Arts and Humanities Commons^™

When The Smoke From The Battle Has Cleared, T. Fulton Burns

T. Fulton Burns

I can recall the time that followed my first national workshop. All of the excitement of new friends and new skills still went through me like a child on Christmas morning considering all of the possibilities of fun with my new toys. I thoroughly enjoyed having my college friends ask me to show them what I had learned. Eventually I was approached by a former professor to choreograph the fights for a production of Hamlet at my undergraduate program. With excitement and great pride I happily accepted.

What A World – What A World: Scene/Script Analysis For Fight Plays, T. Fulton Burns

T. Fulton Burns

“While perfection is a wonderful goal, there comes a point where you have to let your creation out into the world or it isn’t worth a tinkerer’s damn.” This is a fantastic quote by Twyla Tharp from her book The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It For Life: A Practical Guide. So what does this have to do with you, the stage combatant? Well you are working hard but you are being told not to strive for perfection because perfection can never truly be achieved in the arts, so naturally itwarrants the question “then for what exactly do you …

Throwing Down The Gauntlet: Finding The Best Partnership For Fight Scene Work, T. Fulton Burns

T. Fulton Burns

Over the past few years I have written my perspective on the Skills Proficiency Test process. Earlier this year I thought that my process was complete but then an issue continued to creep up in my mind over and over again. It was that I had not addressed how best to find a partner for one's scene work. The reason for finding a good partner relates to my first workshop in stage combat. Discovering with whom to partner and with whom not to partner for scene work was the most valuable lesson I learned. Rather than focusing upon the ones …

The Games People Play: Rehearsal Games & Approaches For Fight Scenes, T. Fulton Burns

T. Fulton Burns

There are as many approaches to the rehearsal period as there are directors, actors and acting texts combined. Rehearsals are the time that we all look forward to because we truly get to do what we do best in theatre, which is “play.” The games and approaches in this article are intended to spice up the life of your stage combat scene and enhance the time spent in rehearsal; following the initial time period of learning choreography and discovering initial acting choices. Many people see the rehearsal process as the time to work. I couldn’t agree more but, as stated …

Review Of Physical Theatres: A Critical Introduction, And: Physical Theatres: A Critical Reader, T. Fulton Burns

T. Fulton Burns

Simon Murray (Director of Theatre at Dartington College of Arts) and John Keefe (Senior lecturer at the London Metropolitan University Undergraduate Centre) offer the theatre world two movement analysis texts. These well written books, which focus on techniques from the Western world of physical theatre, would serve graduate level or highly focused classes in movement pedagogy or practice. With their identical six-chapter breakdowns (“Genesis, Contexts, Namings”; “Roots: Routes”; “Contemporary Practices”; “Preparation and Training”; “Physicality and the Word”; “Bodies and Cultures”), the books may be used in relation to one another or stand alone as individual texts.

Just Before Dawn: Pre-Test Rituals And Preparation For Test Day, T. Fulton Burns

T. Fulton Burns

In Asian martial arts films there are usually beautiful moments that reveal the fighters in deep meditation before they are to meet on the field of battle. The process appears to center and calm the individual while preparing them for the final moments of their lives. The day of a skills proficiency test (SPT) can feel the same way. The day of the test can be frustrating for the testers as well as those around them. Nerves can run high during this stressful time. I can still recall the excitement and nerves of my first test day at the 2000 …

Random Acts Of Violence: Bringing John Cage’S Chance Techniques To Fight Choreography And Stage Combatant Acting, T. Fulton Burns

T. Fulton Burns

The concept of chance utilized by John Cage is a frightening, exciting, and liberating process for any artist. It was so effective that other musical artists such as Morton Feldman, Earle Brown and Christian Wolff used it. In the world of theatre these concepts are constantly used today by the Neo-Futurists in Chicago and New York in their production of Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind and by Improv Troupes throughout the country.

Dueling With Spt Questions: Members Of The College Of Fight Masters Share Their Ideas For Skills Proficiency Tests, T. Fulton Burns

T. Fulton Burns

As the rehearsal process grows closer and closer to the Skills Proficiency Test (SPT) common questions arise regarding what is needed in order to pass. Many of these questions involve the same basic idea – “What are the Fight Masters looking for so that I can pass the test?”, but the most important question that is asked is – “Do you think I will pass?”

...And Scene: A Guide To Locating Fight Scenes, T. Fulton Burns

T. Fulton Burns

It is one of the most daunting tasks: trying to find a strong fight scene for a Skills Proficiency Test or even a class project. The truth of the matter is that your main focus is to pass your skills test while hopefully leaving an impression on your peers(especially the adjudicator!). Passing, and hopefully receiving an Examiner’s Award for Excellence, is the best result; or if you are at a National Stage Combat Workshop, you could possibly receive a Certificate for Best Actress or Actor. At the very heart of the issue, you need a scene that will work for …

Beating The Punches: Scene And Fight Break Down Techniques, T. Fulton Burns

T. Fulton Burns

As a fight choreographer it is my responsibility to sit down with the director and discover her/his vision for the production. Similarly, actors need to serve the script and work with the choreographer in connecting the action to the playwright’s words. Each preceding article, relating to the exploration of the skills proficiency tests (SPTs), has offered tools for connecting the scripts, stories, and characters with the language of the choreography. We are now ready to move deeper into directly linking fight choreography with the script and vice versa.

