This inquiry is a two-tongued performance as research project asking &quotWhy was the voice of the Sirens deadly?" and &quotHow can the Sirens inform contemporary feminist theatre praxis?". The two questions in constant dialectic have been explored in a written dissertation as well as in a one-hour original and ensemble performance called The Quivering: a Matter of Life and Death. Analysing references in mythology, art and history, the written component suggests how the Siren's sonic qualities are manifest in distinct cultural icons and embodied by actual female performers. Four Siren vocalities are identified and theorised: The Monster vocality is evidenced in the figure of the femme fatale; the Lamenter exists in traditional funerary singers and contemporary torch songs; the sound of the Diva is heard in the opera queen; and the Lullaby Maker acoustics oscillate between the banter of Mother Goose and the 'red hot mamas' of the blues. Pursuing what is deadly about each of these embodied voices, the thesis articulates why female sound, like the Siren song of knowledge, is so ambivalently received - its evocation of otherness (Monster), liminality (Lamenter), jouissance (Diva) and contra-diction (Lullaby Maker) is both feared and revered. These four vocalities have grown in and out of The Quivering, a performance odyssey that has interrogated aesthetic, content, characterisation, narrative and devising practice, all with an ear to the Siren's 'deadly' sonority. Subverting portrayals of death as a woman and a taboo, its comic-tragic heroines exist in a liminal landscape as lamenters who confront and facilitate the audience's death passage. In counterpoint to Homeric legacy, it has been designed as an open text, which, combined with its heightened physicality and musicality, make for an 'other' aesthetic or contemporary Siren 'song'. The Quivering is pitched at the same tone as the distilled Siren vocalities or 'blue notes', and, as a performance as research project, also re-sounds provocatively within traditional academic discourse. The 'deadliness' of the female voice, in myth, in theory and in performance thus resides in its dissolution of logos and certainty. It quivers with the pleasure and trauma of a corporeal jouissance that exceeds narrative and linguistic frames with its full-bodied, acoustic and imagistic resonance.

This thesis explores how five Canadian women directors who define themselves as feminists have engaged with work from the traditional Western theatre canon. However, that world actually is created by the social expectations, cultural mores, and theatrical conventions of its time. Audiences have been indoctrinated to accept unquestioningly the value of these texts while the plays’ valorized status masks social constructs that are continually reinforced and surreptitiously naturalized through their repetition. At the crux of this thesis is the notion that while repetition is used as a tool for social instruction, it can also be used as a tool for social change. Therefore, I explore how the Canadian feminist women directors whom I have interviewed use the uniqueness of performance in different ways to challenge social structures within canonical texts. In the individual chapters, each director first shares her education, training, experience, and influences; then she articulates her own feminist perspective and discusses its impact on her career and work process; and finally she reflects on how she directed a text from the Western theatre canon and used the liminal space of performance to challenge the text’s embedded gender constructs. At the end of each chapter, I present the critical response I found for each production, including reviews, individual statements, and academic investigations, and assess the extent to which the director’s intent was understood by her audience and reviewers. In the final chapters, I examine each individual director’s interview responses in the context of the others’ and situate them within the spectrum of feminisms. In general, the directors used liminal space to expose gender as a construction and destabilize social expectations based on gender. However, what also emerged from these interviews is that while there is no broad consensus of what constitutes ‘feminist’ work, each director must temper her feminist perspectives if she wants access to the upper echelons of directing in Canada and the benefits that it entails.

This thesis explores how five Canadian women directors who define themselves as feminists have engaged with work from the traditional Western theatre canon. However, that world actually is created by the social expectations, cultural mores, and theatrical conventions of its time. Audiences have been indoctrinated to accept unquestioningly the value of these texts while the plays’ valorized status masks social constructs that are continually reinforced and surreptitiously naturalized through their repetition. At the crux of this thesis is the notion that while repetition is used as a tool for social instruction, it can also be used as a tool for social change. Therefore, I explore how the Canadian feminist women directors whom I have interviewed use the uniqueness of performance in different ways to challenge social structures within canonical texts. In the individual chapters, each director first shares her education, training, experience, and influences; then she articulates her own feminist perspective and discusses its impact on her career and work process; and finally she reflects on how she directed a text from the Western theatre canon and used the liminal space of performance to challenge the text’s embedded gender constructs. At the end of each chapter, I present the critical response I found for each production, including reviews, individual statements, and academic investigations, and assess the extent to which the director’s intent was understood by her audience and reviewers. In the final chapters, I examine each individual director’s interview responses in the context of the others’ and situate them within the spectrum of feminisms. In general, the directors used liminal space to expose gender as a construction and destabilize social expectations based on gender. However, what also emerged from these interviews is that while there is no broad consensus of what constitutes ‘feminist’ work, each director must temper her feminist perspectives if she wants access to the upper echelons of directing in Canada and the benefits that it entails.

