Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

Exploring A Qualitative Approach To Arts Advocacy And Evaluation, Lycette C. Belisle

Undergraduate Theses

The quantitative impact of the arts has become an increasingly important factor in determining the overall value of a project, and is often used to determine acceptance of submissions, public recognition and funding disbursement. This project evaluates current understandings of how the arts function within society, popular methods for determining the value of the arts and explores how qualitative reasoning can be utilized to communicate the value of supporting artistic endeavors. While placing a numerical value on the arts based on data collection can be important, this project will aim to evaluate the implications of relying so heavily on facts …

Dramatic Example: Spectacle, Theatricality, And Performance In Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy, Patrick Joseph Caoile

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The political implications of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy have been noted by many scholars and commentaries, the majority of whom view the trilogy specifically through the lens of September 11, 2001 and its aftermath. As Jacques Derrida notes about 9/11, the “maximum media coverage . . . spectacularize[d] the event” (qtd. in Stubblefield 3). In Nolan’s trilogy, Batman’s crusade to save Gotham from its criminals and villains takes on similarly spectacular qualities, as Gotham City becomes “ground zero” for acts of terrorism, vigilantism, and theatricality. Rather than engaging in a strictly political analysis of these films, this thesis …

Flaws In My Father | Better Engaging With Trauma, Grief, Loss, And Pain Through Storytelling., Neil Fontano

Theatre & Dance ETDs

In this essay, I will review my playwriting methodology and growth as an artist during my time as a Dramatic Writing Candidate at the University of New Mexico. I will begin by examining my personal narrative and the initial impulse to apply for and accept a position in the Dramatic Writing Program. I will continue by dissecting my own writing methodology and its numerous influences: a sense of place, character, and time. Further, I will give an explanation of and demonstrate my own methods developed during my second year work on “Thelonius | My Brother’s Keeper.” In addition to academic …

Why I Write In Yiddish, Karen Alkalay-Gut

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Poetry In Response To The “Disengagement Plan”: Identity, Poetics And Politics, Tamar Wolf-Monzon

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This article will examine the corpus of poems written in the years 2004-2005, in response to the Israeli government’s Disengagement plan that unilaterally evacuated all Israeli communities from Gush Katif in the southern Gaza Strip. These poems are explored as a political speech act, whose purpose is to bring about an extra-linguistic outcome: to impact upon the feelings and thoughts of the addressees, as well as to influence them in relation to issues of identity and social affiliation. Indeed, these poems are part of a long and complex tradition of Hebrew political poetry, characterized not only by a response to …

The “Science” Of Story Structure, Diana Witt

Virginias Collegiate Honors Council Conference

Stories are immensely human. They help us learn and understand cultural and social contexts. The stories that we tell, see, and read have profound effects on our ideas and emotions, causing us to have visceral reactions. Stories are truly at the crux of how people relate to each other. In this talk, I will explore the necessary elements of stories and why they are effective. Storytellers across all mediums build plot and characters to make an audience care and draw them in. Authors and screenwriters have theorized about the main structures into which all stories fall. In modern media, story …

Gérer La Distance : Réflexivité Et Éthique Des Corps Meurtris Dans Les Documentaires Syriens D’Après 2011, Nicolas Appelt

Regards

Taking into account the post-2011 Syrian documentary, we realize that the question of the representation of “bruised bodies” occupies a major place which goes beyond crimes’ documentation committed during the conflict. In fact, in a large number of them there is a respect, an ethics towards “bruised bodies”. The question of their representation raised deep debates concerning both the fact of showing bodies and how to do it. By focusing more on how to represent bodies, we will be interested in the reflexive and ethical dimension that these representations involve. In this perspective, it will therefore be a question of …

Du Corps Écran À La Ville Corps, Noha Maroun

Regards

The human body always attracts and fascinates Arab filmmakers, that is why it is considered as an agglomerate of signs, which usually reveals the social and political instability of a nation. In the Lebanese cinema, the body representations are controversial and related to war themes. The men’s body becomes the screen and the receptacle of the violence when it exhibits its wounds and scars, while the moving women’s body holds within itself the early signs of safeguards. The moving women’s body is also correlated to the space that determines its trajectory. Beirut city emerges then as a huge body in …

