Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

The Walking Dramaturg: An Autoethnographic Methodology For Performance Documentation, Giselle G. Garcia

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Technology usually implies the distancing of the human experience, but I argue what technology has enabled can teach us something about the role of multiplicity and the rhizomatic nature of history and storytelling. By looking at the subject position of the practicing performance researcher in terms of the walking dramaturg, the autoethnographic catalogue of such experience becomes a form of documentation in the archive of theatre histories. Taking the time to explore a nuanced understanding of the documeter’s subject position acknowledges the multifarious subject positions that contribute to the archive of theatre histories.

Beyond creating a record of evidence, I …

New Identities New Voices: Introducing The Choreographer-Notator, Beth Megill

Journal of Movement Arts Literacy Archive (2013-2019)

In this practitioner’s perspective paper, the author discusses an experience in which she notated a piece of her choreography using a combination of Labanotation and Motif Notation with the intent of setting the repertory from the score on a group of contemporary dancers, who had never read notation before. She explains her goals as a choreographer and notator proposing a fused creative identity, the Choreographer-Notator. This paper describes how the process of drafting the score and then teaching from the score provided new insights into her work and her identity as a dance artist. The paper concludes with the demands …

Processing Emotional Expression In The Dance Of A Foreign Culture: Gestural Responses Of Germans And Koreans To Ballet And Korean Dance, Zi Hyun Kim, Hedda Lausberg

Journal of Movement Arts Literacy Archive (2013-2019)

Artistic dance differs between cultures with regard to the formal movement repertoire and methods to represent dancer's emotions. The present study explores how differently the spectators perceive the dance scenes of their own and foreign cultures. We showed German and Korean participants sad and happy dance scenes of the French ballet Giselle and Korean dance Sung-Mu. To learn the perceived thoughts and feelings of the participant from the dance scenes, we analyzed the frequency of their hand movements and gestures, which were accompanied by verbal descriptions of the participant's appreciation immediately after observation of the dance stimuli. The videotaped …

Murmur/Murmuro, Paola M. Di Tolla

Theses and Dissertations

By using repetition or misplacing intonations and accents, etc. one can imitate the slipperiness of spoken language. However, it is the accidental slippage that I find most revealing and exciting because it allows for two conversations to exist in one. Once spoken language is transcribed as text, it is put through another filter and the risk of [accidental] slippage increases by a different measure. Fingers don’t keep up or autocorrect insists on taking matters into its own hands.

Anna Larpent And Shakespeare, Fiona Ritchie

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

Anna Larpent (1758-1832) is a crucial figure in theater history and the reception of Shakespeare since drama was a central part of her life. Larpent was a meticulous diarist: the Huntington Library holds seventeen volumes of her journal covering the period 1773-1830. These diaries shed significant light on the part Shakespeare played in her life and contain her detailed opinions of his works as she experienced them both on the page and on the stage in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century London. Larpent experienced Shakespeare’s works in a variety of forms: she sees Shakespeare’s plays performed, both professionally and by …

Making Sounds, Patrick Costello

Theses and Dissertations

Using collaboration and performance as tools, I situate my personal story, my body, and my skills and interests within a contemporary landscape that is intersectional, full of partialities, and rooted in evolving ecologies.

Women On The Floor: A Study Of Feminism In Modern Dance History, Hannah Mccarthy

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Modern dance evolves everyday with new movement ideas, styles, and teachings. Not only can modern dance be new and innovative, but it can also be a mirror reflection of the current time period. It is an art form often used to make a social statement. It can become a discussion of the past, present, or future. Modern dance informs its audience through an intent chosen by the choreographer or dancers. The intent varies depending on time, space, emotion, and myriad other conditions. My studies will examine how the different periods of modern dance aligned with the waves of the feminist …

The Examination Of A Magic Show In Its Past, Current, And Future Forms Based Around A Recorded Performance Before A Live Audience, Armory Hermetz

