Theatre, Dance & Performance Studies Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2760
Browse
288 results
Search Results
Item NEXTNOW: IN CONVERSATION: BODY IN SPACE(2024) Kowalski, Jerran; Kachman, Misha; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis provides a record of the lighting, video, and audio elements created for the lobby installation of the NextNOW Festival’s tenth year anniversary, produced by the University of Maryland – College Park as part of their Arts for All initiative.This thesis contains documentation from the artistic design process, installation, and production of this performance. These documents were the basis on which the design was formed. Included are research boards, notes from artistic meetings, drafting plates, published postings, and a final reflection on the production design, installation, and execution.Item LUCID DREAMS: AN EXPLORATION IN IMMERSIVE INTERACTIVE STORYTELLING WITH AUGMENTED REALITY(2024) Lazar, Rashonda; Kachman, Misha; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The following thesis examines my design process and discoveries while investigating one way live performance and immersive storytelling can act as a form of augmented reality, and explores whether incorporating traditional forms of augmented reality is one way to enhance a performance and builds on the narrative agency audiences experience in immersive theater. The production opened on April 8th, 2024, in the Herman Maril Gallery at the Parren J. Mitchell Art and Sociology Building at the University of Maryland.Item TONIGHT WE MAY WIN: CHALLENGING THE UNIVERSAL IN QUEER EMBODIMENT AND PERFORMANCE(2024) Steinberg, Rebecca Anne; Keefe, Maura; Dance; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)I sit in this chair how I always do, snug to the left side. I feel the warm hum of my laptop resting on my thighs. I feel the external rotation of my hips that allows my legs to casually cross with my feet cradled by the ottoman. I feel the spiral of my spine supporting a slightly forward head that looks down at the computer screen as I simultaneously sense the weight of chronic pain pooling heavy in my tired bones. I come to write words on this page through a commitment to embodiment as a state of profound possibility. As dance scholar Susan Foster suggests in her essay Choreographing History, “I am a body writing, I am a bodily writing.” I write through, with, and from embodiment. I define embodiment as a state where one has a heightened consciousness of their sensorium through acknowledged sensation. This state of awareness through sensation grounds the “self” in the body. Through this lens, embodiment is a mobilization that has the power to redefine how queerness is enacted and perceived through the medium of live performance. My dance thesis work, Tonight, we, may win, wields the social commentary of this position of audience privilege as farce. In this work, the dancers engage in what I’ve named “performing performativity.” Performing performativity makes transparent the exchange of currency between audience member and performer. Performing performativity functions in Tonight, we, may win as both a lens through which to view the performance and a performative state the dancers enact. The performers and the choreographer together have the power to enact possibility through this viable exchange. The potential of this enacted possibility is extensive, complex, nuanced, and political. It is an exchange that requires a book of its own to justly unpack. Although this is not the space for that unpacking, this is a space where I utilize my thesis choreography as a primary example where the power of possibility through embodiment is examined thoroughly through various theoretical lenses and multiple works of performance art. The epicenter of this physical and theoretical research revolves around the development and execution my thesis choreography, Tonight, we, may win, performed February 16-18, 2024 at University of Maryland, College Park. The enacted examples of a body first politic are constructed in this research through the vehicle of my choreographic work. I enact a body first politic in my work and I use the following chapters to bring in the choreographic voices of both my own work and dance makers and performers who succeed in challenging the impositions of the cisheteropartriarchy through queer embodiment. In the first chapter I provide an introduction the theoretical and chorographic groundwork of this world through the lens of queer embodied subjecthood. In Chapter 2, I use a solo work I created in 2022, titled Soft Caution, to activate choreography as feminist knowledge production through movement analysis and feminist theory. In the third chapter, I evoke failure as both a queer action and choreographic tool and argue for queerness as a technology in live performance. I bring in the choreographic works of Age & Beauty: Part 3 by Miguel Gutierrez and Black Hole by Shamel Pitts as examples of live performances that make queerness as a technology visibly tangible. In Chapter 4, I closely analyze the lyrics of “I Don’t Care Much” from the musical Cabaret through black feminism, performance studies, queer studies, and beyond to dissect the thin façade of queer apathy in its application to performance, queerness, communal grief, and more. In the final chapter, I excavate both the process and the product of my thesis choreography Tonight, we, may win. Through movement analysis and rehearsal reflections I endeavor to add depth and dimension to the ephemeral world created and left on stage during my thesis concert. This research privileges embodiment, communal care, and queerness through the vehicle of live performance to argue for the enactment of inclusive and equitable futures on the stage and beyond.Item FLYING UP AND FALLING DOWN: QUEER PHENOMENOLOGY, CYBORGS, QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT, AND TENSEGRITY IN MATERIAL BODY 01 + PULSE: AN ANTI-DISCIPLINARY PERFORMANCE OF DANCE AND TECHNOLOGY(2024) Ford, Mary Kate; Portier, Kendra; Dance; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis examines Material Body 01 + Pulse, a live performance merging dance and technology through the lenses of queer phenomenology, cyborg embodiment, tensegrity, and quantum entanglement. By destabilizing and reimagining conventional notions of boundaries, materials, machines, symbols, and ecological systems the choreography invites audiences to engage with diverse embodiments and perceptions. The integration of elements that blur boundaries between human and machine foreground the cyborg as a site of transformation and active engagement in systemic surroundings. The choreographic manipulation of tension embodies the dynamic equilibrium of tensegrity, generating interconnectedness. Through analysis of the choreographic process, this thesis highlights how Material Body 01 + Pulse intersects