Subversion, Subjectivité Et Critique : Le Corps Dans La Performance Artistique Aux Émirats Arabes Unis, Océane Sailly

Regards

Between 1982 and 1984, London-trained, Dubai-based artist Hassan Sharif produced and documented a body of performance work that is often seen to inaugurate the practice of contemporary performance art in the United Arab Emirates. In his wake, artists Mohammed Kazem and Ebstisam Abdulaziz have further developed this artistic genre and profoundly altered the relationship between art and corporeality. Subversive, critical and political, these three artists have made their bodies a tool for challenging established standards while claiming their artistic subjectivity. Based on a selection of performances and taking into account the socio-cultural context of their realization, this article proposes to …

Introduction – Les Régimes Esthétiques Du Corps Dans Le Monde Arabe, Gilles Suzanne

Regards

Que l’art, dans le monde arabe (qui nous servira de périmètre), voire, dans l’aire d’influence culturelle de l’Islam qui ne saurait s’y réduire, entretienne un rapport au corps, n’a rien d’une découverte...

Le Pouvoir Du Sang Féminin Dans L’Art Contemporain Arabe, Jana Mrad

Regards

After the 1970’s performances, and at the time the feminist collectives, whose artistic approaches often recall menstruation, emerged, feminine blood also found its place in the contemporary Arab art scene. Driven by a desire of emancipation and freedom, some Middle Eastern artists seized the feminine blood and made it into a paradigm in order to shed light on the female body and the way the latter is lived, perceived and controlled. By taking on this taboo, they found a way to elude censorship, waive the rules, cross the limits... in order to free women’s wounded bodies.

Résumé

Après les performances …

Le Corps Anamorphosé Dans Le Théâtre Marocain : Cas De Capharnaüm De Latefa Ahrrare, Imad Belghit

Regards

Given the territorial and cultural differences, some Moroccan plays produce a particular corporeality around which the scene is articulated. We then witness a questioning of ethos, a morality that incorporates postures and dispositions of the body. The show entitled Capernaum Auto-Sirate by Latefa Ahrrare is part of this scenic dynamic peculiar to the construction of corporalities in the context of contemporary Moroccan theater. The performance of this actress raises existential questions through her presence on stage and via a body subjected to the process of unveiling.

Résumé

Compte tenu des différences territoriales et culturelles, certaines pièces de théâtre marocaines produisent …

What Can A Body Do? Answers From Arab Cinema, Laura U. Marks

Regards

Baruch Spinoza’s statement “We do not know what a body can do” argues that bodies learn their powers not from divinely imposed laws but through experience in the world. Thought must pass through the body, in a way that menaces both existing thoughts and the body as it is at present. Great works of contemporary independent cinema in Arabic-speaking countries express the body’s forces of becoming in numerous ways, some of which this essay tracks: from not yet living to cultivating molecular forces, enfolding powers, expressing volatile passions, coming to life, and attaining adequate ideas. Some of these dynamics are …

Pays Rêvé (2011) De Jihane Chouaib, Joseph Korkmaz

Regards

The scenarist and director Jihane Chouaib returns, after a long absence, to her native country that she left during the war. She visits South Lebanon where she was born and wanders with her sister, who’s a dancer, in the places that marked her childhood. Her peregrinations are nostalgic and her memories are bitter-sweet. Her path crosses the path of the Lebanese-Canadian playwright Wajdi Moawad, of the director and journalist-photographer Katia Jarjoura, and of the French-Lebanese director Patric Chiha. To all these immigrants, Lebanon is the dreamed country that Jihane Chouhaib recalls through her view and her poetic comments.

Résumé

La …

Le Pouvoir En Images : Les Affiches Politiques Au Liban Entre 2005 Et 2010, Elie Yazbek

Regards

During the turbulent period following the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Lebanon, political posters were an important medium used by rival political parties to impose specific imagery on the public, contributing to set up a partisan discourse linked to the political position of each one. A war of images and slogans then took place, based on an audacious revaluation of the notion of image, reconsidered as both a symbol and an icon. The classical figurative representation system inherited from the Renaissance was confronted with ideological considerations that created a rupture and proposed original models of images.