Some actors see pre-planning objectives for a scene and rehearsal as an …

Fighting The Elements: Determining The Best Scenes For Skills Proficiency Tests, T. Fulton Burns

T. Fulton Burns

In the last edition of The Cutting Edge I provided tips for locating fight-specific scenes. Now let’s narrow our search from the vast quantity of scenes to a playing field of only the best quality. For a Skills Proficiency Test (SPT), choreography comes first to ensure that the proper techniques are included within the fight. Following these lessons in technique and choreography, the scene selection process begins. In a traditional acting class, the scene selection occurs first and is followed by the explored action. So even though the cart may be before the horse, as it were, with an SPT, …

I Can’T – I Have Rehearsal: Rehearsal Guidelines And Techniques With Fight Scene Work, T. Fulton Burns

T. Fulton Burns

The rehearsal process often contains excitement, uncertainty, and, at times, stress for all involved. It is at this stage of the process where the culmination of skills acquired (research, character study, and embodying choreography) all come together. The following guidelines and techniques are aimed toward helping the actor address and conquer both acting and fight needs during the rehearsal process

A Violent Character: Stage Combat Character Analysis, T. Fulton Burns

T. Fulton Burns

It is so deceptively easy stating who your character is but it is over looked more often than you may think. A good character analysis is important in the actor/character relationship and here we will look at the key elements of character research and their specific relationships to the stage combatant.

How To Help When It Hurts? Think Systemic, Corey L. Wrenn Ph.D.

Corey Lee Wrenn, PhD

To resolve a moral dilemma created by the rescue of carnivorous species from exploitative situations who must rely on the flesh of other vulnerable species to survive, Cheryl Abbate applies the guardianship principle in proposing hunting as a case-by-case means of reducing harm to the rescued animal as well as to those animals who must die to supply food. This article counters that Abbate’s guardianship principle is insufficiently applied given its objectification of deer communities. Tom Regan, alternatively, encouraged guardians to think beyond individual dilemmas and adopt a measure of systemic reconstruction, that being the abolition of speciesist institutions (The …

How Can We Know The Dance From The Dance?: Exploring The Complexity Of Staging Dance Legacy Works, Elizabeth Mcpherson

Elizabeth McPherson

Staging works from our rich concert dance heritage relies on determining what the “real” dance is, particularly when the work is no longer currently performed. Because choreographers frequently alter their choreography, creating multiple versions of a dance, identification of a definitive version can be a complex process. Adding to the complexity, there is the involvement of the stager, performers, and the audience who are each active or passive participants in the ultimate performance of a work. Through conversations with prominent stagers, scholarly discourse, and personal experience, the author investigates some of the key concerns and questions regarding staging dance legacy …

“And Those That Are Fools, Let Them Use Their Talents”: Looking At The Power Of Music In The Hands Of Shakespeare’S Wise Fools

Noelle Conder

“Boadicea Onstage Before 1800, A Theatrical And Colonial History.” Studies In English Literature 1500-1900 49.3 (Summer 2009): 595-614., Wendy Nielsen

Wendy Nielsen

This essay examines the theatrical legacy of Boadicea, the British warrior queen defeated by the Romans around 61 AD, in three plays: John Fletcher's "The Tragedy of Bonduca, or the British Heroine" and two unrelated dramas titled "Boadicea" by Charles Hopkins and Richard Glover. Performance histories attempt to explain why audiences respond to Boadicea with ambivalence. Each production underplays the defeated queen and gives starring roles to one or more of her daughters and a male lead, who contrast with Boadicea's supposed brutality and provide British audiences with lessons about ways to rule in an ostensibly civilized fashion.

Rethinking Ionesco’S Absurd: The Bald Soprano In The Interlingual Context Of Vichy And Postwar France, Julia Elsky

Julia Elsky

Rereading Eugène Ionesco’s postwar play La cantatrice chauve (The Bald Soprano) in the light of the original, wartime Romanian version alongside archival materials concerning his political activity in Vichy France allows us to reconsider his role in the theater of the absurd. Instead of staging the emptiness of language in a conformist world, the Romanian play dramatizes how language and language exchange created meaning but also upheld state violence during the Second World War. Although the French version of the play adapts this theme to the postwar context, traces of state power over language remain. This new approach …

Review: 'Improvising Improvisation: From Out Of Philosophy, Music, Dance, And Literature', Aili W. Bresnahan

