Performance Studies Commons^™

The Sounds Of Madame Geoffrin’S Salon, Melanie Conroy

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

Salons were core institutions of the eighteenth-century European social calendar, especially in Paris. Literary performances and philosophical conversation were the core activities of many of these gatherings. What did conversation and literary readings actually sound like at these events? To what extent were voices audible to everyone in the room, or too muffled or far away to be heard? What was the impact of the ambiance or of ephemeral sound on the reading or reception of the hearing? Using textual descriptions, paintings, and architectural information, I reconstruct two legendary readings of eighteenth-century texts, Voltaire’s L’Orphélin de la Chine and Marmontel's …

Teaching Ettingerian Matrixial Theory, R. Michael Fisher

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

Utilizing an adapted scoping review of the literature on Bracha L. Ettinger and Education (2008-2024), the author reveals the specific ways that Ettingerian Matrixial Theory (EMT) and its pedagogies are taught and can be taught in the future. EMT is argued to be a new branch of Critical Theory. The current literature shows there is mostly engagement with EMT in academic settings. As well, the literature reviewed shows EMT is used readily in arts and with artists as teachers and teachings for adults. However, the author unveils diverse other possibilities of teaching EMT. A few major themes from the literature …

Gestating And Co-Becoming With Ettingerian Maxtrixial Pedagogy, Barbara Bickel

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

This article seeks to infuse and enrich the spheres of Arts and Education through a nascent introduction of Ettingerian Matrixial Pedagogy. To articulate this, I weave together the practices of Gestare Art Collective, which we describe as “matrixial infused education,” the “placental thinking” of Nané Jordan with my own thinking, art making and teaching. This article unfolds through interlacing theory and reflections on teachings found within art practices of Ma Poses, Womb Walking, Nap-Ins, and Spontaneous Creation-Making, along with examples of pedagogical artworkings: Metramorphosis and Muted Colours of Grief. The article closes with a poetic métissage inquiry that became—a Matrixial …

A Matrixial Museum: Education In Almost-Impossible Spaces, Valerie Oved Giovanini

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

This paper is meant to scaffold an imaginary space for what is currently an almost impossible museum. It would reside on a border between Gaza and Israel. Artists and participants would be able to enter from both sides of the border into a circular and cavernous space to make, share and experience art together. In artwork that values its relational capacity to affect another, the move from aesthetics to ethics recalls our mutual place of origin understood in Bracha L. Ettinger’s Matrixial Theory (EMT) as “the matrixial womb.” Griselda Pollock’s Virtual Feminist Museum, Gur-Ze’ev’s counter-education, feminist pedagogy, and Art-care activism …

She-Hero: A Memoir Of The Divine Feminine Within A Creation-Centred Paradigm, Darlene St.Georges

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

She-Hero: A Memoir of the Divine Feminine within a Creation-Centred Paradigm explores Ettinger’s matrixial borderspaces through an inter-woven theoretical | artistic | poetic métissage. An example of creation-centred research, this memoir is likened to Ettinger’s concept of metramorphosis—an active restoration of matrixial knowledge(s) and knowing. Embodying a creation-centred curriculum and pedagogy, She-Hero privileges non-dominant epistemologies to attend to the disruption of historical patterns of the hero—inviting readers to submerge and emerge in co-poesis within an intimate and aesthetic kaleidoscopic space of feminine affect and agency.

Traces Of Communal Touch: Matrixial Encounters With Pre-Service Art Educators Across Two States, Kate L. Wurtzel, Laura L. Mccartney

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

The matrixial sphere, as put forth by artist and psychoanalyst Bracha L. Ettinger, is a shared and transsubjective space that is beneath the conscious, under the touchable and perceptible; it is a space where we encounter ourselves and one another in shared trauma, healing, art making, and the lived experience overall. This co-authored essay explores how a shared matrixial space and the matrixial gaze, which is not always visual, have been experienced through the square boxes of ZOOM as part of a collaborative, long-distance art exchange project. The project, focused on Spontaneous Creation-Making (SCM) sessions, as outlined in Barbara Bickel …

The Launch: A Senior Cabaret, Otterbein Theatre And Dance Department

2024-2025 Season Productions

No abstract provided.

