Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

Dancing Between Worlds: Afrofuturism, Hybridity, Transculturalism, And The Orixás, Alicia Nascimento Castro

Dance (MFA) Theses

This research uses a multicultural lens to analyze the intersections of race and geography. It aims to acknowledge the corporeality of spiritual practices to investigate creative movement. Afrofuturism becomes a theoretical framework utilized as a space for liberation into the past, present, and future. Hybridity is adapted to examine identitdade dupla regarding national, racial, cultural, and lingual identities. The research explores Transculturalism by centering Blackness and interrogating the political powers of race in both the United States and Brazil. The physical manifestation utilizes the Black imaginary with choreography, set design, costuming, and musical composition as ideological frames for time travel …

Here And There A Latinx Experience, Angelica Salazar

Dance (MFA) Theses

This thesis aims to highlight the challenges faced by Latin American immigrants in the United States, including abuse, misrepresentation, and cultural erasure. Latinx migrants often face discrimination and limited job opportunities upon arrival and may struggle to maintain their cultural identity in a new society. They also encounter negative perceptions and stereotypes that marginalize their perspectives and hinder their social progress. The research will focus on the issue of identity loss and the duality experienced by Latinx immigrants, as well as the emotional oppression caused by US immigration laws. The research seeks to provide valuable insights into the internal struggles …

Rising Moons, Michael Bearden

Dance (MFA) Theses

This thesis examines the lives and cultural roots of the Five Moons - five Native American ballerinas - and how their example may serve as an ancestorial inspiration for the next generation of dancing youth. Exploring the impact of their tribal heritage on them as dancers, and how the prominence of their professional careers can be connected to the concept of ancestors in Native American culture, is central to this work. Answers are sought as to how the Five Moons make an impact through their legacies on current youth in Oklahoma. This creative manifestation engages in the form of a …

Careful Communication: A Confrontation Of Cartesian Mind/Body Dualism And Western Perceptions Of Intelligence In The Dance Classroom, Sarah Lunceford

Dance (MFA) Theses

Western perceptions of intelligence in correlation with Cartesian Mind/Body Dualism can have a detrimental impact on the way students receive and are affected by information. In collegiate settings where students participate in Western concert dance technique classrooms and dance academic courses, a student’s reputation for excelling in one area or another can influence the teacher’s perception of the student’s abilities. This can cause instructors to presume a generalized understanding of what a student is capable of and encourage an unbalanced engagement with the student’s abilities within one type of classroom versus another. This work considers the author's experience within dance …

Holy Body/Monstrous Body: The Life And Practices Of Saint Catherine Of Siena., Melissa B. Miller

Dance (MFA) Theses

This research examines the violent misogyny and contempt for the female body in, but not limited to, Western Christian environments using as a lens the life and practices of Catherine Benincasa, a mystic and tertiary Dominican sainted in 1461 as Saint Catherine of Siena. Further, the research looks at the use of the abject and grotesque in performance, as well as transformative storytelling, as a means of making lived experience visible, and is explored as a liberatory response to such systems of domination and violence. Though this research is framed in a religious context, contempt towards female-presenting bodies is not …

\The ‘I’ In Invisible\, Edgar L. Page

Dance (MFA) Theses

\the ‘I’ in Invisible\ is a work of autoethnography that looks at the Black male body as a moved site of analysis to illuminate the performance of Black masculinity in Western concert dance as a means towards social survival by highlighting perceptions and tropes of Black, male bodies in motion. It is explored by looking at the embodiment of Alvin Ailey and William Henry Lane (also known as Master Juba) as case studies. This is presented in tandem with the rendering of an embodied, 21^st Century griot practice to excavate, reconstruct, and reenact the history of the past in …

Rhythms That {Bind}: Emerging Through Dissonance, Tessa Hailu

Dance (MFA) Theses

This thesis aims to interrogate systematic approaches to organization(s) and our innate desire for control to achieve a balanced “rhythmic” flow of life to ultimately preserve a sense of security. This investigation challenges the comforts of habits, routine, and order to push up against the binding effects of these predictable cycles that remain structured for reassurance. This research also considers what happens when one doesn’t have the choice to bind themselves TO safety but are otherwise bound BY rhythms of which they have no control. Taking into account our anatomical existence, the ecological systems in which we operate, and life’s …

The Grind Was All I Was Given, Daniel Rodriguez

Dance (MFA) Theses

This thesis reflects upon grind culture's effect on the millennial generation, beginning with an examination of the origins of our modern-day grind culture and how it continues to encourage us to overwork ourselves to burnout. By investigating late-stage capitalism's influence on my life and my emotional capabilities as a dancer and a parent, I aim to chart an alternative path forward. This thesis chronicles this moment in time as I challenge myself to find a new way to exist in resistance to the grind with embodiment and rest practices not only for my own life but my family as well.