Aili Bresnahan

This book review attempts to interpret the meaning and value of Gary Peters’ book in a way that is true to the kind of book, an experimental improvisation, that it purports to be. As such, it grapples with the difficulties of evaluating the merits of a philosophical discussion within a book that claims not to be philosophy and case studies in performance that beg the question of whether they accurately exemplify the (non-)philosophy they are meant to support. Despite these difficulties, this review ends with the conclusion that this book does, in fact, convey something essential about the nature of …

The Relationship Between Instagram Selfies And Body Image In Young Adult Women, Charles N. Wagner, Ester Aguirre Alfaro, Erin M. Bryant

Erin M Sumner

This study observed the relations between actual body size, body dissatisfaction, frequency of selfies taken, and number of Instagram selfies posted. Results indicated that actual body size was positively related to body dissatisfaction, and negatively related to the number of selfies taken. Results also revealed a positive relationship between body dissatisfaction and selfies taken. Conversely, no correlations were detected between the frequency of selfies posted to Instagram and either actual body size or body image dissatisfaction.

The Relational Reconnection Function Of Social Network Sites, Artemio Ramirez Jr., Erin M. Bryant, John Spinda

Erin M Sumner

Relational reconnection is a prominent yet under-explored function of social network sites (SNS) that encompasses both the activation and subsequent maintenance of dormant social ties. The present investigation used two data collections (Study 1, six university samples; Study 2, national United States sample) to explore the characteristics of friends who reconnect using SNS, and attempt to predict whether reconnected relationships persisted beyond the initial reconnection. Results indicated that relational reconnection is extremely common, especially among same-sex friends and individuals who identify as heavy SNS users. Predicted outcome value emerged as the best predictor of persistence beyond initial reconnection, in addition …

Multimodal Communication, Idealization, And Relational Quality In College Students' Parental Relationships: A Model Of Partner Idealization In Ongoing Relationships, Erin M. Bryant, Artemio Ramirez Jr.

Erin M Sumner

This study tested the partner idealization component of the hyperpersonal perspective, and extended this perspective to the study of an ongoing relationship – college students and their parents. We proposed a model to encompass the cognitive and behavioral idealization mechanisms that past research identified as provoking positive relational outcomes. Results indicated that mediated communication frequency was positively related to both idealization and relational quality, and that idealization partially mediated the statistical relationship between mediated communication frequency and relational quality. Face-to-face communication frequency was inversely related to one indicator of idealization (positive affect thinking), but was not directly related to relational …

(The “Avos” Phenomenon: A Non-Censured Theatre In The Novosibirsk University, 1975-1976). In: Mosty (The Bridges), Frankfurt, Germany, 2012, 34: 236–284.] [Part 1], Victor Fet, Serge Camyshani, Aleksandr Troitsky, Oleg Polyankov, Elena Fedorovskaya, Aleksandr Butorin, Mark Taraban, Sergei Kovalenko

Victor Fet

In 1975-1976, a group of science students of the Novosibirsk University (Russia, Siberia) created a small theatre that managed to avoid the official censorship for the entire season. In this memoir, several former actors, now scattered across the world, reconstruct the detailed history of their “Phenomenon” theatre 35 years later. The central event was the (first) staging (December 1975) of Andrey Voznesensky’s long poem “Avos'!”, long before the famous rock opera appeared.

теъане

В 1975-1976 гг. группа студентов Факультета Естественных Наук Новосибирского университета (Академгородок) умудрилась создать свой неподцензурный маленький театр «Феномен», который успел просуществовать целый сезон. В этих мемуарах бывших …

Hate Speech As Theater, Adam White

Adam White

Wocmes 2018: "I Am The Entertainer": Embodying Entertainment In The Egyptian Film Poster, Roberta L. Dougherty

Roberta L. Dougherty

No abstract provided.

Wocmes 2018: "I Am The Entertainer": Embodying Entertainment In Egyptian Film Posters (Slides), Robin Dougherty

Roberta L. Dougherty

No abstract provided.

‘Steady Stream … Mad Stuff … Half The Vowels Wrong …’: Water, Waste And Words In Beckett’S Plays, Katherine Weiss

Katherine Weiss

No abstract provided.

Sophie Treadwell's Machinal: Electrifying The Female Body, Katherine Weiss

Katherine Weiss

Excerpt: The American playwright and journalist Sophie Treadwell dedicated her literary career to exploring the lives and motives of lonely and trapped individuals.

Exploding Bombs: Masculinity And War Trauma In Sam Shepard’S Drama, Katherine Weiss

Katherine Weiss

This paper examines violence and masculinity in Sam Shepard's work as a symptom of war trauma, apparent in his characterization of several of his male characters as war veterans and the violent language accompanying his other characters. War becomes a cultural disease infesting and destroying the family on Shepard's stage.

The Comedy Of Scholarship: Review Of Hugh Kenner’S Flaubert, Joyce And Beckett: The Stoic Comedians, Katherine Weiss

Katherine Weiss

Review of Flaubert, Joyce and Beckett: The Stoic Comedians. by Hugh Kenner