PARtake: The Journal of Performance as Research

Notes on Contributors

PARtake Journal — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0700

Returning to the Stairs

Annette Arlander — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0700

This digital media exploration consists of the video “Returning to the Stairs” (20 min.) made in 2020 and a short text discussing the work in terms of temporality and a possible relationship to cinematic self-portraiture, based on a voice-over narration performed live as an accompaniment to the video.

The Theatrical Act Remains: A Performance Review of 'The Cherry Orchard'

Melissa Sturges — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0700

Non-Actor as Performer

Clara Kundin — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0700

As interactive theater becomes more popular, two recent productions at Arizona State University took this trend to a new level by placing a non-actor on the stage to be integrated into the performance, watched by the rest of the audience. In Healing Wars, created by Liz Lerman and directed and choreographed by Keith Thompson, a non-actor was brought into the company to perform each night as the Vet. In Sojourn Theatre’s Don’t Go, co-directed by Michael Rohd and Nik Zaleski, four new non-actors were chosen for each show and integrated into the performance. The use of non-actor as performer was designed to create a distancing effect in each show between performance and reality, but the method of integration between non-actor and production was unique, resulting in radically different audience reactions.

Artistic Research and Assessment

Beth Loughran — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0700

This article uses a reflexive, autoethnographic, and explanatory approach to suggesting assessment design for practical performing arts in higher education. Focusing on the communication of critical accounts of practice, rather than the assessment of practice itself, the idea considers how to create equitable opportunities to excel amid mixed-level starting points upon entry to the university. Imagining an “art first” environment that views assessment activity as a moment of knowledge transmission, this working example is supported by the history of Artistic Research and Practice-Research, given the basis in knowledge transmission and documentation. The idea around critical accounts of practice is driven by a desire to clear more time and space for practice as it exists as an artform in a necessarily time-based way, where skills and training are acquired over long periods of sustained practice. A case study is offered from the point of view of the author, based on the making of and featuring in Exhaustion V from The Exhaustion Series (2015-2018) by Sandy Williams IV, with the aim of providing example content for learning and assessment in this way.

Disruptive Collaboration in a Theatre of Radical Compassion

Jacob Buttry, Kristina Friedgen — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0700

Amid calls to rethink hierarchical structures in theatre and decolonize pedagogical, rehearsal and performance spaces, Jacob Buttry and Kristina Friedgen began to develop and explore a Theatre of Radical Compassion (TRC) as a philosophical approach to performance that centers relationship care within rehearsals and productions. As such, our initial application of TRC on a production of Everybody at Arizona State University proved successful in cultivating a space of encouragement, collaboration, and mutual respect that took root in productive and humanizing ways. This paper offers an account of how a primary focus on relationship care in rehearsal led to a productive and empowering space through collaboration and inclusive practices that ultimately led young artists to contribute more deeply to the interpretation of the play and to thereby exercise more ownership over the rehearsal process and product than they traditionally had experienced. We conclude that our rehearsal process for Everybody employed an intentional gathering of diverse perspectives in the rehearsal room, a collaborative method of artistic creation, and designated times of playful exploration, resulting in positive outcomes for company members such as inclusive representation of experiences in the final production, collective ownership of the creative output, and mutual growth for company members.

Re-Imagining Commedia as An Antiracist Practice through 'The Artful Token'

Jordan Rosin — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0700

This essay considers the opportunities and limitations of Contemporary Commedia as an antiracist / anti-oppressive form of theatre and the role of a director-as-facilitator in relationship to Lecoq’s actor-creator through reflection on a practice-as-research project: devising an “Antiracist Commedia for Zoom” with undergraduate students at an American university. Blending The Ume Group’s Devising Methodology, Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process, Theatrical Intimacy Education Best Practices, aspects of Black Acting Methods/Hip Hop Theatre and Nicole Brewer’s Antiracist Theatre principles, one can see a variety of paths for consent-forward, harm preventative approaches to devising and improvising in the traditionally free-wheeling territories of improvised comedy and satire. While challenging to assess dramaturgically, improvised or partially-improvised forms like commedia which emphasize the autonomy and agency of the actor may actually help to create space for much-needed focus on mental health, harm prevention, and the explication of antiracist or other philosophical statements of belief around which a devised theatrical project can revolve and an ensemble can cohere. Consent-forward approaches, improvisation, and an expanded role for the actor-creator may demand a shift in the role of the director from auteur to facilitator, for which shift change theories such as Emergent Strategy may be well suited to support.

What To Perform When You're Expecting

Elizabeth Ricardo — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0700

This article reflects on two pregnancies spent in the rehearsal room and the academy. I reflect on my experiences in order to explore the institutional pressures and limitations placed on pregnant women and the ideological underpinnings of those pressures. It serves in part as a confessional and in part as an attempt to provoke conversations about the treatment of pregnant bodies in the theater. By folding together my own reflections on the ways I performed pregnancy and the ways I performed while pregnant with research from the social sciences on the ways in which institutions frame pregnancy as an illness, I hope to suggest possibilities toward reframing some of the discourse around pregnancy in the rehearsal room and the academy.

A Flashmob as a Case Study for a Methodology within Group Artistic Creation (MGAC)

Telma João Santos — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0700

In this paper a methodology within Group Artistic Creation (MGAC) is introduced as an artistic-led proposal through a case study, the Performance-Flashmob Peace Parade. This methodology is based on choreographic proposals, debate, performance techniques and practices based on a democracy of experiences that promotes dynamic and open ways of knowledge making. Peace Parade was developed between March and September 2018 and premiered at São João’s fair in Évora, Portugal, June 22, 2018, in a co-production with Évora’s City Council and the Center of Art History and Artistic Research from the University of Évora, joining a philharmonic band, the author and 17 actual and former students of Arts School - University of Évora, Portugal.

Doki Doki Literature Club

Peter Spearman — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0700

Initially released in 2017, Doki Doki Literature Club (DDLC) intentionally deceives, pretending to be an unremarkable Bishōjo or Japanese dating simulator, but as players progress through the story, they encounter a series of violent glitches that reveal the game’s true identity as a surreal horror experience taking place within the player’s computer. To stop the violence, players must delete certain files that the game installs on their computer during installation.

In this article, I argue that DDLC makes the player’s relationship with technology weird and highlights the casual cruelty with which many treat others online. Uniting player testimonies with aesthetic analysis, I explore the ways that the game offers a complicated (and incomplete) playable critique of sexualized and racialized violence online.

Review of: Beyond Text: Learning Through Arts-Based Research

James Layton — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0700

Book review of: Beyond Text: Learning Through Arts-Based Research