merican playwright Arthur Miller observed that acting, which he defines as assuming "the characte... more merican playwright Arthur Miller observed that acting, which he defines as assuming "the character of someone else," is inevitable as soon as we walk out our front doors and into society (2001, 33). Any view of acting holding that each of us acts every day raises questions about the actor's art, the nature of training, and the form any such training ought to take. The ways American institutions have chosen to train actors have varied, but they almost always involve conceiving of the actor as an instrument (in body and voice) that can be adjusted, refined, improved, and tuned. Hundreds of books have been written to aid in the process, and extensive curricula have been arranged to provide the requisite instruction. How is the body conceptualized in actor training? We are concerned especially with how the actor's body, through voice and movement training, is treated. In this essay we examine two main elements in the academic actor training industry (American university curricula and representative major textbooks) and discuss new issues confronting this training. First, we examine representative curricula in acting, voice, and body, from a range of college and university theatre programs. What do the course offerings and requirements indicate about the way these departments approach the training of the actor? Second, we explore representative acting textbooks to explore further the typical range of instructional materials related to actor training. Finally, we develop two examples (Irish dance and performance ethnography) to explore variations and questions which challenge some of the assumptions in some traditional training.
Considering the contemporary American political and social malaise, the author finds medicine in ... more Considering the contemporary American political and social malaise, the author finds medicine in art therapy.
In his keynote address to the 1986 SpeechCommunication Associa- tion Interpretation Summer Confer... more In his keynote address to the 1986 SpeechCommunication Associa- tion Interpretation Summer Conference in Salado, Texas, Wallace Bacon observed of recent interpretation scholarship that "we have ex- panded greatly the meaning of text and the meaning of performance" ...
International Review of Qualitative Research, 2015
Learning to play cowboys and Indians involves embodied representations of a mediated cultural ima... more Learning to play cowboys and Indians involves embodied representations of a mediated cultural imaginary that contrasts significantly with the author's childhood observations of Native Americans and Western ranch hands. This study analyzes family photographs from the 1950s, as well as the author's experiences, to probe pervasive myths.
The buzz and excitement at the Economies and Ethics of Performance conference at Villanova Univer... more The buzz and excitement at the Economies and Ethics of Performance conference at Villanova University carried echoes of previous gatherings of performance folk. Energetic conversations filled the sessions, spilled into the margins, and swirled around the dinner tables and hallways just as they had done at earlier signal events. The energy that infused the Saldado I and II conferences (1986 and 1990 respectively), and the Otis J. Aggertt Festival at Indiana State University (1995), resurfaced for those present at Villanova. It felt like making history. Like at those earlier gatherings, the kind of history being made will only be understood in retrospect, but an engaging mix of scholar and artist generations marks each of these historic moments. The special sense for the participants was that being there mattered, that the decision to attend was consequential, that something important was shifting because of the conference. The gathering itself enacted disciplinary social ties. A productive performative mixing of generations marked the room. Between sessions individuals freely picked up their coffee cups and re-settled at different tables, introducing themselves or hugging friends. This was a working conference at which we found ourselves in the midst of social labor. As keynote speakers Judith Hamera and D. Soyini Madison each demonstrated in their opening remarks, as other participants displayed throughout the sessions, and as Bryant Keith Alexander and Omi Osun Joni L. Jones made manifest in their performed conference summary, the power of performance comes through experiencing the moment as fully engaged persons. My own small part in this drama was to present some context in terms of performance studies history. Developments in the field that led from the interpretation and performance of literature of the Speech Communication Association Interpretation Division changing its name to Performance Studies (1991), to the creation of Performance Studies international (1995), seemed to me little but recent expressions of ancient human urges. So, I took a look back 17,000 years to the cave paintings in Southern Europe. I once stood in Font-de-Gaume cave near Les Eyziesde-Tayac-Sireuil, France, and wondered about the social world that led to the sophisticated artistry there. What conversations and discussions went on in the process of their creation? What schooling did they have? What prehistoric pedagogy?
WHEN Wayland Maxfield Parrish introduced oral interpretation to the literary theory of IA Richard... more WHEN Wayland Maxfield Parrish introduced oral interpretation to the literary theory of IA Richards in his 1936 article "Objective Literary Standards in Interpretation," he could hardly have known that he was pioneering one of the most popular formulas for scholarly studies in the field. ...
... insight-Page 4. 195 TEXT AND PERFORMANCE QUARTERLY STUCKY AND GLENN ful way to sample varieti... more ... insight-Page 4. 195 TEXT AND PERFORMANCE QUARTERLY STUCKY AND GLENN ful way to sample varieties of interpersonal interaction. It ... 186. The transcript utilizes symbols from Gail Jefferson's transcription system. See ...