Practicing Vulnerability: A Black Queer Dance That Is Never-Ending Due To The Faults Of Our American Society, Paris Ngai Gray

Dance (MFA) Theses

The performative nature of concert dance requires a profound awareness and understanding of the body and the mind. Formal dance training situates an environment where the investigation of the body is crucial, often leaving the responsibility of internal inquiry to the dancer. In my experience as a Black, Queer, and Trans/Non-Binary person assigned male at birth, this investigation has been incredibly difficult. This research explores not only the sub-cultural context that influenced my resistance to emotional maturity but also the places that shaped my connection to vulnerability and how I’ve been able to access it. The performance of Black hyper-masculinity …

Frieda And Open House, Arlynn Parker

Playwriting (MFA) Theses

Frieda: This one-act play revolves around a young woman wandering through a near-lifeless forest she wants to escape. As she speculates directly to the audience about what brought her to this place, she reveals herself to be the stepmother to a pair of challenging children. The expectations of what she imagined her life to be and what she was saddled with collide as she recounts her story. Taking place in the woods in which she lost her way, details of her childhood, loveless marriage, and the desperate hunger that drove her to make the most important decision of her life …

Theatre As An Individual And Collective Art, Chin Wai Wong

Theatre Student Work

Art can be as tangible as objects. Art can also be as intangible as ideas. Art exists in multiple forms, such as painting, music, literatures, dancing, acting, and so on, which at the same time defines the form of theatre art. The multi-dimensional nature of theatre art is complex and requires a lot from people, including time, money, and effort. Such effort is not singular but rather diverse and multi-layered. It not only requires people to have contributive skills but also the ability to bind together the skills that different people have. Theatre is collaborative by nature, so communication is …

Mothers And Daughters, Sean Mccord

Playwriting (MFA) Theses

Mothers & Daughters is my thesis play written after five years of coursework in the Hollins Playwrights Lab, from 2015 to 2019, and two years of writing over the course of four years, 2019 to 2023, due to some medical setbacks explained herein.

My first draft of the accompanying narrative essay was a (comparatively) compact 2000 words outlining the lessons I had learned about playwriting at Hollins and my process for writing this play. Todd Ristau, the Director of the Hollins Playwrights Lab and my first reader, wanted more and gave me both permission and motivation to do exactly what …

Needs Salt, Joshua Lang

Dance (MFA) Theses

Researcher Joshua Lang investigates the development of the Eden narrative in western culture. Near the beginning of the book of Genesis, the Eden narrative provides a lens to culturally significant elements of early Hebrew culture. Genesis illustrates early Hebrew culture’s relationship with the natural world, sex, sin, judgment, and death. Similarly, John Milton’s retelling of the narrative in Paradise Lost divulges information about the culture that Milton lived in, as well as a great deal about the author himself. Milton’s blindness, and his opinions on heteronormative marriage, Protestantism, sin, judgment, and death are evident in the text. In Paradise Lost …

Dancing Through Loss, Tracy Vogt

Dance (MFA) Theses

This thesis project aims to examine and interrogate the embodiment of grief through the comparison of western concert dance works choreographed by Antony Tudor, Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey, Bill T. Jones, Anna Halprin, and Camille A. Brown. This research will culminate in a choreographic work reflecting and responding to my own personal journey with grief and loss while also incorporating and integrating the process of the choreographers studied.