Résumé

Durant …

Café Central, Joséphine Van Glabeke

Regards

Écriture blanche imprimée sur une tente en toile rouge vif, avec l’indication « Beirut » en exergue, pour rappeler où l’on se trouve…

The Many Editions Of The Front Page: How Gender Shapes The Story, Nicole Moore

Conspectus Borealis

No abstract provided.

Rethinking The Monstrous: Gender, Otherness, And Space In The Cinematic Storytelling Of Arrival And The Shape Of Water, Edward Chamberlain

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Through comparing the Hollywood films Arrival and The Shape of Water, this article explicates the films’ similar portrayals of gender, social collaboration, and monstrosity. Although the mainstream media in the United States has linked the idea of the monstrous to larger global forces, the two films suggest that “the monster” exists much closer to home. Hence, this article makes the case that monstrosity occurs in a variety of formulations such as the actions of national authorities like governmental officials that oppress and endanger a myriad of American citizens as well as newcomers. Further, this article makes the case that …

Monstrous Accumulation: Topographies Of Fear In An Era Of Globalization, Robert T. Tally Jr.

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The predominance of the horror genre, broadly conceived, in recent years attests to the profound sense of anxiety and dread permeating late capitalist societies. As the processes and effects of globalization become more viscerally experienced, they are also often rendered invisible or unknowable, and individuals and groups find themselves subject to an immense array of forces beyond their control. The contemporary scene is crowded with monsters, from alien invaders to the zombie apocalypse, set against the backdrop of darkly fantastic landscapes and dystopian visions. Drawing upon a variety of Marxist cultural theory, Robert T. Tally Jr. explores the topographies of …

Introduction To The Monstrous Global: The Effects Of Globalization On Cultures, Ju Young Jin, Jae Roe

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This special issue on “The Monstrous Global: The Effects of Globalization on Cultures” explores representations of the monstrous effects and products of globalization. The monstrous (as in The Monstrous Feminine by Barbara Creed) in this sense alludes to the ways in which local or national displays of fear and anxiety about the Other are embedded in struggles and tensions of global scale; the inability to cognitively map the effect of such global forces on local/national problems produces monstrous representations of the global. Global forces such as neoliberalism and reactionary nationalism, technology, climate change, migration and displacement lead to accelerating instability …

A Deconstructive Reading Of Taoist Influenced Chinese And American Poetry, Hong Zeng

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article “A Deconstructive Reading of Taoist Influenced Chinese and American Poetry” Hong Zeng attempts to deconstruct the logos status of "Nature" in Chinese natural philosophy and explore the tragic potentiality of such philosophy and poetry under its influence. It also analyzes its aesthetic strategies used to overcome historical tragedy, and how such tragic potentiality in classical Chinese philosophy and poetry break out into the imagery of death and fragmentation in modern Chinese and American poetry under its influence, including poetry by such poets as Hai Zi, Gu Cheng, Robert Bly and Wallace Stevens, and how it sometimes leads …

The Goddess Of Love In Sadomasochistic Costume: Roman Polanski's Venus In Fur, Alan P. Barr

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Throughout his career as a filmmaker, Roman Polanski has circled the subject of sex, its aberrations, its delights, and its risks. His twenty feature films are remarkably varied, yet characteristically probe the compelling, contradictory, and enchanting nature of human sexual behavior. He develops a cluster of images or tropes that appear across his films—from knives to claustrophobic settings—that advance his enquiry. Venus in Fur is Polanski’s most comprehensive portrayal of the intricacies of sexual conduct, employing a theatrical setting (rehearsing an adaptation of a notorious classic novel), amplified with cultural allusions and exploring the limits of role-playing. Normality and contentment, …

The Others (2001) By Alejandro Amenábar In The Light Of Valentinian Thought, Fryderyk Kwiatkowski