Honors Theses

This project is an analysis and reflection on a magic show performed by myself before a live audience and recorded for documentation. It is a snapshot in time of my progress as a performer at a particular point in my career as a magician. In this paper, I detail my current philosophies on the performance of magic and the reasons why I made certain decisions regarding the structure of the show and the routines I performed. In addition to this, I also discuss adaptations that I have made to these routines since the performance. The analysis is based entirely on …

Being In Performance: A Philosophical Account Of The Embodied Actor, Brad M. Krumholz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation I present and analyze three distinct actor-training exercises primarily through the lens of the Embodied Cognition (EC) branch of contemporary philosophy, which attempts to frame human understanding as a fully embodied interaction with the environment. Drawing from neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, and other branches of philosophy, EC provides both an excellent set of tools and a strong theoretical framework to help explain how people encounter meaning in life. I apply its unique perspectives to this philosophical account of the embodied actor as I analyze the various elements at play in actor training praxis, which allows me to shed …

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 …

Theatrical Weddings And Pious Frauds: Performance And Law In Victorian Marriage Plots, Adrianne A. Wojcik

Dissertations (1934 -)

This study investigates how key Victorian novelists, such as Anne and Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy, emphasize performativity in their critiques of marriage. Given the performative nature of wedding ceremonies, this project focuses on wedding descriptions in select novels by the aforementioned authors. Such a focus highlights an interesting dilemma. Although we often think of Victorian novels as overwhelmingly concerned with marriage, the few wedding descriptions found in Victorian fiction are aborted, unusually short or announced after the fact. Those Victorian novelists who do feature weddings often describe them …

Center For Art & Theater News, Georgia Southern University

Center for Art & Theater (Archived)

• Georgia Southern Theatre & Performance Senior Directs ‘K2’

Dadless: Dead Dads In Hamlet And The Effects On Their Children, Erin Diiorio

Student and Faculty Research Days

This research is a close look at the methods of grief as depicted by the children who lose their fathers in William Shakespeare’s classic, Hamlet. The goal is to track each child’s reaction to the sudden bereavement in a variety of physical and emotional manifestations. This has been done by first examining current literature on the text, followed by a review of historical context of the period in which the play was written, and finally analyzing each character’s behavior. In doing so, this research seeks to highlight the importance of the presence of fathers within Hamlet and provide insight …

An American Myth In The (Re)Making: The Timeless Fantasy Appeal Of 'The King And I', Lina Purtscher

Scripps Senior Theses

It is now well-known that The King and I has little claim to truth. Recent research has exposed the inaccuracy of the “biographical” works on which the musical is based: Anna Leonowens invented many things about her personal background and experiences. Much of her life, then, is a contrived fantasy. Yet her life of fantasy has been resurrected in countless adaptations, including the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical and its 2015 revival production, that ceaselessly draw audiences. The fascination of American audiences with Anna’s tale lies their belief in the timeless American ideals that her fantasy employs: those of freedom …

The Direction Of Why Torture Is Wrong, And The People Who Love Them, Donald Hart

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Hart, Donald C., M.F.A. Thesis. The Direction of Why Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them. Mankato: Minnesota State University, Mankato, 2018.

This is a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment for the Master of Fine Arts degree in theatre. It is a detailed account of Donald C. Hart's artistic process in directing Why Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them in the fall of 2017 for Minnesota State University, Mankato's department of Theatre and Dance. The paper chronicles the director's artistic process from pre-production through performance in five chapters: a pre-production analysis, a historical and critical …

Motivation Strategies For Improving Consistency In Live-Entertainment Employees' Performances, Anthony G. Ricotta

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The lack of discrete motivation strategies to improve the consistency of employees' performances was the problem that instigated this research. The purpose of this single-case study was to explore the motivation strategies live-entertainment artistic directors (ADs) use to improve consistency in the artists' performances. Data were collected within an international live-entertainment company to uncover whether artists self-determined the approach to improving consistency in performance or whether consistency occurred from strategies developed by the ADs. Data were collected from face-to-face interviews with ADs and senior ADs and performance evaluations of employees, and then analyzed using Miles, Huberman, and Saldana's data analysis …

Paul Ibell: Tennessee Williams, Verna Foster

Department of Fine & Performing Arts: Faculty Publications and Other Works

A review of Paul Ibell's Tennessee Williams, written by Verna Foster.

