This thesis is concerned with AIDS cultural activism. Specifically, it examines artistic responses to the medical/scientific image of HIV that circulates widely in the mainstream press. Examples of AIDS science reporting that focus on the medical/scientific image of HIV are selected from popular American news journals. It is argued that science and journalism are different and mutually dependent domains of knowledge, neither of which can be examined without the other. AIDS activist art engages with the relationship between science and the media and offers alternatives to the authority offered in science reporting. In the author's closing remarks, it is stated that AIDS activist art addresses not only the AIDS crisis but challenges the entire ideological apparatus upon which popular representations of illness are based.

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Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

This thesis is an exploration of contemporary practice in the field of theatre for development as HIV and AIDS communication. The thesis explores the theoretical fields of communication for development, entertainment education and empowerment, in an attempt to understand how different approaches to communicating about HIV and AIDS can influence personal and social change, and impact on both personal empowerment and community development. An examination of the literature on using theatre as a means to bring about development leads to the identification of key areas for investigation, including how participation is envisioned and implemented in theatre projects that focus on HIV and AIDS, and how participants are empowered through these processes. My study includes a broad survey of practitioners who use theatre in this way, the results of which inform an examination of three specific case studies. The research data reflects that participation is used as a strategy in different ways in theory-driven interventions that are consciously designed to meet specific goals. While many practitioners highlight participation, this is often in interventions that are guided by the modernisation approach to development, where external organisations attempt to bring about pre-determined change within a beneficiary community. The low levels of participation in essential decision-making processes in these projects mean that these projects preclude some of the elements essential to bringing about empowerment, such as the development of a greater critical consciousness and encouraging community-based problem solving. Such practice cannot bring about substantial long-term changes and empowerment for the project beneficiaries or for society more broadly. My research identifies a need to reconsider HIV and AIDS communication within the context of development, if change is to be brought about. In my concluding chapter, I suggest a number of ways to bring practice closer to the paradigm of meaningful participation as informed by empowerment theory. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.

Chapter One includes an introduction to AIDS, the AIDS Quilt, and work by communication scholars related to AIDS and the AIDS Quilt. A literature review of creative works inspired by the AIDS Quilt follows. The research question which guides the analysis is included and followed by descriptions of the three artifacts to be analyzed: The Quilt: Stories from The NAMES Project, "Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, and The AIDS Quilt Songbook.Chapter Two describes the method to be used in the analysis, cluster analysis developed by Kenneth Burke. The steps in the cluster method are: 1) identify key terms in the rhetoric, 2) chart the terms that cluster around key terms, 3) discover patterns in the clusters, and 4) name the motive, or situation, based on the meanings of the key terms.Chapter Three is a cluster analysis of a book entitled, The Quilt: Stories from The NAMES Project. Key terms found in this analysis are "love," "grief," "memories / remembrance," "hope," "intolerance," and “individuality." Chapter Four is a cluster analysis of a documentary, "Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt." Key terms examined in this analysis are "negligence," "disease / AIDS," "grief," "love," and "memories." Chapter Five is a cluster analysis of poetry from The AIDS Quilt Songbook, a performance of poetry, music, and singing. Key terms discovered through this analysis are "death / dying," "disease / sickness," "cool / cold," and "warm / hot."Chapter Six contains conclusions pertaining to the analysis of all three rhetorical artifacts. Conclusions include the effectiveness of the positive, realistic approach to AIDS portrayed in the personal stories, which have helped humanize the AIDS statistics. Positive outlets for handling grief are also found through the analysis. Contributions to cluster analysis and rhetorical theory include the unique results in analyzing visual images, the effectiveness of using cluster criticism to uncover emotion-laden key terms, and evidence for the therapeutic uses of communication. Finally, communication scholars who study the personal side of contemporary problems can contribute by helping people understand the details behind the statistics, encouraging them to take steps toward solving contemporary problems such as AIDS. / Department of Speech Communication

