<p> Actors create blocks based in fear, over-intellectualization of acting concepts, and the limiting assumptions they often make from any given theatrical text. Mask work can release the actor out of fear and into a non-intellectualized flow of freedom, expressivity and character transformation. Exploration with the various pedagogies and styles of Mask work can open doors for the actor that other contemporary training methods cannot, and therefore should be considered an essential component of the actor's training process. </p>

<p> Educating our Dance School Educators examines the relevance of certification for private dance school teachers. I offer a personal history as evidence for the need of certification in dance schools. I also provide a desired outline of the certification, which encompasses the mission statement and requirements for the candidates. The question of what it means to be certified is addressed by using the National Dance Education Organization as defining support. To argue for certification I draw support from dance editors and professors as well as the National Dance Education Standards. I use an example of a certification outline from the Connecticut school district and deconstruct why the outline is insufficient for my ideal standards. I do not have a target age group desired when talking about the students because this subject is relevant for students of all levels and ages. I use support from pedagogical research to explain the human developmental process for all ages specifically concerning the effects this process has on their learning curve. I also use critical pedagogy to explain the importance of pedagogical knowledge versus content knowledge. I conclude with a summary of my findings in support of certification for dance school teachers to ensure a quality education for all students whether pursuing it as a recreational activity or as a career.</p>

<p> This statement attempts to document, contextualize, and critically ground the thesis work that Emji Spero completed as part of the Mills College MFA in Book Art and Creative Writing degree. The work, Almost Any Shit Will Do, exists at the intersection between writing, book art, installation, and performance. The magnitude of this project necessitated the collaborative effort of many bodies, and as such, is best articulated in the collective wall text, written by Jess Marks Gale and Emji Spero, that accompanied their exhibition, This Body Public: this work was "an attempt to map intangible sites of intersection, the boundaries of porous bodies in the moment of encounter, and this space that betweens us." </p><p> ALMOST ANY SHIT WILL DO This thesis project included: (1) The writing of a book-length work of poetry, titled almost any shit will do. (2) The digital typesetting, design, and material production of two editions of almost any shit will do: a gate fold artist's book, and a soft cover trade book with letterpressed covers. Both editions were released through Timeless, Infinite Light. (3) An installation of embroidered panels featuring text from almost any shit will do. This text was connected with thread across the space of the gallery as part of This Body Public at Johansson Projects, alongside Jess Marks Gale's installation, Stay, from 21 March to 11 April 2014. (4) A performance of the work in which Emji Spero attempted to read excerpts from almost any shit will do; this reading was continually interrupted by the body of the artist collapsing to the ground. </p><p> CRITICAL THESIS This document includes: (a) An preface that hopes to ground the work, documenting the process of writing almost any shit will do, and providing a critical framework that serves to contextualize the writing; (b) A brief description of the work and the introduction "On the Process," excerpted from the book; (c) The text of almost any shit will do (see: additional materials); (d) Documentation and production notes on the creation of both editions of the text: the gate fold artist's book and the soft cover trade book; (e) Some critical reflections and documentation of the installation for This Body Public at Johansson Projects; (f) Description and documentation of the performance of almost any shit will do by Emji Spero at Johansson Projects on 11 April 2014; (g) A somatic transcription of the performance, written by Ivy Johnson; (h) Video of the audience during the performance, shot by Otis Pig and subtitled with Johnson's somatic transcription of the performance (see: additional materials)</p>

