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Description
My dissertation topic engages in the trajectory of Roma/Gitano culture and flamenco and its implications for Chicanx culture in New Mexico. New Mexicans have the reputation amongst US Chicanx as referring to themselves as Hispanic and aligning culturally with a Spanish sensibility. Historically in the larger US Chicanx community this type of popularity for flamenco would be described as typical of New Mexico’s wavering Chicanidad that yearns to be connected to a Spanish colonial past more than to its indigenous Mexican roots. However, I believe the reality is a bit different. What makes New Mexican Chicanx different from the larger US Chicanx community is that they utilize flamenco and its Gitano roots as a cultural example of their Chicanidad. There is scant research on how Chicanidad as a historical movement has been influenced by the flamenco culture that exists in New Mexico. This dissertation will begin a conversation that places flamenco and the precarious identity of Chicanx, Gitanos and Nuevomejicanos in dialogue through the body, the art form, and the cultural stylings of flamenco rooted in the Flamenco Festival Internacional de Albuquerque (FFI).
ContributorsAcevedo-Ontiveros, Erica (Author) / Underiner, Tamara (Thesis advisor) / Bowditch, Rachel (Committee member) / Hayes, Michelle H (Committee member) / Lopez, Tiffany A (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
In May 2014, The Encyclopedia Show: Chicago performed its last volume. Like all others before, the Show was a collection of performances devised by artists, musicians, poets and playwrights all performing various subtopics surrounding a central theme, taken from “an actual Encyclopedia.” The final show was Volume 56 for Chicago; the founding city ended their six year run with an amassed body of work exploring topics ranging from Wyoming to Alan Turing, Serial Killers to Vice Presidents.
Perhaps more impressive than the monthly performance event in Chicago is the fact that the show has been “franchised” to organizers and performers in at least seventeen cities. Franchise agreements mandated that for at least the first year of performance, topics were to follow Chicago’s schedule, thus creating an archive of Shows around the world, each that started with Bears, moved to The Moon, onto Visible Spectrum of Color, and so on.
Now that the Chicago show has ended, I wonder what will happen to the innovative format for community performance that has reached thousands of audience members and inspired hundreds of individual performances across the globe in a six-year period.
This project, like much of my own work, has two aims: first, to provide the first substantive history of The Encyclopedia Show for archival purposes; and second, to explore whether this format can be used to achieve the goals of “interdisciplinarity” in the classroom. In an effort to honor my own interests in multiple academic disciplines and in an attempt to capture the structural and performative “feel” of an Encyclopedia Show, this dissertation takes the shape of an actual Encyclopedia Show. The overarching topic of this “show” is: Michelle Hill: The Doctoral Process. In an actual Encyclopedia Show, subtopics would work to explore multiple perspectives and narratives encompassed by the central topic. As such, my “subtopics” are devoted to the roles I have played throughout my doctoral process: historian, academic, teacher. A fourth role, performer, works to transition between the sections and further create the feel of a “breakage” from a more traditional dissertation.
Perhaps more impressive than the monthly performance event in Chicago is the fact that the show has been “franchised” to organizers and performers in at least seventeen cities. Franchise agreements mandated that for at least the first year of performance, topics were to follow Chicago’s schedule, thus creating an archive of Shows around the world, each that started with Bears, moved to The Moon, onto Visible Spectrum of Color, and so on.
Now that the Chicago show has ended, I wonder what will happen to the innovative format for community performance that has reached thousands of audience members and inspired hundreds of individual performances across the globe in a six-year period.
This project, like much of my own work, has two aims: first, to provide the first substantive history of The Encyclopedia Show for archival purposes; and second, to explore whether this format can be used to achieve the goals of “interdisciplinarity” in the classroom. In an effort to honor my own interests in multiple academic disciplines and in an attempt to capture the structural and performative “feel” of an Encyclopedia Show, this dissertation takes the shape of an actual Encyclopedia Show. The overarching topic of this “show” is: Michelle Hill: The Doctoral Process. In an actual Encyclopedia Show, subtopics would work to explore multiple perspectives and narratives encompassed by the central topic. As such, my “subtopics” are devoted to the roles I have played throughout my doctoral process: historian, academic, teacher. A fourth role, performer, works to transition between the sections and further create the feel of a “breakage” from a more traditional dissertation.
ContributorsHill, Michelle (Author) / Etheridge Woodson, Stephani (Thesis advisor) / Linde, Jennifer (Committee member) / Early, Jessica (Committee member) / Underiner, Tamara (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Individual artists are capable of deeply impacting the communities in which they practice, leading to cultural development, exchange, and understanding. This impact is sometimes leveraged by nations as cultural diplomacy. Through the lens of cultural diplomacy, this document traces the development of Spanish dance in the Phoenix Valley from 1947 through the end of the 20th century by examining the careers of four international Spanish-dance artists who settled in Arizona; Adelino “Eddie” Fernandez, Lydia Torea, Laura Moya, and Dini Román. Each of these artists connected Arizona to a larger national and international dance community and their influence is felt to this day in the cultural diversity of the Phoenix Valley. The document concludes by describing the exhibit and performances that were built around this research and exploring how this research, and the author’s experience coalesce to reveal how Spanish dance––and more broadly percussive dance––is embraced in local culture, but sometimes experiences a marginalized status in post-secondary education. The author shares how ASU professors inspired her to advocate for inclusion of percussive dance in the Master of Fine Arts program, reveals the historical forces that influence its exclusion, shares personal experiences to illustrate the realities faced by dancers in the academy, and comes full circle in the realization that her advocacy, the positive change it enacted, and this very project are a direct result of these four artists’ influence and are examples of cultural diplomacy in action.
ContributorsChacon, Julie Elizabeth (Author) / Kaplan, Robert (Thesis advisor) / Underiner, Tamara (Committee member) / Roses-Thema, Cynthia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022