This thesis explores how five Canadian women directors who define themselves as feminists have engaged with work from the traditional Western theatre canon. However, that world actually is created by the social expectations, cultural mores, and theatrical conventions of its time. Audiences have been indoctrinated to accept unquestioningly the value of these texts while the plays’ valorized status masks social constructs that are continually reinforced and surreptitiously naturalized through their repetition. At the crux of this thesis is the notion that while repetition is used as a tool for social instruction, it can also be used as a tool for social change. Therefore, I explore how the Canadian feminist women directors whom I have interviewed use the uniqueness of performance in different ways to challenge social structures within canonical texts. In the individual chapters, each director first shares her education, training, experience, and influences; then she articulates her own feminist perspective and discusses its impact on her career and work process; and finally she reflects on how she directed a text from the Western theatre canon and used the liminal space of performance to challenge the text’s embedded gender constructs. At the end of each chapter, I present the critical response I found for each production, including reviews, individual statements, and academic investigations, and assess the extent to which the director’s intent was understood by her audience and reviewers. In the final chapters, I examine each individual director’s interview responses in the context of the others’ and situate them within the spectrum of feminisms. In general, the directors used liminal space to expose gender as a construction and destabilize social expectations based on gender. However, what also emerged from these interviews is that while there is no broad consensus of what constitutes ‘feminist’ work, each director must temper her feminist perspectives if she wants access to the upper echelons of directing in Canada and the benefits that it entails. / Arts, Faculty of / Theatre and Film, Department of / Graduate

This thesis examines the development of Italian political theatre between 1968 and 2010. It analyses the relationship between political theatre during the 1970s and politically engaged practice in the following decades in terms of continuity rather than rupture, thereby challenging recent theatre historiography and criticism which interpreted the two periods as diametrically opposite: one characterised by profound political engagement and the other by a widespread retreat from the political (riflusso). The analysis of the case studies is grounded on a rigorous contextual approach which places theatre practice in relation to its social and cultural context. Chapter One reviews the current debate on theatre and politics, reassessing the terms of its discourse and evaluating their potential and shortcomings. Chapter Two introduces two examples of engagement before 1968, namely the birth of teatri stabili and the linguistic research of the theatrical neo-avant-garde. Chapters Three, Four, and Five are dedicated to the analysis of the case studies. They are structured as a comparative analysis of significant examples of politically engaged theatre practice between 1968 and 2010 and include the work of Dario Fo, Marco Baliani, Marco Paolini, Giuliano Scabia, Franca Rame, Laura Curino, and Compagnia della Fortezza. The analysis highlights how Italian practitioners moved beyond modernist forms of political performance and restructured their political and aesthetic strategies in response to changing political, economic, and cultural contexts. The findings point to an original approach to political engagement on stage which articulates itself around two main elements: on the one hand the interconnectedness of the ethical and the political, and on the other an understanding of political resistance no longer as the fight for a working-class cultural hegemony but rather at the creation of a post-hegemonic cultural landscape open to multiplicity and difference.

Searching for the Womanist Within is a play about self identity and the daily experience of African-American women who are at the intersecting oppressions of race, gender and class. The unique life perspective of Afeican-American women is explored through the retelling of stories from the writer’s life as well as the lives of other black women. In Feminist, Black Feminist, Afrocentric and Womanist drama it is common to steer away from conventional theatrical structures, Solo drama, a less conventional structure, was selected for this play. In addition to the play is an essay about the writing process, as well as a literature review and a statement of significance about this creative thesis.

When Amy comes to work at the Festival on the Grand, she enters a world in which feminism has disappeared. Without a way to access feminism, the Festival staff: Judith, Poppy, James, Lisa, and Amy endure the patriarchal rule of Artistic Director, Nick Noble. Tempo captures the Festival in the week leading up to its prestigious 40th anniversary opening night: the Berlioz Requiem and concludes by asking the audience to consider our current treatment of feminism. The afterword that accompanies the script is part personal reflection, part critical analysis. The reflection includes the process of developing, writing, and workshopping the script as well as how the play conveys feminism in form, content, and inspiration. The analysis considers the notion of post-feminism and the dangers of blindly embracing it. This project aims to encourage an audience to be critical of post-feminism and revive feminism in creative and useful ways.

No description available.