<p> The female musical theater belt voice has been heard onstage for almost one hundred years, yet the demands for this type of singing continue to evolve. While the style dominates Broadway, an understanding of successful teaching of the female belt voice seems to be lacking. Therefore, this study was undertaken to appropriately address the needs of female musical theater singers, and to establish effective strategies for teaching the female belt voice.</p><p> Individual case studies of four nationally recognized master teachers of female belting were created from observations in the studio, interviews with the teachers, and interviews with their students. Thirty-two hours of private voice lessons were observed with 18 female belt students in the studios of these master teachers in an effort to determine the extent to which they employed common techniques in the pedagogy and agreed on the characteristics of the female belt voice. Interview responses and field notes from the teachers and singers were analyzed individually and a cross-comparison of the data was analyzed for consensus or conflicting information on female musical theater belt pedagogy. </p><p> Interestingly, there was much consensus among the teachers on the physicality, sound, and strategies for female belting. Included in the findings were that the female belt voice is not a pure chest voice production, and development of the entire voice is key since working in head voice allows a female to create a lighter belt sound and to make the transition into the higher belt range. Distinct techniques for the traditional and contemporary belt voices emerged. The traditional belt, up to D5, uses more chest voice and full, open vowels. The contemporary belt, higher than D5, is produced with more head voice and closed, narrow vowels. Belting is considered speech-like and exciting, and is a joint process between teachers and students. </p><p> Based on this research, voice teachers working with musical theater students must be educated and proficient on the specific strategies and techniques of the evolving female belt voice. The female belt voice, though different from classical singing, does have its own set of techniques.</p>

<p> Music performance anxiety (MPA) is a common problem in musicians of all ages, genders, socio-economic backgrounds, and levels of performance experience. The intensity of symptoms associated with the condition range from mild to debilitating. Even at lower levels, chronic MPA is associated with stress-related illnesses and maladaptive coping behaviors, such as self-medication with licit (cigarettes and alcohol) and illicit or off-label drugs. Acute MPA is known to destroy musical careers. </p><p> Faced with the pervasiveness and potential gravity of MPA, clinicians have developed a number of nonpharmacologic treatment protocols, some of which have been studied for efficacy. Most of the outcome studies have reported pairwise comparisons (experimental versus control) of measures taken of small samples of performing musicians. The robustness of the treatment was determined by tests of statistical significance of observed differences on outcome measures or by the calculation of effect size. </p><p> Previous narrative reviews of outcome studies have provided summary descriptions of their characteristics and findings. However, these analyses do not provide quantitative evidence of the efficacy of different treatments for ameliorating MPA. </p><p> Since it was first employed in psychological research by Smith and Glass in 1977, meta-analysis has become the gold standard for synthesizing quantitative research findings across studies. The method involves integration of standardized treatment effect estimates from different studies. It can provide comparisons of the effectiveness of subgroups of therapies (approaches), characterize a therapeutic approach in terms of an outcome profile, and determine whether a particular psychotherapeutic intervention is effective. The present review is the first to use meta-analysis to integrate the findings of research studies in the literature on nonpharmacologic psychotherapies for MPA and to compare their effectiveness. </p><p> An exhaustive search of the literature identified 46 efficacy studies. Of these, 29 met the criteria for inclusion in the meta-analysis. The accumulated data represents autonomic, self-report, and observational measures of MPA for 852 advanced music students and professional musicians. Each measure was coded for type (autonomic, self-report or observational) and for therapeutic approach (cognitive, behavioral, complementary and alternative, and combined). Analysis of the synthesized data indicated statistically significant therapeutic effects of each therapeutic approach. Additionally, when the approaches were compared, the class of psychotherapies that was made of combinations of two or more types of interventions (combined) showed the strongest treatment effect. </p><p> Among the implications of these findings is the plurality of good choices for an individual suffering with MPA. The development of programs to raise awareness of the prevalence of music performance anxiety and available treatments is recommended. For researchers, greater standardization in methodology and periodic meta-analysis is encouraged.</p>