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Alberta, 2010. / Title from PDF file main screen (viewed on July 14, 2010). "A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Department of Music ... Fall 2010, Edmonton, Alberta". Includes in Appendix A, poetry and song lyrics. Includes bibliographical references and index of song titles, lyrics or themes.

his study discusses the benefits of Popular Participatory Theatre (PPT) as a research method with which to investigate the culture of silence around HIV/AIDS issues in Malealea Valley, Lesotho. Popular Participatory Theatre provided the means by which the community named, reflected on and initiated action with regard to their problems. This research will contribute to the growing body of research which aims to uncover effective modes of communication which could lead to behaviour change. This study employed the qualitative research methodology. This was in recognition that qualitative research involves in-depth understanding of human behaviours and the reasons that govern that behaviour, and looks at the reasons behind various aspects of behaviour, perceptions, beliefs and attitudes. Qualitative research seeks meaning rather than generality and contributes to theory development (Miller et al, 2003:192-3). In-depth interviews and focus groups were also used as instruments for data collection. The findings of the study indicate that socio-economic issues such as language, cultural practices, the way that Basotho are brought up and power dynamics around patriarchy contribute to the culture of silence. The Malealea Theatre Project helped the Malealea community to re-examine some of their beliefs and cultural practices. The findings also indicate that popular participatory theatre is an effective research method that can be used to collect data while also leading to community action. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

This dissertation examines experimental dance in New York City in the 1990s. Earlier periods of American concert dance have received significant scholarly attention to the historical, political, and aesthetic aspects of dance practice. Moreover, certain periods of modern dance — especially the 1930s and the 1960s — have been analyzed as moments of significant change, and the artists that emerged from the Judson Dance Theater in particular have held a significant place in the theorizing and historicizing of dance in the United States. However, experimental dance practices of the early 21st century demonstrate dramatically different aesthetics, approaches, and circumstances of production than those of earlier periods, including their Judson forebears. This project argues for understanding the 1990s as a period of significant change for dance, one with continuing resonance for the decades that follow.This project uses the term "downtown dance" to situate experimental dance in New York City as a community of practitioners, rather than as a particular set of aesthetic or artistic practices. Each of the four chapters focuses on an aspect in this period that would define how dance looked, how dancers practiced, and what shaped the artistic values and priorities of this community. The first chapter presents a history of the dance-service organization Movement Research. Tracing the history of the organization from its founding in 1978 through the establishment of its most influential programs in the 1990s — including the Movement Research Performance Journal and the performance series Movement Research at the Judson Church — the chapter locates Movement Research as a central entity in building the community and shaping theaesthetics of downtown dance. The second chapter examines the effects of the AIDS crisis on dance in the 1990s. As AIDS entered its second decade, it collided with and magnified downtown dance's complex relationship with emotion. This chapter draws on scholarship of AIDS' relationship to visual art, theater, and activism, as well as close readings of several works — by artists including Donna Uchizono, Neil Greenberg, John Jasperse, RoseAnne Spradlin, Jennifer Monson, and DD Dorvillier — most not generally understood as "AIDS dances," to argue that AIDS' impact generated a fundamental shift in the role of emotion in downtown dance. The third chapter examines how shifts in arts funding in the 1990s connected to a major restructuring in production models for dance. This chapter connects the history of the modern dance company with both aesthetic and economic developments over the course of the 20th century, arguing that the company should be understood as a combined economic-aesthetic system. Furthermore, the chapter demonstrates the new model for dance production that began to take hold in the 1990s in the wake of widespread funding and economic shifts: the project model. Teasing out the complex web of funding for dance, this chapter makes extensive use of dance periodicals; several funding trend analyses from organizations including Dance/USA, National Endowment for the Arts, Dance/NYC, and private corporate and foundation reports; and the archives of the presenting institution Danspace Project. The final chapter looks at how the shifts in economic models for dance discussed in the previous chapter connected to changes in training and bodily technique of dancers and performers. Specifically investigating the history of "release technique," this chapter examines how attitudes toward technique and training in downtown dance in the 1990s shifted the connection between movement practices and creative output, reconceiving the role of the dancer in the dancer-choreographer relationship.