I Am An Author: Performing Authorship In Literary Culture, Justin R. Greene

Theses and Dissertations

Authorship is not merely an act of putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard; it is a social identity performance that includes the use of multiple media. Authors must be hyper- visible to cut through the dearth of information, entertainment options, and personae vying for attention in our supersaturated media environment. As they enter the literary world, writers consciously create characters and narratives around themselves, and through the consistent and believable enactment of these features, authors are born. In this dissertation, I analyze the performance of authorship in U.S. literary culture through an interdisciplinary framework. My work pulls from …

“La Frida No Envejeció, Yo Soy La Frida Envejecida”. La Ultima Performance De Pedro Lemebel, Fernando A. Blanco

Faculty Journal Articles

A partir de su último encuentro con Pedro Lemebel, el articulista lee la proxémica de dicha cita como un epígrafe performático que permite ordenar de manera comprensiva y especulativa la producción transmedial de Lemebel (crónica, novela y performance). Se concluye que, en sus distintas acciones, los textos de Lemebel funcionan como herramientas de un operador de la historia cultural chilena a través de la manipulación de los signos del cuerpo homosexual.

Theatre For The Community: A Practical Application, Megan Larissa Ciszek

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Theatre for the Community: A Practical Application

This paper serves to synthesize and reflect upon my Creative Honors Capstone project entitled “Theatre for the Community: A Practical Application.” The initial steps of the project included research into community based theatre and community outreach. This research was then used to inspire the process necessary for a fully realized production of Annie Baker’s Body Awareness, structured with community collaboration in mind. In this way, Body Awareness’ process acted as my first attempt at the practical application of my research. This paper both acts as the exploration of the concept of creating and …

Poetry Slammin’ In The Slammer: Questioning The Limits Of Arts-In-Corrections, Rivka Rocchio

Spect-actor: A Journal of Pedagogy & Theatre of the Oppressed

Through the process of creating—specifically of shaping new worlds of possibility through poetry and the performance of it—the arts may offer gaps in the punishment of incarceration and attempt the reclamation or claiming of individual expression. But what are the limits of artistic expression in a highly monitored and surveilled location? This reflective essay explores a performance of slam poetry by ten inmates inside Arizona's Eyman State Prison for an audience of twenty-five prisoners. Using Keoni Watson’s winning poem as a frame, Rocchio questions the reported impacts of the slam and the larger culpability of arts-in-corrections in simultaneously supporting and …

Prison Is Not…But It Can Be…, Keoni K. Watson

Spect-actor: A Journal of Pedagogy & Theatre of the Oppressed

This poem is a clarion call to action to confront our perceptions about what prison is and what it can be. The poem asks the reader to explore how they experience the “prison industrial complex” in their own lives, and how they might shift their views through perspective-taking to create a more holistically integrative prison experience for themselves and others. The value of the poem lay within the context in which it was created: written by person-first prison inmate Keoni Watson—during a three month performative workshop facilitated by Rivka Roccio at an Arizona State Penitentiary—to be performed as a spoken …

Over The Ropes: Boundary Play In Professional Wrestling, Ethan Ingram

Theses and Dissertations

Within the anthropology of performance, scholars have traditionally considered theater, spectacle, sport, and ritual performances in terms of the discrete boundaries of space and time that separate these events from daily life and in terms of the disparate roles that demarcate performers from audience members. Professional wrestling, a popular performance genre in the American Midwest, exhibits features that challenge these boundaries through the collaborative construction of the event by performers and audience members. Audience interaction is an essential part of wrestling performances, characterized by routine and contextually understood behaviors that performers can process as evaluative feedback. Moreover, during wrestling matches, …

