Hauntings

Abstract

The thesis paper is about the process of creating and directing Hauntings, a dance theater work, performed in the 2016 MFA Spring Thesis Concert. The concert was shared with Curtis Stedge, fellow cohort and MFA candidate in the Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. This document is meant to accompany the archival footage of the dance. Hauntings is a moving lyric poem depicting themes and motifs of the emotional landscape of its characters. It is a time-less world rendering the complexities of the psyche and soul. Love, obsession, loss, and nostalgia emerge as Smith and her fellow artists represent characters struggling with impermanence and mortality. The work is seeped in symbolism and metaphor. The dances/scenes draw inspiration from the music of Chopin, Liszt, Stravinsky, Charles Trenet, Rina Ketty, and poetry by John Keats, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, W.B Yeats, and Claire Clemons Cowan.