Performance Studies Commons^™

A Director's Approach To Annie Baker's The Aliens, Evin Mcquistion

Undergraduate Honors Theses

An exploration of Annie Baker's play The Aliens through the perspective of student directing. This includes the process of research, casting, rehearsal, and performance of the play in the Spring of 2017 at East Tennessee State University.

A Director's Approach To Annie Baker's The Aliens, Evin Mcquistion

Undergraduate Honors Theses

A summary of the experience of directing The Aliens by Annie Baker including the process of research on the play and playwright, casting the production, rehearsing the play, and performing it.

Male Belting: An Exploration Of Technique And Style From 1967 To Current, Bruce Earnest

Dissertations

Male belting is found in many different stylistic forms of musical theatre repertoire. Its evolution began in the late 1960s with the emergence of the rock musical phenomenon and the early musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Belting is a musical theatre singing technique that achieves specific vocal tone qualities derived from speechlike tones. These tone qualities can resonate through a performance space without the use of amplification.

Belting technique has also evolved to support the singing of musical theatre repertoire that requires an extended male vocal tessitura and honest communication of text. The advance of belting as a legitimate vocal …

Beside Myself, Grant Hockenbrough

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis consists of my statement of artistry, and documentation of artistic materials and thesis related performances.

Gestures Of Creative Recovery For The Egocentric Actor Through Performance In Wertenbaker's Our Country's Good., Ross Joel Shenker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This document serves as a travelogue for the creation of two roles for the U of L Fall 2017 Production of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good. At odds throughout the process were intellect and vulnerability. In an attempt to find openness with my primary scene partner, I tried a variety of techniques including, but not limited to: Konstantin Stanislavski’s “Bits and Tasks”; Michael Chekhov’s “Psychological Gesture”; Carl Jung’s theories on Archetype; F.M. Alexander’s notions of “Inhibition” and “Nondoing” as expounded upon by Betsy Polatin; and Julia Cameron’s “Morning Pages.” My original goal of achieving vulnerability on stage became consumed …

St. Louis To Arizona: What Tom Wingfield Taught Me About Playing Myself, Christopher Scott Tennison

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis consists of my statement of artistry/teaching philosophy, and documentation of artistic materials and thesis related performances.

Storytelling Through Movement: An Analysis Of The Connections Between Dance & Literature, Zoe Hester

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Movement and storytelling are the links between past and present; both dance and literature have the same artistic and primal origins. We began to dance to express and communicate, to worship and feel. We tell stories for the same reasons: to learn from the past and to be able to communicate in the present.

This work explores the many connections between literature and dance through examinations of six dance forms: Native American, Bharatanatyam, West African, Ballet, Modern, and Post-Modern dance.

Cellist, Catalyst, Collaborator: The Work Of Charlotte Moorman, Saisha Grayson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

When classically trained cellist Charlotte Moorman (1933-1991) moved to New York City in 1957, she swiftly positioned herself at the intersection of experimental music, performance, video, and the visual arts. She interpreted works by composers like John Cage, collaborated with artists such as Nam June Paik, and founded and organized the New York Avant Garde Festival from 1963 to 1980. This dissertation argues that Moorman’s career sheds new light on what it meant to be an artist in this post-medium-specific moment and proposes that Moorman’s deterritorialization of authorship exerts pressure on traditional art histories. The generative dynamics of her collaborations …

Party On, Derrida!: A Queer, Deconstructionist Look At Wayne's World, Glam, And The Losers Of Rock And Roll, Michelle A. Arp

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What do you get when you mix a girl from Long Island, critical theory, a movie based on a Saturday Night Live sketch, David Bowie, and alternative rock of the early 2000s? A lot of losers, a lot of queerness, and plenty of room for deconstruction.

Part performance studies, part queer studies, and part memoir, this study is a cross-genre and experimental analysis of postmodern ideologies, rock and roll, and comedy. More specifically, I use Jacques Derrida’s notion of “the slash” (Of Grammatology, 1967) in relation to high and low culture via comedies, such that of Wayne’s World …

Dolls Who Speak: Sex Robots, Cyborgs And The Image Of Woman, Victoria E. Pihl Sorensen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the emerging phenomenon of sex robots from a feminist materialist perspective. I explore the current scholarly and popular debates on sex robots, and suggest a reading of sex robots in their machinic, literary and cinematic expressions to move beyond the moral-ethical impasse that seems to dominate sex robot discussions. Employing Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Myth” on a methodological and theoretical level, I argue for an interdisciplinary approach to studying sex robots, which proceeds carefully so as to avoid contributing to sex panic, and which thinks critically about what it might mean to assess sex robots from a feminist …

Episode 12: All Things In Murderation, Tanner Elrod

Season 3: Standards of Behavior

No abstract provided.

Shake My Hand, Karenna R. Versalovic, Whitney Bagley, Linwan Lewis, Sarah Hoffman, Vernae Gallaread, John Hammond, William Bernick, Clifford Phillips

Creative Activity and Research Day - CARD

The purpose of this project is to explore the inevitable intertwining of the worlds of dance and disability. It investigates what can happen when a group of people of all abilities use movement as a source of connection. This project was based on a nine minute dance piece created over a seven month period with rehearsals once a week for three hours sessions. The final piece consisted of seven dancers, five of whom had intellectual and developmental disabilities. The performance utilized improvisation, discussions, choreography, and contact work as tools for the creative process. The intent of the piece was to …

Episode 11: Blunt Force Drama, Michael Painter

Season 3: Standards of Behavior

No abstract provided.

The Resistable Rise Of Arturo Ui

Theatre Programs

No abstract provided.

Episode 10: He's Come Undone, Kristen Daly

Season 3: Standards of Behavior

No abstract provided.

Episode 09: Killer Heels, Rachel Collinsworth

Season 3: Standards of Behavior

No abstract provided.

How To Be The Perfect Asian Wife!, Sophia Hill

Art and Art History Honors Projects

“How to be the Perfect Asian Wife” critiques exploitative power systems that assault female bodies of color in intersectional ways. This work explores strategies of healing and resistance through inserting one’s own narrative of flourishing rather than surviving, while reflecting violent realities. Three large drawings mimic pervasive advertisement language and presentation reflecting the oppressive strategies used to contain women of color. Created with charcoal, watercolor, and ink, these 'advertisements' contrast with an interactive rice bag filled with comics of my everyday experiences. These documentations compel viewers to reflect on their own participation in systems of power.

Episode 08: Ghost In The Rearview Mirror, Kate Devantier

Season 3: Standards of Behavior

No abstract provided.

Episode 07: Flirting Under The Influence, Binglin Wu

Season 3: Standards of Behavior

No abstract provided.

Episode 06: Forgive Me, Father, For I Have Ginned, Austin Williamson

Season 3: Standards of Behavior

No abstract provided.