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The article offers a Valentinian interpretation of the Hollywood film The Others (2001). A particular attention is paid to the ways in which cinematic motifs and narrative elements of the film draw on myths, ideas and symbolic imagery present in Valentinian works, especially in the Gospel of Truth (NHC I, 3) and the Gospel of Philip (NHC II, 3). In the course of the heuristic analysis, the paper argues that although the film employs Valentinian ideas, it depicts different understanding of the world. This issue is addressed in the last part of the article by situating the film within broader …

"A Performing Artist's Journey...Begins" (Senior Showcase), Jennifer Boswell

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

As a Theatre major, my sponsor and I decided that my Honors Research Project would be a one-person, twenty-minute performance. Originally, this showcase was going to be a live theatre event. Due to coronavirus and social distancing, I had to adjust and adapt as I transformed my piece into a virtual performance.

In choosing the content that would be performed, I carefully selected pieces that represented my journey as a performing artist the past four years. I wanted to showcase my growth and range as a performer. I chose one monologue from each of the six MainStage Theatre productions I …

แนวคิดการแสดงข้ามวัฒนธรรมในการสร้างสรรค์ละครชาตรีร่วมสมัย : กรณีศึกษาการกำกับการแสดงเรื่อง พายุพิโรธ, ชาคร ชะม้าย

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

งานวิจัยนี้ศึกษาการกำกับการแสดงละครชาตรีร่วมสมัยเรื่องพายุพิโรธผ่านแนวคิดการแสดงข้ามวัฒนธรรม ผู้วิจัยในฐานะผู้กำกับการแสดง ศึกษาการสร้างสรรค์จากบทละครเรื่องพายุพิโรธ แปลจาก The Tempest ของ วิลเลียม เชกสเปียร์ (William Shakespeare) และละครชาตรี เพื่อค้นหาแก่นความคิดหลัก(Theme) และวิธีการนำเสนอ(Style) ที่สามารถสื่อสารหลัก(Message) จากบทละครควบคู่กับอัตลักษณ์ละครชาตรี เพื่อแสดงให้เห็นว่าการแสดงจากต่างวัฒนธรรมสามารถนำมาสร้างสรรค์ร่วมกันได้ ผู้วิจัยศึกษาแนวคิดการแสดงข้ามวัฒนธรรมและการกำกับการแสดงละครชาตรีร่วมสมัยเพื่อสร้างแนวทางกำกับ ก่อนนำเข้าสู่กระบวนการสร้างและจัดแสดง ผลการศึกษาผู้วิจัยพบว่ากระบวนการกำกับการแสดงด้วยแนวคิดการแสดงข้ามวัฒนธรรมหลักสำคัญคือ การกำหนดแก่นความคิดหลักของผู้กำกับการแสดงที่มีความเป็นสากล(Universality) เพื่อผสานอัตลักษณ์การแสดงจากทั้งสองวัฒนธรรม ทั้งในแง่ความคิดและรูปแบบที่จะส่งผลต่อทุกองค์ประกอบการแสดง ในทุกกระบวนการสร้างสรรค์จะต้องตระหนักถึงการแลกเปลี่ยนระหว่างวัฒนธรรม(Cultural exchange) บนพื้นฐานความเคารพอย่างจริงใจต่ออัตลักษณ์และรากเหง้าวัฒนธรรม(Cultural Source) ส่งผลให้การพิจารณาบริบทสังคมและประเด็นร่วมสมัยของการแสดงนั้น ก็เพื่อมองหาศักยภาพในการสร้างสรรค์ร่วมกันของทั้งสองการแสดง เพื่อให้เกิดนิเวศการแสดงข้ามวัฒนธรรม(Intercultural performative ecology) ที่ผลักดันการปะทะสังสรรค์ร่วมกันอย่างเป็นธรรมชาติ ผู้วิจัยได้ข้อสรุปว่าการกำกับการแสดงละครชาตรีร่วมสมัยเรื่องพายุพิโรธ เริ่มต้นจากวัตถุดิบการแสดง ทั้งบทละครพายุพิโรธและละครชาตรีว่าสร้างแรงบันดาลใจอย่างไรแก่ผู้กำกับในฐานะศิลปิน ซึ่งไม่มีหลักการตายตัว ข้อถกเถียงในประเด็นการรักษาสมดุลระหว่างการอนุรักษ์หรือพัฒนาจึงไม่ควรจะต้องแบ่งแยกประเภทเพราะขึ้นอยู่กับเป้าหมายของศิลปิน แนวคิดการแสดงข้ามวัฒนธรรมจึงเป็นการสร้างการแสดงในกระแส โลกาภิวัตน์ที่ส่งผลให้ศิลปินทั่วทุกพื้นที่สามารถเชื่อมต่อและแลกเปลี่ยนการแสดงจากต่างวัฒนธรรม เพื่อนำมาสร้างสรรค์บนบริบทการแสดงร่วมสมัยที่เปิดโอกาสให้นำเอาอัตลักษณ์การแสดงจากทุกพื้นที่วัฒนธรรมมาใช้สร้างสรรค์ ซึ่งเป็นปรากฏการณ์การแสดงที่ยังคงดำเนินต่อไป

