This thesis contributes to discourses concerned with urban space and performance practice. It identifies ways in which built environments become performative; how the built environment performs meaning(s) within the urban context and how spatial practices of contemporary performance engage with city-spaces. The programming and order of urban space tends to fix meanings; increasingly regulated and singlepurpose city-spaces seem unable to react to informal or unplanned activities. However, this thesis suggests that urban space entails inherent opportunities for conceiving and practising space otherwise and looks at a spatial spectrum – from leftover spaces to London’s landmarks. It analyses incomplete presences in the built environment and their unexpected (re)uses, which make urban space an arena of ideas, interaction and creativity. It examines how spatial practices of performance, such as site-specific performance, audio-walks and installations, inform our (re)thinking of space, its meaning and its re-appropriation. It argues that through performative concepts and actions, space manifests a changeable and dynamic quality, rather than motionlessness and inertia. The thesis involves an interdisciplinary approach employing geography, urban, architectural and performance studies. It looks at four types of built spaces that have been used for performance purposes; a disused warehouse at 21 Wapping Lane, the converted power station housing the Tate Modern art gallery, the exterior of the National Theatre’s building and the London district of Wapping. All of these sites are awaiting, or are undergoing, major alterations in their design or planning, involving reconstruction and expansion, or total demolition. The uncertain future of these sites and buildings, the inevitable decay of their material, and the temporality of the built environment invite questions of architectural design and urban planning in terms of performance. The examination of these sites at this moment of change and the potential impact of the redevelopment plans on city life make this research timely, since the thesis emphasises the imperative of re-defining concepts of space, planning strategies, and design processes so as to imagine a less determinate, more creative urban space.

<p> Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) experience impairment in social cognition, which contributes to a variety of challenges for individuals with ASD, including elevated risks of loneliness, depression and anxiety. For this reason, various interventions have been developed to improve social ability in ASD populations. However, many existing interventions lack strong research support, or are inaccessible to many individuals with ASD due to high financial cost. Therefore, a need exists for affordable, effective psychosocial interventions for ASD that are widely accessible. One potential intervention is improvisational theater training (improv). Improv training for youth and young adults with ASD is already provided at multiple theaters across the US, and the current study collected information on one such program, measuring change in participant ratings of social ability, depression, anxiety, loneliness, and growth mindset as a result of participation. Participants reported a significant reduction in their perceptions of nervousness and being left out after completing the improv theater training, suggesting that improv theater decreases nervousness and feelings of exclusion among individuals with ASD. Participants also reported a significant increase in their perception of lacking companionship, suggesting that improv theater increases participant desire for companionship among individuals with ASD. Reliable Change Index analysis suggests that younger participants, male participants, and participants with greater social impairment were more likely to evidence reliable change as a result of improv theater training. Finally, positive correlations were found between social impairment and ratings of depression and loneliness and negative correlations were found between growth mindset and ratings of depression and loneliness. These findings provide preliminary evidence that suggests improvisational theater may be an effective intervention for reducing anxiety and nervousness among individuals with ASD.</p><p>

Student stories are a potentially rich natural resource running through the veins of our schools, but this resource sometimes goes untapped. One strategy teachers can use to take advantage of this resource is to formally introduce oral storytelling into the classroom--to explicitly teach students how to choose and craft stories from their lives and then allow them to publicly perform those stories. The Story Shop Community Education Program (a pseudonym) in New York City is a non-profit devoted to bringing the art and craft of oral storytelling to populations that might not otherwise have access to it through series of free workshops. This research project took place over sixteen weeks of one such workshop at a Title I public high school in East New York, Brooklyn. It addresses the following question: How does an oral storytelling unit affect both individual students and their classroom relationships? More specifically, (1) How do individual students engage with an oral storytelling unit? (2) What is the perceived impact of an oral storytelling unit on classroom relationships? (3) How do students perceive the impact of an oral storytelling unit both on their understanding of themselves as individuals and on their relationships with each other? and (4) How does the teacher perceive the impact of an oral storytelling unit on her individual students and her classroom relationships? Drawing on an interpretivist/social network approach and grounded in the tenets of narrative qualitative research, this project utilizes mixed methods to investigate whether an oral storytelling unit provided students with opportunities for growth in identity development and deepening of their classroom relationships. This investigation documents how granting students the time and space to bear witness to each other's lives and `go public' with stories that could otherwise go unheard might improve classroom community and therefore student motivation.

The 1970s are widely considered the decade of performance, with both the formulation of the term “performance” and fierce debates about its precise definition. Championing this novel genre, critics and artists sought to distinguish performance from the conventions of theater and the prescriptions of commercial entertainment. In the definition that has since dominated art history, performance implied the exclusion of narrative, script, artifice, and theatricality. However, this understanding of performance relies on a caricature of the genre that excludes much of the work made in downtown New York City in the 70s: performance’s constitutive moment. Drawing on original archival research, the dissertation is a critical study of this important but heretofore neglected history. Structured around case studies of pivotal works by Laurie Anderson, Julia Heyward, and Jill Kroesen, pioneering figures in the downtown milieu, the project considers how artists melded narrative forms, theatrical devices, and charismatic onstage personae with biting social critique. Often challenging television, rock music, and advanced art alike, the performances at hand exemplify the period’s complicated matrix of “selling out” and “crossing over,” adding new dimensions to a longstanding conversation about the relationship between the avant-garde and mass culture. Rather than a total denial or negation of the elements of theater, as has often been proposed, “performance” I argue, emerges in the 1970s, in a complex dialectical relation with theater’s elements (while often nonetheless rhetorically distancing itself from theater tout court). “Performance” as a genre, I argue, emerged in the 70s as something to be fundamentally staged.