... has only one word, can ever be repeated: it is always a new utterance (even if it is a quotat... more ... has only one word, can ever be repeated: it is always a new utterance (even if it is a quotation)."13 The terms latitudeand fidelity describe the conditions of natural performance without explicitly assessing the degree of verisimilitude (the appearance of truth) or mimesis (imitation ...
In this piece the author questions audience behavior in the 2012 Republican primary campaign for ... more In this piece the author questions audience behavior in the 2012 Republican primary campaign for U.S. President. Why do some ideas and performances resonate to the point of producing overt response? What underlying elements condition an audience to boo or applaud? The cultural climate of talk radio and other heated rhetoric contributes to creating conditions ripe for explosion in this context. The author develops a personal poetic response to two incidents: An audience booing a gay soldier who objected to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, and an audience cheering for the death penalty.
The present study of silence situates its investigation in dramatic performance as a site of ordi... more The present study of silence situates its investigation in dramatic performance as a site of ordinary interaction and suggests connections between naturally-occurring speech and dramatic dialogue, especially as it relates to the role of silence in turn-taking and topic ...
In asking what it means to perform an ethnographic other, I, a middle-aged White American man, st... more In asking what it means to perform an ethnographic other, I, a middle-aged White American man, struggle with a performance of my older Taiwanese Tai Chi teacher. Although everyday life performance (ELP) leads me ever closer to an exact copy of Master Han's behaviors, it ...
When Allan Nevins began his germinal history project after World War II, popularizing the term &q... more When Allan Nevins began his germinal history project after World War II, popularizing the term "oral history" in the process (Perks, 1990, p. ix; Yow, 1994, pp. 3-4), he set out to interview "prominent men" in sessions which he personally conducted and recorded in longhand (Havlice, ...
... 1 Theatre Studies/Cultural Studies/Performance Studies The Three Unities 33 JOSEPH ROACH 2 Cr... more ... 1 Theatre Studies/Cultural Studies/Performance Studies The Three Unities 33 JOSEPH ROACH 2 Critical Performative Pedagogy Fleshing Out the Politics ... that's who an accomplished teacher of performance studies is, one whose task is never ending because the field is always ...
merican playwright Arthur Miller observed that acting, which he defines as assuming "the characte... more merican playwright Arthur Miller observed that acting, which he defines as assuming "the character of someone else," is inevitable as soon as we walk out our front doors and into society (2001, 33). Any view of acting holding that each of us acts every day raises questions about the actor's art, the nature of training, and the form any such training ought to take. The ways American institutions have chosen to train actors have varied, but they almost always involve conceiving of the actor as an instrument (in body and voice) that can be adjusted, refined, improved, and tuned. Hundreds of books have been written to aid in the process, and extensive curricula have been arranged to provide the requisite instruction. How is the body conceptualized in actor training? We are concerned especially with how the actor's body, through voice and movement training, is treated. In this essay we examine two main elements in the academic actor training industry (American university curricula and representative major textbooks) and discuss new issues confronting this training. First, we examine representative curricula in acting, voice, and body, from a range of college and university theatre programs. What do the course offerings and requirements indicate about the way these departments approach the training of the actor? Second, we explore representative acting textbooks to explore further the typical range of instructional materials related to actor training. Finally, we develop two examples (Irish dance and performance ethnography) to explore variations and questions which challenge some of the assumptions in some traditional training.
Considering the contemporary American political and social malaise, the author finds medicine in ... more Considering the contemporary American political and social malaise, the author finds medicine in art therapy.
In his keynote address to the 1986 SpeechCommunication Associa- tion Interpretation Summer Confer... more In his keynote address to the 1986 SpeechCommunication Associa- tion Interpretation Summer Conference in Salado, Texas, Wallace Bacon observed of recent interpretation scholarship that "we have ex- panded greatly the meaning of text and the meaning of performance" ...
International Review of Qualitative Research, 2015
Learning to play cowboys and Indians involves embodied representations of a mediated cultural ima... more Learning to play cowboys and Indians involves embodied representations of a mediated cultural imaginary that contrasts significantly with the author's childhood observations of Native Americans and Western ranch hands. This study analyzes family photographs from the 1950s, as well as the author's experiences, to probe pervasive myths.