<p> This is a study of the development and validation of a rubric to enhance performer feedback for undergraduate vocal solo performance. In the literature, assessment of vocal performance is under-represented, and the value of feedback from the assessment of musical performances, from the point of view of the performer, is nonexistent. The research questions guiding this study were 1) What are the appropriate performance criteria, learning outcomes, and meaningful descriptors for various levels of proficiency for undergraduate solo vocal performance? and 2) How do students perceive their use of the feedback from the solo vocal performance rubric to improve future performances? The three groups of stakeholders of the project were voice professors from the research institution who assisted in the development of the rubric; students from the research institution who provided performance excerpts and shared their perceptions about the quality of the feedback; and voice professors from outside the research institution who used the rubric to assess the student performances. Mixed-methods participatory action research was the method used to conduct the study. </p><p> Interviews with five experts aided the development of a criteria-specific rubric, which defined performance criteria, learning outcomes, and meaningful descriptors for various levels of proficiency for undergraduate students of singing. The rubric was distributed, along with 20 recordings comprised of 14 students, two professionals, and four repeated student performances, to voice professors who used the rubric to score the performances and provided feedback about the instrument as well as the process. Results of scoring were shared with student performers and interviews conducted about usefulness of the feedback. Seven themes emerged from the research analysis: a) levels of proficiency, b) performance criteria, c) descriptors, d) numerical scoring, e) comments, f) recording method, and g) song selection relative to the skill level of the singers. Results of the study determined that the rubric was statistically reliable, and the students received valuable feedback that validated their own self-perceptions and assisted them in long- and short-term goal setting. Practitioners may benefit from further research that explores the validity of the rubric when assigning a grade, assessing live performances, and including additional repertoire.</p>

<p> The maroma in southern Mexico is an artistic performance that features acrobats as well as elements of theater, poetry, and music commonly performed by clown poets. The maroma's form and content is drawn from a mixture of medieval European street performances, pre-Hispanic indigenous acrobatic arts, and modern circus features. It is typically performed as entertainment in the context of the patronal saint fiesta, annual popular Catholic events that serve as significant spaces that furnish cultural elements for identity construction. The maroma was very popular in the capital of New Spain throughout the colonial period (1519-1822) but with the rise of the European modern circus was either incorporated or displaced. In the countryside, however, the maroma appears to have continued for a longer period of time. Currently, it is practiced among several ethnic groups, among them the Mixtecs in the Mixteca--a region that covers parts of the states Oaxaca, Guerrero, and Puebla. In the last decade in the Mixteca, maroma groups and state cultural institutions have worked collectively to "revive" the maroma as the practice has been declining since the mid-to-late 20th century. This thesis is a preliminary incursion into the maroma as currently practiced in the Mixteca Baja. I argue that due to the effects of transnationalism and because the maroma has been present at patronal saint fiestas for a long time, significant spaces that furnish cultural elements for identity construction and negotiation, the maroma has become a symbol of a "pan-Mixtec" identity, an identity that unites all Mixtecs regardless of their specific town or region. Drawing from second-hand sources and fieldwork conducted in the towns of Huajuapan de Le&oacute;n, La Trinidad Huaxtepec, San Juan Yolotepec, Santa Mar&iacute;a Acaquizapan, and Santa Rosa Caxtlahuaca, this thesis introduces the practices of maromeros and the work of state cultural institutions to represent a slice of the maroma revival in the region. Moreover, it strives to contribute to the maromero revival by providing information on the maroma in historical context, current performance and performers, and the revivalist activities the regional state cultural institution has taken thus far.</p>

There is an extensive body of work in the fields of philosophy, psychology, and sociology which identifies a specific world view based on the following criticism of modern society: that people live monocerebral existences divided from their physical, emotional, and intuitive abilities. In this state, the capacity for affect -emotional response - is believed to be atrophied, and experience nullified. Such a condition - which may be loosely termed 'mind/body split' - results in a diminished ability to relate to other people, a sense of alienation from the world, and a pathological loss of human capacities. Many psychologists believe that this state prefigures neuroses, destructiveness, and schizophrenia. This thesis is concerned with the concept of 'mind/body split' and its relation to affective communication in the theatre. The subjects of my enquiry are theatre practitioners or companies whose work has directly addressed these issues: Antonin Artaud, Jerzy Grotowski, The Living Theatre, The Performance Group, The Open Theatre, Peter Brook, and Eugenio Barba. My aim has been to re-examine the work of these seven in order to produce evidence of their concern for affect, heightened experience, and the healing of mind-body schism. I propose that an understanding of these concerns provides a major critical key to the appraisal of the practitioners in question.