Las artes escénicas, forman parte de la vida y el desarrollo del ser humano, a lo largo del tiempo este ha ido evolucionando, creando diferentes espacios y técnicas que le permitan mejorar la expresión del arte para así poder acceder mejor al público. En el Perú, las artes escénicas se han ido desarrollando con mayor fuerza durante estos años, sin embargo, existen muchas carencias en los espacios, y las edificaciones dificultando así una adecuada preparación del artista y a su vez la difusión del arte. Con este proyecto se busca crear artistas íntegros, que no solo conozcan de una especialidad, Danza, música o teatro, sino que tengan conocimientos de las otras disciplinas con el fin de que tengan una mejor formación profesional, y mejores oportunidades laborales, a su vez se busca que el arte llegue a más usuarios de diferentes clases socioeconómicas difundiendo así la cultura y el arte para que esta pueda ser mejor valorada y reconocida. / The performing arts are part of the life and development of the human being, over time it has evolved, creating different spaces and techniques that allow it to improve the expression of art in order to better access to public. In Peru, the performing arts have been developing with greater force during these years, however, there are many gaps in the spaces, and the buildings thus hindering an adequate preparation of the artist and in turn the dissemination of art. This project seeks to create completed artist who not only know a specialty, dance, music or theater, but have knowledge of the professional training, and a better job opportunities in turn it is sought that art reaches more users off different socio – economic classes thus spreading culture and art so that it can be better valued and recognized. / Trabajo de suficiencia profesional

The internet marketing is a common tool for performing arts administrators to use today. However, there are still many things to improve since the environment, technologies and internet resources are changing quickly. To comprehend the variations and problems of internet marketing that performing arts companies may face in the future, the researcher studies the network environment, communication and its applications. The purposes of this study include understanding how performance companies utilize internet marketing, blog marketing and their influences. The primary cases of this thesis were selected from the lists of 2002-2006 ¡§The Support Plan for the Development of Performing Arts Groups¡¨ of The Council for Cultural Affairs. The data was collected through observations and in-depth interviews. This study shows that the most beneficial outcomes of internet marketing are ¡§brand management¡¨ and ¡§market expansion.¡¨ In the present circumstance, shortage of manpower and budget, search for external resources, and development of customers are still the major problems in performing arts marketing. On the other hand, by using blog marketing can greatly improve the performance companies¡¦ ¡§brand image,¡¨ ¡§media exposure,¡¨ and ¡§customer communication.¡¨ Most of study cases consider that the benefits of blog marketing are accumulated from many internet marketing tools. It is impossible to evaluate single factor of blog. Furthermore, the investment on blog marketing are limited, thus only a few cases can develop special promotion plans through blog marketing. Without certain statistic approval, most of performance companies can only adjust their blog marketing strategies by doing. This study suggests that performing arts companies should take advantage of the cyber communities. They can let audience share the internet space by offering them chances to participation openly. Secondly, they can combine with virtual or physical events to create viral and word-of-mouth marketing effects, and to expand the segmental community promotion through internet opinion leaders. Thirdly, the companies can use ¡§keyword search engine¡¨ and ¡§differential marketing¡¨ to create diversities among performing arts blogs. The study also makes four suggestions for blog service providers: customization threshold, cluster effect, performing arts blog portal, and sponsorship, and hope to encourage the cooperation between them and the performing arts groups.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2000. Graduate Programme in Musicolgy and Ethnomusicology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-157). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ56180.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Pretoria, 2003. / Title from opening screen (viewed June 14, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

<p> This thesis, presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration/Master of Fine Arts in Theatre Management, investigates the business models used by performing arts festivals known as "fringe festivals." In the United States, there are three basic fringe festival models: the open access or Edinburgh model, the limited access model, and the adjudicated model. Interviews with artists who participated in fringes as producers reveal that the model impacts the participant experience less than the degree of scaffolding the fringe offers and the degree to which the fringe constrains producing choices. This thesis suggests a fringe festival framework, classifying fringes by degree of scaffolding and constraint, which can be used by producers to identify festival settings that will be the best fit for their needs. The framework can also be used by fringe festival organizers as a tool for self-reflection and festival assessment.</p>

Faced with the ephemeral nature of the art of performance, performing arts archivists must decide whether it is appropriate for them to intervene to ensure the creation of documents, what documents should be created, and how they should be created. In order to adequately answer these questions, archival theory, with its traditional focus on objectivity and non-interference, must meet with theories of documentation from performance and theatre studies, which question the possibility of adequately capturing or saving performance given the subjective and perspective nature of both the work and documents arising from it. This study addresses these questions both theoretically and practically through a survey of performing artists and a case study observing an archivist interacting with a performing arts community to facilitate the preservation of its work. The artists surveyed in this study demonstrated both an interest in improved documentation of their own work and an understanding of the limits of documentation. The archivist in the case study, after experimenting with various levels of involvement in the creation of documentation, concluded that the best approach would be a focus on building connections between the archival and performing arts communities, providing artists with the education and support they need to document themselves, and giving them secure homes for the documents they choose to create. / text