#Iykyk: Tiktok As A Subversive Space: Democratizing Dance And Shifting Artistic Paradigms, Meagan Dodini

Dance (MFA) Theses

The emergence of TikTok as a platform for dance content has revolutionized the dance industry providing new avenues for exposure, creativity, and self-promotion. Researcher Meg Dodini explores the impact of TikTok on the institution of dance, investigating opportunities for increased visibility, collaboration, and brand sponsorships. Moreover, TikTok has facilitated the creation of new dance styles and trends, fostering collaboration between artists and engagement with the viewer. It is important to acknowledge the drawbacks of TikTok's influence. This research or thesis aims to explore the potential biases surrounding the expectations of dance regarding appearance, spaces, and performance. It argues that TikTok …

Erosion: Landscape Reveals Us, John Alexander Mcbride

Dance (MFA) Theses

This thesis explores the connective tissue between the land on which we stand and the body we inhabit. Through the lens of climate change and erosion, this research unveils the lasting effects of severe and traumatic weather patterns on the psychology and physiology of those who continue to endure them. How bodies (capitalistic bodies, collective bodies, and our personal bodies) treat the land and each other affects us all—we are all part of the eroding ecosystem, linked together by the soil beneath our feet. The soil that has been scorched and stolen, mined and massacred. The soil that is fertile …

Queering Empathy, Robert Wesner

Dance (MFA) Theses

This research is an exploration of personal utopia by locating oneself within the worlds of dance and dance studies, deconstructing past lived experiences where queer futurity presents itself, and connecting them with present and future realities. The critical research manifests within a practice of reconstructing a non-linear understanding of one’s personhood. Creating artwork and sculpture, songwriting, editing dance and dance on film, and exploring the self as a partner of each medium reveals a greater sense of physical, emotional, and social structures that allow, inhibit, or deny one their place historically. Investigating one’s agency and personal autonomy, and the lack …

Contemporary Films And Contemporary Issues: An Introductory Film Class Curriculum, August W. Liguori-Chien

Liberal Studies (MA) Final Essays

Teachers spend years teaching students to interpret texts. This interpretive skill is deemed vital in our education system, but little time is devoted to developing students’ ability to interpret film, the most popular media students engage with. Film is an incredible amalgamation of words, motion, and music. The world of film offers students incredible opportunities to interpret, analyze, and be moved. If our students must be able to interpret literature shouldn't they also be able to do the same in the immense world of film.

This class will not focus exclusively on the history of film or the classically taught …

Educating The Future Of The Arts, Anna Hollingsworth

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Theatre impacts the youth in a positive way. By helping with social connections, learning skills to tell a story, and getting to utilize their imagination. This thesis looks at what comes into creating a lesson plan for grades fourth-sixth grade. Each grade will focus on different themes that pertains to what they are learning in their literature classes and what is more relevant topic in their age group. To take what they learn from the classroom and apply it to a real-life scenario. To help those children explore through learning it academically and getting to devise their own shows. It …

The Velvet Ditch, Kate Leslie

Playwriting (MFA) Theses

At the party house, the door is always open.

Fiona finds herself living in her hometown after graduating from college. So she spends her weekends like everyone else: attending late night house parties after all the bars shut down. But no matter how much fun each party might be, Fiona eventually must face her past and her future.

A play about nostalgia and what it feels like to be lost.

The Kids Are Driving The Bus, Kristin Lundberg

Playwriting (MFA) Theses

A full-length play with elements of music and audience participation. Ms. McShizzle has to decide how far she will go to challenge the educational system and empower her students to pursue their dreams. When confronting her nemesis, an audacious Clown with a harmful neurosis, McShizzle struggles to build the school community for good.

The Sun, The Moon, And The Truth, Sarah Cosgrove Gaumond

Playwriting (MFA) Theses

The Sun, The Moon, and The Truth is a collection of two plays: North Wind and I Lived To Tell. Both plays explore the human condition through differing lenses.

In North Wind, a play deeply rooted in magical realism, a trio of characters search for freedom from the past in a snow-bound Midwestern bar. The dramatic question of North Wind is: How do you move forward when everything you see reminds you of what you’ve lost?