Head To Toe: What Do We Think About Heels Dance?, Peyton Winsett

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Through both observation as a dance consumer and personal experience as a dance student, heels dance has noticeably risen in prominence within the commercial dance industry in recent years. This style has primarily been showcased through professional dance classes and in commercial and concept video projects. This study seeks to understand the reasons behind this sudden growth in appeal, the potential social implications of this increasing popularity, and the varying perspectives on this style across generations. It synthesizes past research and analyzes a survey conducted with current students in Chapman University's dance department. This presentation will investigate the motivations driving …

Crafting Affective Engagement: The Impact Of Choreography And Design Choices On Audience's Emotional Experience In Dance Performances, Amy Morton

Master's Theses

This thesis explored how the engagement level of dance spectators influenced the lasting impressions they retain from a performance and whether these impressions can expand and sustain audience interest in dance. The purpose of the study was to identify the most engaging elements of an aerial dance concert. The study emphasized the significance of creating choreography that evokes emotional responses to advocate for dance education, community engagement, and the preservation of the art form. By examining a site-specific aerial dance concert, this research identified the elements that captivated audiences, particularly the contrast between aerial and ground-based performances.

The research addressed …

Social Justice In Dance: The Exploration Of Dance As A Tool For Promoting, Recognizing And Influencing Change, Michelle O'Konis Linnehan

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to prove that dance could be used as a platform for representation and to foster change within the community and beyond. This purpose aligned with the goal, which was to measure the impact of a structured choreographic curriculum on student engagement with social justice topics. The goal of this study was to answer the following research questions:

Q1 Can dance be a tool in promoting social justice?

Q2 How will students in the classroom respond to an integrated social justice theme through dance and production components?

Q3 How will these topics be interpreted to …

Body Positivity Via Costuming Performances In Grades Nine Through Twelve Dance, Kacey Valentine O'Keeffe

Master's Theses

This thesis explored the impact of body image and self-esteem on high school dancers and the pivotal role of dance educators in fostering a positive environment during concert preparations. The purpose of this research study was to determine if there was a correlation between promotion of health and wellness from dance educators and body positivity among high school dancers. The following research questions were addressed in this study:

Q1 What positively contributes to a dancers’ self-esteem and body image?

Q2 What is an effective solution for costume fitting methods to be used by dance educators while keeping their dancers’ safety …

Cake And Conclusions: Rhetorical Roots In “Sheetcaking” And Fallacious Community Responses, Marissa Lammon

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

The convergence of politics and comedy within political entertainment has created a new environment, dissemination of information, and formation of public opinion. In response to white nationalist rallies, comedian Tina Fey utilized her political comedy platform to satirically comment on the inaction of several privileged consumers. Community response to the satirical skit reflected the complexity of satire as rhetorical strategy, notably when present online and within popular culture discourse, and the cognitive demands that result in fallacious tendencies. The following examines the fallacies that arise in response to Fey’s satirical message and the implications for political entertainment media.

Studying Silence In Popular Culture, Kathy Merlock Jackson, Terry Lindvall

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

This article explains the impetus for and execution of a team-taught, interdisciplinary class in silence using popular culture materials and practices, such as silent film, music, meditation, and mime. The course identifies individuals as possessing characteristics of introversion and extraversion and explores the role of silence in the modern world, incorporating the following: (1) Foundations for the Study of Silence, (2) The History of Silence, (3) The Role of Silence in Spirituality, Creativity and Reflection, (4) Silence in Communication Study, (5) Silent Film and Silence in Film, (6) The Role of Silence in a Highly Technological, Mediated World, and (7) …

Making The Case For Teaching Character Change In Complex Tv: The Closer And Major Crimes, Emily C. Hoffman