No description available.

Iconoclasm has proved to be a major feature in modern British drama, where in a short period of time, the theatre has witnessed a host of iconoclastic dramatists, where demythologization has been widespread and fierce and where the icons of the present and the past have been subjected to a wholesale desecration in large numbers at the hands of the Ardens, Brenton, Bond, Churchill and others, who, as their dramatization of history and its idols has shown, have much in common. Although the above playwrights and others were most active towards the end of the sixties and throughout the seventies, their assault, however, has not completely died away in the eighties. As I have shown, Berkoff in 1987 launched in Sink the Belgrano! a fierce onslaught on political sacred cows, including the present Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher who was mercilessly pilloried. On the 19th of February, 1988, Radio Three began broadcasting a nine part iconoclastic cycle by the Ardens, Whose Is The Kingdom? in which iconized personages from Roman history are revealed in a new light. In the above cycle, the playwrights set out to "demolish" "established notions" about Christ, Christianity, and rewrite the history of the Roman Empire, exposing its heroes and icons such as Constantine as manipulators and hypocrites. In other words, the Ardens' iconoclasm does not seem to have subsided; indeed it is on the rise! However, as mentioned earlier, iconoclasm is not merely the result of petty spite; it is a major aspect of political drama. It works towards changing the received images that the audience hold of history, the present and their icons the latter of which represent both the former. However, like the political theatre of which it is part, iconoclasm has failed to achieve its objectives for a number of reasons, foremost of which is the fact that the denigration of a historic idolatrized figure amounts to attacking the audience itself in whose mind, the images of those assaulted are deeply ingrained as holy and untouchable. The audience sees in such figures its own reflection. Lindenberger, in his book Historical Drama rightly argues that historical playwrights could "present a historical character or action within a broad framework of accepted notions". In other words, a playwright dramatizing a historical figure should try to adhere as much as he can to what is handed down to him and to his audience about the figure by history. Lindenberger goes on to say that "Historical material had the same status as myth, both belonged to what Horace called 'publicly known matters' ... and both depended - indeed, still do depend on - an audience's willingness to assimilate the portrayal of a familiar story or personage". Any portrayal of Achilles as not "restless, irascible, unyielding, and hard" would appear to the audience as unacceptable. The above theory can be rightly applied to the iconoclastic modern British playwrights' treatment of venerated persons. The audience would certainly stick to the “accepted notions" about Lord Nelson, Queen Victoria, Sir Winston Churchill and others. Plays such as The Hero Rises Up, Early Morning, and The Churchill Play can only arouse indignation in the audience and not a renunciation of received images. As I have shown, many spectators and critics were offended by, say, Arden's treatment of Nelson or Bond's degradation of Queen Victoria and William Shakespeare. The audience would rather adhere to what it already knows than revise its views, which brings to mind Marx's statement about the spell that the past casts upon the people, "The old has a strong grip on the people and, progress proceeds slowly." "Tradition is a great retarding force, is the vis inertiae of history". "The tradition of all past generations weighs like an Alp upon the brains of the living”. However, although they may be considered to have failed politically to dislodge right-wing iconography, the modern British demythologizers have established iconoclasm as a major trend in modern British drama and have revived an old tradition and consolidated it . Bond, a playwright who has constantly since 1968 called for the renunciation of the past .and its icons is, however, only too aware of the difficulties that his iconoclasm faces, yet as we Mire seen, he has not stopped producing iconoclastic plays. In his play, The Bundle, his revolutionary hero, Wang works hard with his fellow rebels to rid themselves of the past. He eggs them on to think of the future. For that purpose, he narrates to them the story of a man who carried the king on his back all his life, who even "did not know the king had died long ago", and who "carried him always and wasted his life", He goes on to say that the worst thing is "to carry the dead on your back", What the iconoclasts have tried to do during the past two decades is to remove that dead man from their nation's shoulders.