I Lived To Tell, a non-linear play, takes place in the character's imagination. The play's dramatic question is: How does a …

Breaking Barriers: Creating Inclusive Dance Spaces For High School Students With Cerebral Palsy, Samantha Michelle Barnewolt

Dance (MFA) Theses

Abstract This thesis explores the power of positive mindsets as it relates to creative movement development in dance for students living with Cerebral Palsy (CP) who also use motorized wheelchairs. This research dives into the development of movement mantras used to break negative mindsets and create thinking strategies that encourage movement development for varied bodies. As a result of collaborative efforts between the researcher, a student living with CP, and students living without CP, this study reveals that through the removal of mental barriers which complicate the accessibility of intentional movement in dance, students with CP may overcome obstacles that …

Honor Thyself, Alonzo O. Williams

Dance (MFA) Theses

The black male experience and identity in America are filled with complexity. We struggle to know ourselves. We work to see the way of love and the peace of an unviolated free spirit. We want to engage with ourselves with the highest degree of freedom and comfort, not to continue to question our identity in a life-threatening white patriarchal masculinity ideal. Honoring oneself from the lenses of the Reconstruction era of the United States is essential. Reconceptualizing this history explores the significance of emphasizing Reconstruction in my life as a black male to go through a process of self-discovery and …

Traces: Embodied Ephemera From Here To There, Alice Svetic

Dance (MFA) Theses

This thesis work explores contemporary queer dance making through the concept of ephemera - what is left after performances "end." Taking heavy inspiration from José Esteban Muñoz's Cruising Utopia: the then and there of queer futurity, the research situates one young queer dance maker’s own past, present, and future choreographies as a site for the extraction of queer embodied experience. The textual and written research culminates in a gallery installation which houses a series of vignettes that act as preserved documents of these queer performance histories. The live performance calls the alive, dancing body into the conversation of the ephemeral. …

Healing Through Mother Earth, Taylor A. Russell

Dance (MFA) Theses

This thesis deals with mental health, with a focus on Black women. Historically, Black women are often so compromised, being constant caregivers and helping everyone else, that they forget to help themselves, not having the time and financial means to do so. If we go back in the time of slavery, many Black women were taking care of slave owners' children and suckling the white women’s babies instead of their own. By the time they got home and after diligently caring for other people’s children they were focused on their own children, who they had been away from for hours …

The Means To Escape, Devonn Mckenna

Dance (MFA) Theses

This research interrogates what it means to utilize escapism, transforming it from passive to active consumption, drawing strong ties between performance and social media. Through audience awareness and participation, this research aims to cultivate a social collective within performance viewing and social media. Framing escapism as a social collective experience resists contemporary notions suggesting that escapism is an individual experience. This work argues that social media and performance have become a space allowing for social collective awareness. Thus, escaping together is the only way to move forward.

Tapping In: A Movement Meditation For Wellness, Victoria Rodriguez

Dance (MFA) Theses

Victoria Rodriguez’s thesis paper and accompanying video explore the somatic movement sequence Tapping In. Tapping In was born to facilitate the mind-body connection, muscular balance, and flexibility as well as implement tools for the physical and mental release of trauma. The written manifestation explores the practices that allowed for the creation of the Tapping In movement sequences such as Pilates, Yoga, Emotional Freedom Technique, Physical Therapy, and more. Each method provides a unique and valuable stance on navigating the previously mentioned goals, but no single technique led to the results Victoria was looking for. As a result, it is through …

Our Sheep To Slaughter, Courtney Collado

Dance (MFA) Theses

This thesis paper and accompanying film explore the reality of mothering a school-aged child in America. The written document describes the creative manifestation and explains the stalemate at which American parents and gun sense advocates find themselves: over the past four decades of documented school rampage shootings in America, precious few laws have been enacted to protect American schoolchildren from gun violence. By June of 2021, a year in which many children were taught virtually, nine children have been murdered by gunfire on school grounds. Rampage shootings are a distinctly American issue, with little to no action being taken on …

A Mexican American’S Introspective On Identity And Embodiment Of The Lester Horton Technique, Fernando Carrillo

Dance (MFA) Theses

In this thesis, I analyze the cultural complexity I embody as a Mexican American. By revealing and naming the invisible power dynamics of white supremacy through a multiplicity of perspectives, I explain and give examples of stereotypes imposed on me and how it benefits whiteness. Having adapted to American culture, I have created a cultural multiplicity that has steered me away from my Mexican culture. I express the conflict of my consciousness when I feel I do not belong in specific spaces because of my heritage or tokenism. The embodiment of the Lester Horton Technique is my passport to navigate …