Nervous Salomes: New York Salomania And The Neurological Condition Of Modernité, Margaret K. Araneo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In January 1907, New York City had its first major encounter with the figure of Salome. Appearing on three large stages in the city simultaneously, the archetype of the dancing girl quickly became an object of controversy. Her appearance at the Metropolitan Opera House in its staging of Strauss’s Salome resulted in public debate and the ultimate closure of the performance by the Met’s Board of Directors. The event brought attention to the Salome archetype’s already contested character. Salome arrived in the United States from Europe where she had been the subject of a quarter century of debates about how …

Dark Stars Of The Evening: Performing African American Citizenship And Identity In Germany, 1890-1920, Kristin L. Moriah

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Dark Stars of the Evening: Performing African American Citizenship and Identity in Germany, 1890-1920 demonstrates that black performers in Germany developed wide networks in the performance world as they sought artistic opportunities beyond the racist circumscription of the American popular stage. Their performances became emblematic of modernity, globalization, and imperial might for German audiences at the turn of the century. African American-styled blackness contributed to the formation of the city of Berlin while allowing African American performers to assert themselves on the global stage. Groups like the Four Black Diamonds had a lengthy engagement with the popular stage in Berlin, …

Fantastical Body Narratives : Cosplay, Performance, And Gender Diversity., Tiffany M. Hutabarat-Nelson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation aims to explore how the phenomenon of cosplay has been able to produce and sustain a diversity of gender expression due to its emergence from an activity-based community that emphasizes creative play. This creative energy is manifested through cosplay as an active, ritualized practice in which gender diversity is invited to be realized as a distinct possibility, resulting in a display of a full range of masculinities and femininities as well as crossplays and genderbend cosplays. I argue that cosplay can therefore be understood as a phenomenon that destabilizes the gender binary—its active practice promotes the production and …

The Female Writer And Her Female Characters: A Coming Of Age Story, Stephanie N. Grilo

Theatre & Dance ETDs

In this essay, I review my growth and learning as a playwright in this MFA program. I position my play, Red Dirt, within the context of psychoanalysis and feminist theory as a study of the behavioral patterns that emerge when female melancholia and violent masculinity collide. I examine the praxis of my writing and research methodologies, as well as the technical, thematic, and academic aspects of my writing practice.

Walk: Artist's Statement, Yozmit Walker

Mime Journal

Testifying to Thomas Leabhart’s legacy as a corporeal mime performer and educator, his former student Yozmit reflects on her performance piece “Walk,” a site-specific work created for a 2013 conference on Edward Gordon Craig at Pomona College (CA). Yozmit describes the way Leabhart’s teaching – partly inspired by Craig’s work – helped her to explore the balance between artistic thought and rigorous physical training.

Dreaming Of Light: On Edward Gordon Craig, Peter Sellars

Mime Journal

Sellars reflects on Craig’s legacy, emphasizing Craig’s focus on “making theatre out of light,” and casting Craig as “John the Baptist to Bob Wilson.” Sellars highlights the importance of Craig’s “keeping the dream space open,” but he also criticizes Craig for not traveling to experience the predominantly Asian cultures whose performance traditions he appropriated. Craig and Sellars have a shared interest in the functions of Baroque opera in socially cataclysmic times; Sellars speaks about the influence of Craig upon his stagings of Purcell and the St. Matthew Passion (first staged in 2010). Sellars celebrates Craig’s attempt to rescue the voice …

A Note On Sanity In Stage Productions Of Shakespearean Plays, Patrick Le Boeuf

Mime Journal

A previously unpublished essay by Edward Gordon Craig which elucidates his ideas about the “right” way to produce Shakespeare. Edited, with notes, by Patrick Le Boeuf.