contemporary dance with emergent technologies and theoretical frameworks, offering new perspectives on embodiment, identity, and spatiality in the digital era.Item MEN ON BOATS: A DESIGN EXPEDITION TO BRING THE NATURAL WONDERS OF THE GRAND CANYON TO THE STAGE A SCENIC DESIGN(2024) Mosier, Gavin Edward; Chandrashaker, Amith; Keefe, Maura; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis describes the scenic design process for the University of Maryland’s production of Men on Boats by Jaclyn Backhaus. Men on Boats was directed by KenYatta Rogers and Elena Velasco. This production was produced by the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies within the College of Arts and Humanities at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in the Ina & Jack Kay Theatre. The following materials in this thesis were used as tools to convey the scenic design to the directors, fellow design collaborators, production team members, production shops, crew members, and actors: research images, sketches, photographs of ¼” scale color neutral and color models, drafting packet, paint elevations, a properties list, a properties book. Also included in this thesis are production photographs and written reflections of the entire process - from page to stage.Item SYNERGIZING SHADOWS AND SCREENS: LIGHTING AND MEDIA DESIGN FOR A BICYCLE COUNTRY(2024) Garcia, Luis M; Mezzocchi, Jared; Chandrashaker, Amith; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The following thesis explores the artistic ideas, concepts, design process, and execution of Luis Manuel Garcia’s lighting and media design for the University of Maryland - College Park’s production of A Bicycle Country. The production opened Friday, November 10th, 2023 in the Kogod Theatre at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. A Bicycle Country was written by Nilo Cruz, with direction by Fatima Quander, scenic design by Sofía Olivar, costume design by Becca Janney, and sound design by Justin Schmitz.Item THE PROM: AN EXPLORATION OF THE MUSICAL THEATRE DESIGN PROCESS(2024) Henrriquez, Christian Douglas; Chandrashaker, Amith; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis outlines the lighting design process for The Prom, performed at the University of Maryland’s School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies in September 2023. It outlines the process from initial thoughts, collaborating with the creative team, budgeting, creating technical paperwork, cueing, and technical rehearsals, culminating with the opening night. The paper contains documents and images detailing the process with an evaluation and reflection.Item The Purpose of a Labor Theatre: Industrial Democracy and the Union Theatre of Detroit, 1946-1949(2024) Lapinski, Margaret; Hildy, Franklin J.; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In 1946, the Union Theatre of Detroit was established as a project to broadcast “labor’s” aims and achievements. Sponsored by the Educational and Recreational Departments of the UAW, the Union Theatre quickly became part of the UAW’s educational programming to help educate and politicize workers on social issues like racial discrimination. This thesis seeks to investigate the ways in which the Union Theatre labored on behalf of an industrial democratic political program that emphasized deploying both economic and political action to achieve the goals of “labor.” In addition to providing a brief history of the Union Theatre, I use methods from performance studies and theatre studies to analyze archival material and decipher the ways in which plays functioned as both recreational activities and educational opportunities for union members to rehearse the tactics and strategies of labor organizing. I argue that, post-WWII, theatre and theatricality (loosely defined as the conventions of theatre) were deployed as an organizing tool to agitate and educate union members during a period of theatre history that is characterized in theatre historiography as “politically apathetic.” In this thesis, I ask “What was the social link between the Union Theatre and institutions like the UAW?” and seek to uncover how cultural work labors in broader social and political movements like the American labor movement.Item Men on Boats: A Lighting Design(2024) Laverty, Christina Kouni; Chandrashaker, Amith; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis provides written and visual documentation of the lighting design process for Jaclyn Backhaus’ play Men on Boats, produced by the University of Maryland, College Park’s School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies. The production opened on March 1, 2024, and had six performances. This paper details dramaturgical analysis, research, the design process, technical documents, performance photographs, and reflections.Item Mi Vida, in Rhythm: Resistance and Integration of an Afro- Honduran Immigrant in The United States Through Tap Dance(2024) Lanza Ruiz, Gerson Noé; Portier, Kendra; Dance; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This article focuses on Mi Vida, in Rhythm, which premiered on October 12, 2023, at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. This performance is an autobiographical account of my experience immigrating from Honduras to the United States. At the heart of this production lies the art of storytelling, brough to life through the combination of live music, dance and spoken word. The performance draws heavily from the experiences of Afro-descendant peoples in Central America and the United States. It is steeped in the cultural traditions of the Garifuna, an afro-indigenous people of Honduras, incorporating their language, dance forms of resistance, and everyday choreography. The performance aims to capture the evolution of communication tactics, identity, and coping mechanisms of Afro Latinoe/xs as we navigate the challenges of realizing the American dream.What follows are brief personal accounts that serve as guide to essential artistic discoveries that sparked my curiosity. These curiosities eventually mold my artistry in percussive dance, particularly tap dance. With that, I formally analyze specific segments in Mi Vida, in Rhythm, that serve as reservoir of knowledge for movement and sound exploration. Ultimately my scholarly research dwells in three different topics; First the term Blackness as descriptive of one's ethnicity, race, or both, and the movement practices unique to their demographic and diasporic thread. Second, the understanding of historic privileging of Eurocentric perspectives within higher education. Third, the necessity to highlight Afro-Latinoe/ experiences and dance forms within dance curriculum. The article concludes by highlighting my contributions as an artist, instructor, and creative collaborator steeped in the artistry of bodily percussion practices and the intersectionality of Black cultural terrain and immigration paranoia.