The Future of Performance Studies

March 21, 5 pm., 2550 Frieze Building

Informal talk with Diana Taylor

Diana Taylor will be available for an informal discussion with graduate students and faculty. The discussion will focus on the field of performance studies, Dr. Taylor's work at the Hemispheric Institute, and the problems of working across cultures and across disciplines. Students and faculty will be invited to discuss their own work and ask questions about Taylor's current research. This precedes Taylor's talk at the CWPS on Wednesday. The forum is small, but please invite any interested graduate students or colleagues.

March 22, 6 pm., Center for World Performance Studies

Powerful Performatives: From 'America' to 'Hemispheric'

Talk by Diana Taylor

Where: 1636 School of Social Work Building

"Powerful Performatives: From 'America' to 'Hemispheric'" underlines two inter-related points: 1) America, Americas, and hemispheric are not a 'place' but a practice and 2) there is a relationship between how we see and live 'America' and the naming and conceptualization of a field of study. Our lens, in other words, creates our object of analysis rather than the other way around.  This talk looks at the production of America as an object of analysis, and what might be at stake, disciplinarily, in linking American Studies to Hemispheric Studies.

Diana Taylor is a Professor of Performance Studies and Spanish at New York University.  She is the founding Director of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, Contributing Editor of TDR, and Associate Editor of Theatre Journal. Her books include The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas. (Duke, 2003), Disappearing Acts: Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in Argentina's "Dirty War," (Duke, 1997), and Theatre of Crisis: Drama and Politics in Latin America (Kentucky,1991).

This talk is free and open to the public.
Reception to follow.

March 29, 6 pm, 1644 School of Social Work Building

"Folklore, Ethnography and Performance Studies"

John Hill, "The Imaginary World of Russian Folk Performance," PhD Candidate in Theatre and Drama

This presentation examines how accepting the given conditions (in Stanislavsky's definition) of an imaginary universe helps facilitate embodiment--becoming another being/character.

Irina Niculescu, "Tradition and contemporary puppet theatre: the work of theatre director Irina Niculescu"

Schooled in The Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Czech Republic, Irina made her debut in Tandarica Puppet Theatre in Bucharest Romania, where she worked as a resident director for ten years. Irina directed shows and taught puppetry in Romania, Poland, France, Spain, Switzerland, Norway, Canada and at the O'Neill Theatre Center in Connecticut. She will talk about the influence of tradition on her work; she will describe her approach to "the puppet as a metaphor" and contemporary research in European puppet theatre. The work will be illustrated by video clips from her work.

Sigit Adji Sabdoprijono,"Wayang Sandosa: shadow puppet theater in Indonesia," Visiting Artist-in-Residence at UM

I will be discussing the history and practice of multimedia shadow puppet theater in Indonesia, the wayang sandosa. I will describe the difference between this theater and the traditional shadow puppet theater, wayang kulit, the iconography of the puppets, and a typical story, illustrated by video or DVD clips.

April 5, 5 pm, 1636 School of Social Work Building

Performing the Self: Ethnography and Autobiography as Performance

Jim Leija, MFA student in Art and Design

Larry LaFountain-Stokes, Assistant Professor of American Culture.

April 19, 5 pm, 1636 School of Social Work Building

Performance, the Body, the Archive, and the Scholar
Problems of Documentation and Analysis in Performance Studies

A discussion of current research problems with:

Kristina Pietrosanti, PhD Student
Middle and Near Easter Studies – Ms. Pietrosanti will discuss her current research on historical constructions of the body in the Middle East.

Ozgen Felek, PhD Student
Middle and Near Easter Studies – Ms. Felek will talk about her work on staging Ottoman poetry.

D. Ross, PhD Candidate
Theatre and Drama – D. Ross has just returned from a year as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Sydney where she observed rehearsals, studied rehearsal documentation, and considered the political implications of performing disability on stage.