Matching Items (6)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Theatre
- All Subjects: Liberation Theology
- Creators: Etheridge Woodson, Stephani
Description
Using arts-informed ethnographic approaches, theatrical techniques and a feminist/performance studies lens, this study analyzes the construction of US girlhood from the perspective of girls ranging in age from fourteen to seventeen by examining their original artistic creations and performances. Placing the artifacts of girl-created culture and the girls' representations, which I view as a performative practice, at the heart of my study, I connect girlhood studies to Butler's gender performance theories and to the larger field of performance studies. Rather than strictly analyzing these original works myself, I involve the girl participants as co-theorists in the analysis of the resulting artistic creations as a performance of girlhood. Through our theory building sessions, we aim to discover a nuanced understanding of girlhood and how gender identity can be performed by adolescent girls, as well as how artistic and theatrical practices can serve to assist youth in exploring complex issues. The adolescent female participants serve as active writers and performers of girlhood and through their writing and performances demonstrate their understanding of what it means to be a girl in contemporary US society. In viewing the girls as theorists, I demonstrate their capabilities while honoring their experiences and knowledge, an approach I believe should be more often employed in academia and in everyday life. Specifically, my study's central research question asks: how do US girls consume mass media representations of girlhood and reproduce or subvert these representations? In what ways do girls perform their understandings of their own identities and what it means to be a girl in contemporary US society through their creations of original art and literature, live theatrical pieces, and digital cultural practices? These works include theatrical performances, creative writing, self-portrait sculptures, and blogs/journals. Additionally, I conduct and analyze both solo and group interviews. I assert the importance of creative space and theatrical/artistic practices as tools with which girls can examine and challenge girlhood and gender discourses.
ContributorsMinarsich, Teresa (Author) / Etheridge Woodson, Stephani (Thesis advisor) / Saldana, Johnny (Committee member) / Melo, Carla (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This research study examines the interaction between youth queer narratives and young people through examining my core research question, How do young people engage, interpret, and respond to queer narratives? Applying a feminist narrative analysis to examine the qualitative data, I propose a methodological research shift where the voices of youth are valued as content experts; an artistic shift that moves content-creation away from a top down traditional media model and towards a youth-centered new media approach for art making; an aesthetic shift away from over-used stereotypes, tropes, and stale representations and instead innovate to represent intersectional, spectrum-based diversity of the LGBTQ+ experience.
This qualitative research study utilizes questionnaires, focus groups, and case study interviews, to engage adolescent perceptions of queer narratives. The youth, ranging in ages from 15 to 18 years old and living in the Phoenix, Arizona metro area, explore and examine LGBTQ+ themes, characters, plots in traditional and new media.
My dissertation examines youth interactions with queer narratives through three chapters. These address themes of: character, identity, and representation; plot and the search for accuracy; and the symbiotic exchange between narrative and community. Throughout the dissertation, young people analyze narratives, reflect on their own lives, and envision the future of youth queer narrative. The youth describe a move away from traditional media and towards new media platforms with user-created content, social network interaction, and the sharing of common experiences with peers. Finally, I examine the implications of both the research findings and the methodology on the future of youth-engaged qualitative research, as well as the performing arts.
This qualitative research study utilizes questionnaires, focus groups, and case study interviews, to engage adolescent perceptions of queer narratives. The youth, ranging in ages from 15 to 18 years old and living in the Phoenix, Arizona metro area, explore and examine LGBTQ+ themes, characters, plots in traditional and new media.
My dissertation examines youth interactions with queer narratives through three chapters. These address themes of: character, identity, and representation; plot and the search for accuracy; and the symbiotic exchange between narrative and community. Throughout the dissertation, young people analyze narratives, reflect on their own lives, and envision the future of youth queer narrative. The youth describe a move away from traditional media and towards new media platforms with user-created content, social network interaction, and the sharing of common experiences with peers. Finally, I examine the implications of both the research findings and the methodology on the future of youth-engaged qualitative research, as well as the performing arts.
