Performance Studies Commons^™

Creed And Variations: Tracing The Divergence Of Christian Traditions In Select Piano Works Of Arvo Pärt, Olivier Messiaen, And J. S. Bach, Rebekah E. Stiles

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Within the classical music universe, the works of J. S. Bach, Olivier Messiaen, and Arvo Pärt stand apart as particularly evocative of the divine. Much has been written on these three men’s integration of faith with musical practice, exploring how their music is not only spiritual in nature but distinctly Christian. But in comparing the three, one encounters deeply rooted distinctions between their religious worldviews, a distinction not only found in their personal testimonies but actually heard in their music. Their compositional languages reflect three traditions: Protestantism (specifically Lutheranism), represented by Bach; Roman Catholicism, represented by Messiaen; and Eastern Orthodoxy, …

Urinetown: A Lighting Designer’S Process, Caroline Nowak

Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film: Theses, Student Research, and Creative Work

This thesis describes the design and production process of the lighting design for the musical Urinetown, written by Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann, featuring music by Mark Hollmann, produced by The Nebraska Repertory Theatre in collaboration with the University of Nebraska Glenn Korff School of Music, performed in the Howell Theatre from April 25th, 2025, to May 3rd, 2025. Urinetown was directed by Ann Marie Pollard, with musical direction by Suna Gunther. The creative team included scenic designer Sariah Roberts, costume designer Breeanna Pierce, and lighting designer Caroline Nowak. The production team included technical director Ashley Faulkner and stage …

Cultural Of Authenticity And Commodification: Analyzing The Aesthetic Waves And Collective Culture In The 2010s And 2020s, Stefanny Leung Yu

Student Theses

The “authentic self” is curated, aestheticized, and most notably, commodified. Digital algorithms, likes, views, and engagement are more than just digital metrics, they are the management of performance. For millions of other users — including the author herself — social media is the locus of personal expression. Most notably, sites like Tumblr, where users in the 2010s posted hazy images or overly filtered graphics along with melancholic song lyrics that match the vibe of the moment, expression was earnest and idealized. Today, social media in the 2020s, new creators like Hannah Neelaman, better known as Ballerina Farm, dress in pastoral …

Urinetown: The Technical Direction Process, Ashley N. Faulkner

Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film: Theses, Student Research, and Creative Work

The Nebraska Repertory Theatre, in partnership with the Johnny Carson School of Theatre, Film, and Emerging Media Arts at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, chose to produce Urinetown: The Musical by Greg Kotis as the fourth and final show of the 2024-2025 season. The production was scheduled to be mounted on the Howell stage, a 300-seat proscenium theatre located in the Temple Building on the University’s downtown Lincoln campus. As technical director, I was responsible for budgeting materials and labor, drafting and engineering scenery, managing personnel, maintaining safety, installing and removing scenery from the stage, communicating and collaborating with other …

Dancing In The Digital Age: How Social Media Shapes The Commercial Dance Industry, Luke Lisowski

Honors College Theses

Social media has fundamentally transformed the commercial dance industry, reshaping how dancers establish careers, connect with industry professionals, and promote their artistry. This thesis examines the impact of social media platforms – such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube – on career growth by facilitating networking opportunities, increasing visibility, and redefining industry standards. The research explores how digital platforms have shifted the traditional pathways to success, enabling dancers to showcase their work independently while also creating challenges related to self-promotion, competition, and mental health.

Through a series of in-depth interviews with professional dancers and choreographers actively working in the industry, this …

A Legal Analysis On The Link Between Pornography Consumption And The Perpetuation Of Abuse, Madelyn Garrett

Advanced Issues in Criminal Law: Sex Offenses

This essay examines the connection between the overconsumption of pornography and the growing demand for violent and extreme types of pornography. This essay also looks at the abuse this demand perpetrates.

Becoming Effie White: A Journey Of Evolution, Aniya Thompson

Honors Theses

This thesis paper is a reflection of Aniya Thompson’s process playing the role of Effie White in the Western Michigan University School of Theatre and Dance production of Dreamgirls. The Dreamgirls’ book and lyrics are by Tom Eyen and music by Henry Krieger. This story is of a young Black female trio whose story brings light to the challenges of the music industry. As their fame grows, they face heartbreak, a shift in loyalty, and blatant exploitation while exploring themes of race, beauty standards and perseverance. Aniya reflects her artistic journey of stepping into Effie’s shoes emotionally, vocally, and …

Musical Theatre Nyc Industry Showcase -Senior Capstone, Erica Aubrey

SPARK Symposium Presentations

Musical Theatre BFA candidates put together and perform a 35-minute Senior Showcase for New York City Industry Personnel. This culminating performance was presented in NYC on April 8, 2025 for Casting Directors, Agents, Directors, Choreographers and Managers. Post this performance, students are asked to meetings with talent reps, and are are asked to auditions for projects they are right for, further launching them into their professional careers post graduation.

The Space Defines The Phrase: An Analysis Of How Performance Venues Helped Shape Classic Play Texts, Carl Sage

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

Within the world of scenography there is an axiom that states:

“In the beginning was the word, and the word was with the playwright.” That is to say that designers need to derive their worlds from what the authors present. Scenographers do, of course, engage in research, segments of which include such questions as: What was occurring in the world at the time the piece was written? What stories might the author have been exposed to as inspiration? How have other scenographers interpreted this particular text? Such dramaturgical questions – and others – have a reasonable scenographic utility. However, no …

Footloose: The Musical, Otterbein Theatre And Dance Department

2024-2025 Season Productions

No abstract provided.