The Missing Archive Of Loss, Zeina G. Halabi

Regards

The article examines the power of visual archives and the implication of their absence on the work of mourning. It explores the photographic work of the Iranian artist Azadeh Akhlaghui, who retroactively assigned visual identities to the unrecorded death of prominent Iranian figures. The scenes of death, reconstructed in highly staged photographs, operate as the guardians of collective memory insofar as they enable the work of mourning – a process of reckoning with loss that ultimately frees the collectivity from enduring melancholia.

Résumé

L'article examine le pouvoir de l’archive visuelle et les implications de son absence sur le travail de …

Introduction, La Rédaction De « Regards »

Regards

Dans ce deuxième numéro de la nouvelle formule, Regards se penche sur la question du portrait et de l’autoportrait, qui occupent une place prépondérante dans l’histoire de l’art. La peinture et la littérature, tout autant que le théâtre, le cinéma et les arts visuels, ont tous été tentés de saisir, avec leurs caractéristiques respectives, les traits d’une personne, connue ou anonyme, tandis qu’écrivains et artistes se sont, à un moment ou à un autre, focalisés sur la représentation de soi.

Changing Body And Society: A Speculative Examination Of Portraiture In Choucair’S Non-Representational Corpus, Kirsten Scheid

Regards

What ways do portraits relate people to aesthetic practices and social configurations when representational and individualizing assumptions that ensue from figurative art cannot be assumed? If social being is not given, an art act might be seen to affect primarily an artist’s relation to the possibility of subjectivity. The idea that the audience of an artwork includes the artist herself raises questions about her self-understanding and social being.
Building on my ethnographic research, I conduct a speculative examination of portraiture in relation to the career of Saloua Raouda Choucair towards founding a local art history. To conduct my review, I …

Portraits De Téléspectateurs Turcs : Enquêter Au Coeur Du Quotidien, Nese Öztemir

Regards

Dans le cas de la recherche en SIC, le portrait s’avère être une méthode adaptée pour pénétrer dans le contexte « naturel » de réception et ainsi rendre compte de ce qui se passe « autour de » la télévision. En ce sens, la pratique télévisuelle en Turquie constitue un levier intéressant pour étudier la façon dont l’organisation genrée du monde domestique travaille les rituels de réception. Comme le résume Pasquier (1999 : 233), regarder la télévision, c’est vivre une expérience organisée et socialement normée.
En s’appuyant sur les portraits individuels, travaillés dans le cadre d’entretiens semi-directifs menés dans deux …

Chouchou, Figure Gravée Dans La Mémoire Collective Du Théâtre Libanais, Rawan Kachmar

Regards

Chouchou is the nickname of Lebanese artist Hassan Alâ’ed-dine (1939-1975). Hassan founded the Lebanese National Theatre (1965-1975), the first daily theatre in Lebanon. This theatre produced, during a ten-year period, twenty-six comedic plays in which Chouchou played the main character. Who is Chouchou, though, and how did he turn into a star in the eyes of the Lebanese general public of theatre? Chouchou — with his strong Beiruti accent, a vortex of extravagant movements, a sensitive soul with a fragile heart, a conman with his distinct moustache — appropriated his own unique physical and speech mannerisms, which rendered him a …