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Jason Mittel’s 2015 book Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling offers enough material to sustain a semester-long undergraduate course. Because of its approachability and students’ interest in discussing characters, his chapter devoted to viewers’ parasocial relationships and characters’ potential for change is among the most teachable. However, teaching complex television that relies on intensely serialized story elements can make choosing televisual texts for study and discussion challenging. Therefore, series that skew episodic yet still incorporate serial elements, like police procedurals, can prove to be a practical alternative for classroom study. This article describes how using the interrelated …

“Every Time I Write A Rhyme / These People Think It’S A Crime”: Persona Problems In Catullus And Eminem, Jesse Weiner

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

This essay interprets Eminem’s song, “Criminal” (2000, The Marshall Mathers LP, Track 18), as a Catullan project in establishing distance between the poet and poetic persona, accomplished through Catullan invective. Drawing upon pedagogical experience, I argue that Catullus (a Roman poet of the 1st Century BCE) and Eminem use analogous rhetorical tactics and structures to challenge accusations (real or imagined) of poor character stemming from their poetry. Catullus and Eminem vociferously articulate a separation of art from artist, using common transgressive poetics. Each poet disavows his own self-constructed stance of authenticity with similar threats of violence and postures of …

The Many Faces Of Foley: A Journey Of Discovery And Influence On Professional Wrestling, Adam Michael Nicks

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Though the academic community often looks down on professional wrestling, there are examples in which the medium allows for elaborate and complex storytelling rivaling other forms of literature. During the 1990s, due to the constant blurring of the lines between reality and fiction within the world of wrestling and the increasingly intelligent audience that consumed the product, performers were forced to adapt to a more realistic style integrating their actual life events and personality into their on-screen personas. One sports entertainer of note was Mick Foley, who crafted three splintered characters he portrayed amongst numerous promotions. Each had their own …

“If You Want To Be The Man, You’Ve Got To Beat The Man”: Masculinity And The Rise Of Professional Wrestling In The 1990s, Marc A. Ouellette

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

This paper traces the relationship between the shifting representations of masculinity in professional wrestling programs of the 1990s and the contemporaneous shifts in conceptions of masculinity, examining the ways each of these shifts impacted the other. Most important among these was a growing sense that the biggest enemy in wrestling and in day-to-day life is one’s boss. Moreover, the corporate corruption theme continues to underscore the WWE's on-screen and off-screen coverage, well into the second decade of the twenty-first century. Thus, the paper provides a template for considering a widely consumed popular cultural form in ways that challenge the determinism …

“High Culture As Entertainment”: Hybrid Reading Practices In A Live Book Club, Magnus Persson

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

The Bushwick Book Club (BBC) is a live book club in which invited pop musicians perform musical interpretations of a predetermined literary work in a nightclub environment. What can a typical BBC show, with its strong emphasis on popular music and performance, teach readers about the uses of literature? This case study will investigate which reading practices are at work and in what ways they challenge traditional ideas of the forms, functions, and values of reading. Another important aspect concerns how the borders between high and popular culture, and between the printed word and other media are renegotiated. Based on …

Music Review: “Indy Classical Innovation: Ymusic” At Usc’S Southern Exposure New Music Series, March 21, 2014, Peter B. Kay

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Review of “Indy Classical Innovation: yMusic” at the University of South Carolina’s Southern Exposure New Music Series, March 21, 2014.

Reflection: The Twenty-Line Trap? Shakespeare Enacted By Young Women, Shannon Reed

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Professional actors assemble a toolkit of monologues with an obligatory “Shakespearean monologue” of around 20 lines. But female actors are at a disadvantage, with less than 150 women in a repertoire of over 1,100 characters in Shakespeare’s 37 or more plays. Young female actors (18-22 years old) are even more at a loss, if the powerful and complex older female roles are removed, leaving only a few dozen appropriate speeches. What effect does this limited canon have on such actors? Here, I reflect upon my own participant observer experience as a young woman actor, who received the bulk of my …

Solar Systems And Hind Legging: A Practitioner’S Perspective On Creative Research Practice, Nat Dianne Texler, Lola Montgomery

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

A presentation on Creative Practice Research from the perspective of the practitioner - demonstrating the different ways in which we both operate in order to show how broad research actually is under the framework.