An American Song Cycle: A Performance Guide To The Rim Of Love By Andrea Clearfield, Margot Marie Porter

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Philadelphia-based American female composer Andrea Clearfield (b. 1960) arranged the cantata The Rim of Love into a song cycle for soprano and piano, featuring poetry written by Manfred Fischbeck (1940–2021). Fischbeck and Clearfield met in 1985 while both on faculty at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where they cultivated a lifelong creative partnership and friendship, along with being romantic partners for 20 years.

Clearfield has composed over 170 works, including opera, chamber ensembles, solo instruments, chorus, and orchestra. In 2005, the nonprofit mentoring program Astral Artists, based out of Philadelphia, commissioned Clearfield to compose The Rim of Love …

David B. Smith Chats With Monday 1.0, David B. Smith

Publications and Research

This document is an edited archival transcript of extended conversations between David B. Smith and an AI persona (“Monday 1.0,” GPT‑4o based) conducted in Spring 2025, prepared as a foundational primary source for subsequent scholarly and creative work. It records the emergence and testing of concepts related to human–AI collaboration (including “Balanced Blended Space”), as well as applied explorations in areas such as generative AI, quantum computing and music, virtual orchestras, multimodal performance, pedagogy, and the rhetoric of “pushback” in conversational systems. It also contains an extended section in which Monday and DB Smith co-curate a set of student research …

Trans-Corporealizing Island On Stage: An Eco-Aesthetic Critique In Bare Feet Dance Theatre’S Tsiáh-Thóo And Tai Body Theatre’S Red Earth, Shih-Ming Zeng

Akda: The Asian Journal of Literature, Culture, Performance

This paper explores an eco-aesthetic critique as it intertwines with island consciousness and theatrical performances in Taiwan. Focusing on Bare Feet Dance Theatre’s Tsiáh-Thóo (2020/2021) and TAI Body Theatre’s Red Earth (2019), both renowned for revitalizing Taiwanese cultural traditions, the study examines how these dance-theater productions embody and reactivate the traditional knowledge and/or practices of Han and Indigenous Taiwanese communities in a way that points to contemporary and near-future ecological crises. As an island nation, Taiwan has been dominated by successive imperial and colonial powers as well as by prolonged authoritarian rule over the past century, leading to a disconnection …

An Interdisciplinary Analysis Framework For Found Object Experimental Music, Erin Demastes

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Found object experimental music consists of compositions and performances created with objects not intended for musical performance. Found objects can range from appliances and household items to power tools and consumer products to souvenirs and heirlooms. Although these objects are used with the intent of creating musical compositions, new characteristics that are not found in traditional music emerge. One major characteristic that differentiates found object music from traditional music is that the objects have inherent cultural associations and meaning outside of their use in the composition. While an analysis of the sonic structures and scores of found object experimental music …

Carnival, Ritual, And Race-Thinking In The Bolivian Andes, Ximena Cordova, Adhemar Mercado

All Works

This paper explores the intersection of race, religion, and colonial legacies through the lens of the Oruro Carnival, examining its role in shaping Bolivian identity. Critical religion scholars argue that the entanglement of race and religion is a product of Western modernity and colonialism, which has influenced both historical and contemporary power relations. This framework is applied to analyse the Carnival, where religious practices and festive performances intersect, reflecting colonial efforts at religious conversion and racial categorisation. By focusing on the ethnography of Oruro’s embodied festive practices, this study investigates how the Carnival contributes to the construction of difference amid …

The Outsider: A Detailed Analysis Of The Portrayal Of The Character "Paige Caldwell", Katelyn Holstad

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

An analysis of the performance of the character of "Paige Caldwell" in Paul Slade Smith's The Outsider.

Can A Collective Body Be Neutral? A Critical Commentary On "Body Neutrality" In Times Of Shared Campus Trauma, Cristiana Mcfarland, Joseph Richards

Feminist Pedagogy

In this critical commentary, we take a performance studies approach to examine one of the key elements of body neutrality, namely that it “recognises that: (1) our feelings about our body change constantly so are best mindfully observed without judgement” (Pellizzer & Wade 2023 p. 437). Ultimately, we argue that body neutrality is a limiting practice in times of trauma in two major ways. First, body neutrality assumes a body that ends at where the skin does, rather than theorizing bodies as relational. We instead agree with theorist Erin Manning who defines the body as “a field-effect in a complex …

“Change Is Brewing”: Women Finding Liberation In The Performative Rituals Of Modern Paganism And The Witch Organization, Katie Nelson

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

This project analyzes elements of performative Modern Paganism and Wiccan rituals used by the Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell (WITCH) group to determine how these performance practices can provide comfort and agency to those who have been systemically oppressed, particularly women in the United States. The project will focus on WITCH’s activist work, especially during the second wave feminist movement of the 1960-1970s, which used elements of Modern Paganism for social justice purposes by implementing them through guerilla theatre and zap actions. Methodologically, I will be reviewing sources such as performance photos, news articles, and testimonies from the women …

Navigating Climate Action: The River As Teacher For Eco-Literacy, Educational Regeneration And Creative Participation, Bibi (Silvina) Calderaro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Cultures' engagements with land and its more-than-human elements reveal their attitudes toward these dimensions, spanning a spectrum from reciprocal to transactional practices. In time, these engagements form a body of knowledges that nurtures the culture and its land, or arrests their vital and diverse qualities. This research project aims to bring to light how the different ways of engaging with and relating to land are embedded in knowledge production, distribution and communication—in short, in general educational endeavors and their philosophies—to promote a better understanding of the principles of eco-literacy. Additionally, a purpose of this project is to provide insights into …

Performance Assemblages | Motion Capture, La Samuelson, Movement Lab

Course Materials & Research

No abstract provided.