a valuable contribution to animal studies. It investigates the social and political processes concerned with the welfare of performing animals in Britain from the nineteenth century into the twentieth century. Although this area requires specialised inquiry, as David Wilson points out, animal performance is usually generalised about within pro-animal scholarship. Drawing on highly detailed research, this book provides a comprehensive account of the individuals and organisations that campaigned against animal performance and its cruelties and, in turn, those who campaigned for its continuation. It presents the human stories behind the movement against animal performance; descriptions of the …

Toward An Empirically-Generated Typology Of Weblog Genres, Maciej Maryl, Krzysztof Niewiadomski, Maciej Kidawa

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "Toward an Empirically-generated Typology of Weblog Genres" Maciej Maryl, Krzysztof Niewiadomski, and Maciej Kidawa propose a typology of weblog genres based on empirical data, namely on the analysis of metadata and the study of blogs' content. In Study 1 they explore 287 categories used by Polish bloggers to classify their blogs. The analysis shows that most categories are topical, but some could be useful for genre analyses. In Study 2 they analyse "syntagma" combinations of 2-3 categories assigned to 88 252 blogs on one of the Polish blog platforms. Through quantitative analysis and clustering 3 main groups …

Introduction To New Work In The Empirical Study Of Literature And Culture, Aldo Nemesio

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Bibliography Of Contextual (Systemic And Empirical) Approaches In The Study Of Literature And Culture, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Fictionality And The Empirical Study Of Literature, Torsten Pettersson

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Fictionality and the Empirical Study of Literature" Torsten Pettersson surveys three types of studies and argues for research which disentangles fictionality from other aspects of literariness. Pettersson conceptualizes the basic paradoxical phenomenon that made-up stories can influence readers' perceptions of the real world and presents an empirical study of the impact of fictionality based on a five-page narrative presented to two groups of young Swedish readers as an extract from an autobiography and a novel, respectively. A questionnaire elicited reactions to the narrative, as well as attitudes to fictionality and to literary reading in general. Results include …

Mimicry And Mimesis: Matrix Insect, Madeleine Kelly

Animal Studies Journal

Paintings and insects might seem like odd companions. In this paper I describe how a series of paintings I made depicting insects creates associations between mimesis and mimicry in order to flag a sort of protective self-referentiality – one where painting resists its proverbial ‘end’ and insects are presented as vital new orders. Drawing upon art historical references, such as Surrealism and the modernist grid, I argue that playing on these references and the compositional effects of camouflage enlivens our regard for the sensuous worlds of both insects and painting. I conclude by exploring how paintings of insects are powerful …

Toothsome Termites And Grilled Grasshoppers: A Cultural History Of Invertebrate Gastronomy, Deirdre P. Coleman

Animal Studies Journal

This article examines the recent turn to entomophagy (insect eating) as a new source of nutrition in a world confronted by increasing population, degraded soils, and food insecurity. Although many regard entomophagy with disgust, there is a case to be made that many insects are much more nutritious, as well as greener and cleaner¹, than many of the foods we regularly eat without thinking. Also, there is nothing new about insect eating or the belief in entomophagy as a sustainable and sensible practice. There is a long cultural history in countries such as Africa and Australia, for instance.

Thirteen Figurings: Reflections On Termites, From Below, Perdita Phillips

Animal Studies Journal

This image essay is a creative reflection back upon The Encyclopaedia Isoptera: An encyclopaedia of the arts, sciences, literature and general information about termites, which was mostly written by the artist between 1997 and 1998, and forward to what termite art might undo today. Without access to living termites and, predating multispecies ethnographies, the Encyclopaedia Isoptera was an investigation into the limits of knowledge around termites. Looking back, it can be seen that certain strategies in the Encyclopaedia, such as looking at superseded or alternative knowledge, was a way of interrogating the boundaries of the sensible/insensible, and parallels more recent …

Humans, Insects And Their Interaction: A Multi-Faceted Analysis, Raynald H. Lemelin, Rick W. Harper, Jason Dampier, Robert Bowles, Debbie Balika

Animal Studies Journal

By administering Personal Meaning of Insects Maps (PMIM) to participants from eastern Canada and northeastern United States, we examine how people’s perceptions of insects are often determined by childhood encounters, corporeal cues, and influenced by environmental preference during recreational activities, often resulting in inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and bias. While the purpose of this study was to acquire a greater understanding of these entanglements through visual maps, the goal of this paper is to disentangle these morasses by highlighting the various positive, negative, dialectic, and ambivalent aspects of how insects are perceived.

A Sustainable Campus: The Sydney Declaration On Interspecies Sustainability, Fiona Probyn-Rapsey, Sue Donaldson, George Ioannides, Tess Lea, Kate Marsh, Astrida Neimanis, Annie Potts, Nik Taylor, Richard Twine, Dinesh Wadiwel, Stuart White

Animal Studies Journal

Under the remit of an expanded definition of sustainability – one that acknowledges animal agriculture as a key carbon intensive industry, and one that includes interspecies ethics as an integral part of social justice – institutions such as Universities can and should play a role in supporting a wider agenda for sustainable food practices on campus. By drawing out clear connections between sustainability objectives on campus and the shift away from animal based products, the objective of this article is to advocate for a more consistent understanding and implementation of sustainability measures as championed by university campuses at large. We …