We both work under the same framework but with entirely different ethoses - which we believe will help our colleagues understand that there's more to research than the write up.

Coltrane’S A Love Supreme: Mediations Of Immediacy In Jazz Ritual And Recitation, James R. W. Crockford

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This paper explores the ritualized performance ethic of John Coltrane’s later career, which is charged with a determined exploration of freedom and spiritual ascendance through participative and gestural immediacy. Conceiving of this music as a spiritual and political tool for embodied transformation, this paper traces this ethic at play in Coltrane’s iconic 1965 album A Love Supreme, identifying ways the work effects a mediation of immediacy. Through focus on the album’s closing “Psalm” recitation, its parallels in Coltrane’s other works, and their analogue in traditions of ecstatic liturgical and political oratory, this paper demonstrates the consistent priority Coltrane gives …

The Fight Master, Fall 2024, Vol. 43 Issue 2, The Society Of American Fight Directors

Fight Master Magazine

No abstract provided.

Natasha, Pierre, & The Great Comet Of 1812, Otterbein Theatre And Dance Department

2024-2025 Season Productions

No abstract provided.

The Importance Of Being Earnest, Otterbein Theatre And Dance Department

2024-2025 Season Productions

No abstract provided.

The Decoloniality Of Feeling: On Sandovalian Praxis, Ceremony, And Emancipatory Politics In The Classroom And Beyond, Kristian E. Vasquez

Regeneración: A Xicanacimiento Studies Journal

"The Decoloniality of Feeling: On Sandovalian Praxis, Ceremony, and Emancipatory Politics in the Classroom and Beyond" by Kristan E. Vásquez.

Musical Semiotics In Kate Soper’S Ipsa Dixit (2010–2016), Scott A. Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes the six parts of Kate Soper’s Ipsa Dixit (2010–2016). While individual parts have received some music theoretical attention, this is the first analysis of the entire Pulitzer Prize-nominated work. Ambiguity and contingency are major themes of Ipsa Dixit, and by treating each part independently and in combination, I hope to honor Ipsa’s contingent status as a unified work comprised of six complete works. Soper’s libretto unifies an assemblage of texts with adaptations of Aristotle to investigate the intersections of language and music with authority, veracity, and (un)intelligibility.

I theorize that Soper’s “philosophy-opera” dramatizes the formation of …

Gemstoning: Character Creation Exercise For The Classroom & Production, Abigail Dillard, Lucas Skjaret

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

In the summer of 2023, we participated in an online training course with the Stella Adler Studio of Acting titled Awareness Without Judgement: A Teacher Training Intensive. Over the weeks, we studied with three main teachers at the Studio on Character, Technique, and Script Interpretation with ‘master classes’ led by actors and scholars scattered over the weeks. The course is designed for theatre practitioners who want more in-depth experience and exposure to the more pedagogical side of acting and performance; in other words, for acting teachers who want to use the techniques of Stella Adler within their teaching. Given this …

Legend Trips And Vernacular Film Theory: Spooky Encounters In Tiktok Mediated Legend Trips, Drew Holley

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

In this thesis I looked at how legend tripping is mediated through the affordances of new social technologies and apps, specifically TikTok. Short video formats allowed for folk cinematography to spread legend narratives and at the same time create more visual online landscapes for people to interact with. I defined folk cinematography as the way in which people make videos based on a vernacular level. This has been based on people having more access to video making tools and learning from informal patterns such as trends on sites like TikTok. Because of this, I explored how audiences participate in a …

Martin Bresnick's “Bitter Suite” Duo For Violin And Piano, Xun Xu

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

This document is intended to be a practical tool for those interested in performing, researching, and cultivating an acute understanding of Martin Bresnick’s Bitter Suite Duo for Violin and Piano. A composer working within varying neoclassical and modern idioms, Bresnick has merited many accolades, from the Rome Prize to a Guggenheim to the American Academy of Arts and Letters' first-ever Charles Ives Living Award.

The first movement of Bitter Suite was commissioned by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research during the COVID-19 pandemic. Bresnick enjoyed composing this movement and was inspired to write three additional movements, transforming the commission …