Esta tese é o resultado dos meus quatro anos de investigação e vivências em que meu corpo de pesquisadora performer foi sendo contaminado pelas informações dos ambientes em que circulou. A hipótese está amparada por uma investigação que foi se processando em busca pelas opressões que cerceiam meu corpo, de mulher, mulher negra, feminista, periférica. Essas contaminações encarnearam meu corpo num processo de embrutecimento, que se materializa em Bruta. Destaca-se, neste contexto, o pensamento do Teatro Invisível de Augusto Boal (2009), em diálogo com a performance estudada por autoras como Josette Féral (2015), Ileana Diéguez (2011), Diana Taylor (2013) e Judith Butler (2003 e 2018). Nesses diálogos, meu corpo foi se contaminando também pela Teoria Corpomídia (Katz e Greiner, 2006), num processo criativo em que arte e vida, agir e conhecer, ocupam um mesmo espaço (Bastos, 2017). A metodologia inspira-se nas fases da Lua, enquanto evocação da Mulher nas suas diversas instâncias, das implicações de vivências na elaboração de um discurso. Meu deslocamento dá-se pela via de um relato: uma artista do corpo em suas performances invisíveis, isto é, manifestações de uma experimentação performativa, que emerge da necessidade de compartilhar este processo em que o corpo foi encarneando Existências Bruta. / This thesis is the result of four years of investigation and experiences where my body as a researcher performer was contaminated by information from the environments it circulated. The hypothesis is supported by an exploration in search of the oppressions surrounding my body, that of a woman, of a black woman, of a feminist, a marginalized body. These exposures infleshened my body in a process of brutishness, which culminated in Raw. Highlighted, in this context, is the thinking of the Invisible Theatre from Augusto Boal (2009), in dialogue with performances studied by Josette Féral (2015), Ileana Diéguez (2011), Diana Taylor (2013) e Judith Butler (2003 e 2018). With these dialogues, my body was also exposed to Teoria Corpomídia (Katz e Greiner, 2006), in a creative process where art and life, acting and knowing, occupy the same space (Bastos, 2017). The methodology is inspired by the phases of the moon, as evocation to Woman in their several instances, the implications from experiences to elaboration of a speech. My movement happens through a narration: an artist of the body in her invisible performances, therefore, manifestations of a performative experimentation that emerges from the necessity of sharing this process where the body was infleshning Raw Existences.

Esta tese é o resultado dos meus quatro anos de investigação e vivências em que meu corpo de pesquisadora performer foi sendo contaminado pelas informações dos ambientes em que circulou. A hipótese está amparada por uma investigação que foi se processando em busca pelas opressões que cerceiam meu corpo, de mulher, mulher negra, feminista, periférica. Essas contaminações encarnearam meu corpo num processo de embrutecimento, que se materializa em Bruta. Destaca-se, neste contexto, o pensamento do Teatro Invisível de Augusto Boal (2009), em diálogo com a performance estudada por autoras como Josette Féral (2015), Ileana Diéguez (2011), Diana Taylor (2013) e Judith Butler (2003 e 2018). Nesses diálogos, meu corpo foi se contaminando também pela Teoria Corpomídia (Katz e Greiner, 2006), num processo criativo em que arte e vida, agir e conhecer, ocupam um mesmo espaço (Bastos, 2017). A metodologia inspira-se nas fases da Lua, enquanto evocação da Mulher nas suas diversas instâncias, das implicações de vivências na elaboração de um discurso. Meu deslocamento dá-se pela via de um relato: uma artista do corpo em suas performances invisíveis, isto é, manifestações de uma experimentação performativa, que emerge da necessidade de compartilhar este processo em que o corpo foi encarneando Existências Bruta. / This thesis is the result of four years of investigation and experiences where my body as a researcher performer was contaminated by information from the environments it circulated. The hypothesis is supported by an exploration in search of the oppressions surrounding my body, that of a woman, of a black woman, of a feminist, a marginalized body. These exposures infleshened my body in a process of brutishness, which culminated in Raw. Highlighted, in this context, is the thinking of the Invisible Theatre from Augusto Boal (2009), in dialogue with performances studied by Josette Féral (2015), Ileana Diéguez (2011), Diana Taylor (2013) e Judith Butler (2003 e 2018). With these dialogues, my body was also exposed to Teoria Corpomídia (Katz e Greiner, 2006), in a creative process where art and life, acting and knowing, occupy the same space (Bastos, 2017). The methodology is inspired by the phases of the moon, as evocation to Woman in their several instances, the implications from experiences to elaboration of a speech. My movement happens through a narration: an artist of the body in her invisible performances, therefore, manifestations of a performative experimentation that emerges from the necessity of sharing this process where the body was infleshning Raw Existences.