The buzz and excitement at the Economies and Ethics of Performance conference at Villanova Univer... more The buzz and excitement at the Economies and Ethics of Performance conference at Villanova University carried echoes of previous gatherings of performance folk. Energetic conversations filled the sessions, spilled into the margins, and swirled around the dinner tables and hallways just as they had done at earlier signal events. The energy that infused the Saldado I and II conferences (1986 and 1990 respectively), and the Otis J. Aggertt Festival at Indiana State University (1995), resurfaced for those present at Villanova. It felt like making history. Like at those earlier gatherings, the kind of history being made will only be understood in retrospect, but an engaging mix of scholar and artist generations marks each of these historic moments. The special sense for the participants was that being there mattered, that the decision to attend was consequential, that something important was shifting because of the conference. The gathering itself enacted disciplinary social ties. A productive performative mixing of generations marked the room. Between sessions individuals freely picked up their coffee cups and re-settled at different tables, introducing themselves or hugging friends. This was a working conference at which we found ourselves in the midst of social labor. As keynote speakers Judith Hamera and D. Soyini Madison each demonstrated in their opening remarks, as other participants displayed throughout the sessions, and as Bryant Keith Alexander and Omi Osun Joni L. Jones made manifest in their performed conference summary, the power of performance comes through experiencing the moment as fully engaged persons. My own small part in this drama was to present some context in terms of performance studies history. Developments in the field that led from the interpretation and performance of literature of the Speech Communication Association Interpretation Division changing its name to Performance Studies (1991), to the creation of Performance Studies international (1995), seemed to me little but recent expressions of ancient human urges. So, I took a look back 17,000 years to the cave paintings in Southern Europe. I once stood in Font-de-Gaume cave near Les Eyziesde-Tayac-Sireuil, France, and wondered about the social world that led to the sophisticated artistry there. What conversations and discussions went on in the process of their creation? What schooling did they have? What prehistoric pedagogy?
WHEN Wayland Maxfield Parrish introduced oral interpretation to the literary theory of IA Richard... more WHEN Wayland Maxfield Parrish introduced oral interpretation to the literary theory of IA Richards in his 1936 article "Objective Literary Standards in Interpretation," he could hardly have known that he was pioneering one of the most popular formulas for scholarly studies in the field. ...
... insight-Page 4. 195 TEXT AND PERFORMANCE QUARTERLY STUCKY AND GLENN ful way to sample varieti... more ... insight-Page 4. 195 TEXT AND PERFORMANCE QUARTERLY STUCKY AND GLENN ful way to sample varieties of interpersonal interaction. It ... 186. The transcript utilizes symbols from Gail Jefferson's transcription system. See ...
... has only one word, can ever be repeated: it is always a new utterance (even if it is a quotat... more ... has only one word, can ever be repeated: it is always a new utterance (even if it is a quotation)."13 The terms latitudeand fidelity describe the conditions of natural performance without explicitly assessing the degree of verisimilitude (the appearance of truth) or mimesis (imitation ...
In this piece the author questions audience behavior in the 2012 Republican primary campaign for ... more In this piece the author questions audience behavior in the 2012 Republican primary campaign for U.S. President. Why do some ideas and performances resonate to the point of producing overt response? What underlying elements condition an audience to boo or applaud? The cultural climate of talk radio and other heated rhetoric contributes to creating conditions ripe for explosion in this context. The author develops a personal poetic response to two incidents: An audience booing a gay soldier who objected to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, and an audience cheering for the death penalty.
The present study of silence situates its investigation in dramatic performance as a site of ordi... more The present study of silence situates its investigation in dramatic performance as a site of ordinary interaction and suggests connections between naturally-occurring speech and dramatic dialogue, especially as it relates to the role of silence in turn-taking and topic ...
In asking what it means to perform an ethnographic other, I, a middle-aged White American man, st... more In asking what it means to perform an ethnographic other, I, a middle-aged White American man, struggle with a performance of my older Taiwanese Tai Chi teacher. Although everyday life performance (ELP) leads me ever closer to an exact copy of Master Han's behaviors, it ...
When Allan Nevins began his germinal history project after World War II, popularizing the term &q... more When Allan Nevins began his germinal history project after World War II, popularizing the term "oral history" in the process (Perks, 1990, p. ix; Yow, 1994, pp. 3-4), he set out to interview "prominent men" in sessions which he personally conducted and recorded in longhand (Havlice, ...
... 1 Theatre Studies/Cultural Studies/Performance Studies The Three Unities 33 JOSEPH ROACH 2 Cr... more ... 1 Theatre Studies/Cultural Studies/Performance Studies The Three Unities 33 JOSEPH ROACH 2 Critical Performative Pedagogy Fleshing Out the Politics ... that's who an accomplished teacher of performance studies is, one whose task is never ending because the field is always ...
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