ContributorsWaldron, Andrew (Author) / Etheridge Woodson, Stephani (Thesis advisor) / Hunt, Kristin (Thesis advisor) / Saldana, Johnny (Committee member) / Hughes, Erika (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
My project maps assets of welcome in the built environment in youth performing arts spaces. What signifiers reveal how a physical space conceptualizes the child, reflects professed theological claims, and cues youth to practice ownership and experience belonging? I explore the cultural capital that emerges from the sites and I assert theological implications of the findings. Through mixed qualitative, quantitative, and arts-based methods, I employ asset-based and cultural mapping tools to collect data. I parse theories of space, race, and capital. Half of the ten sites are faith-based; others make room for practices that participants bring to the table. Therefore, I discuss theologies and theories about racialized, religious, public, and arts spaces. My research shows that one ethnographic task for the arts groups is unearthing and embedding neighborhood legacy. I source fifty-six written youth questionnaires, forty youth in focus groups, staff questionnaires, parent interviews, and observations across fourteen months at ten sites. Interpreting the data required that I reconceive multiple terms, including “youth dedicated,” “partnership,” and art itself. The research codes spatial, relational, economic, temporal, and comfort-level assets. Observed assets include strategies for physical safety, gender inclusivity, literary agility, entrepreneurship, advocacy, and healing. Analyzing data showed the sites as conceptualizing the child in three change-making areas: the Child as Hungry, the Child as Village, and the Child as Visible. The Child as Hungry emerged because participants self-report myriad “feeding” physically, spiritually, and artistically at each site. Youth participants at each site maintain a Village presence, and each site offers a manner of gathering space that signifies Village responsibility. Each site carves space to witness the child, contrastingly with other spheres—so much so that being a Visible Child becomes a craft itself, added alongside the fine art. Child theology is the primary theoretical lens that I use to contribute to and intersect with performance studies theory, critical race theory, child drama, and childhood studies.
ContributorsTrent, Tiffany (Author) / Etheridge Woodson, Stephani (Thesis advisor) / Gomez, Alan E (Committee member) / Ellis Davis, Sharon (Committee member) / Carnes, Natalie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Only in the world of acting can an individual be denied a job simply on the basis of their appearance, and in my thesis, I sought to explore alternatives to this through the concept of nontraditional casting and casting against "type", which included the presentation of a full-length production of the musical "Once on this Island" which I attempted to cast based on vocal quality and skill alone rather than taking physical characteristics into account. I researched the history and implementation of nontraditional casting, both in regards to race and other factors such as gender, socio-economic status, and disability. I also considered the legal and intellectual property challenges that nontraditional casting can pose. I concluded from this research that while nontraditional casting is only one solution to the problem, it still has a great deal of potential to create diversity in theater. For my own show, I held the initial auditions via audio recording, though the callback auditions were held in person so that I and my crew could appraise dance and acting ability. Though there were many challenges with our cast after this initial round of auditions, we were able to solidify our cast and continue through the rehearsal process. All things said, the show was very successful. It is my hope that those who were a part of the show, either as part of the production or the audience, are inspired to challenge the concept of typecasting in contemporary theater.
ContributorsBriggs, Timothy James (Author) / Yatso, Toby (Thesis director) / Dreyfoos, Dale (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
In the United States, we tend to understand linguistic systems as separate and autonomous, and by this understanding, bilinguals are people who speak two different languages and switch between them. This understanding of bilingualism, however, does not reflect the reality of the way many bilinguals use language. Rather than “code-switch” between two languages, sociolinguists posit that many bilinguals understand their language as a single linguistic system, and choose different elements of that system in different situations, a process termed, “translanguaging.” Translanguaging provides an alternative framework for examining bilingual language as an ideological system in plays, particularly plays which use translanguaged dialogue to describe the experiences of young people who dwell on and cross borders, a category of plays I term, “Border Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA).” This descriptive study utilizes grounded theory and close reading theoretically grounded in border studies and sociolinguistic theory to determine what roles Spanish and English play in Border TYA as autonomous systems, and as pieces of a new, translanguaged system. Playwrights of Border TYA u translanguaging as a structural metaphor for cultural negotiation to examine identity, belonging, and borders. Translanguaging provides subaltern characters a process for communicating their experiences, examining their identities, and describing encounters with borders in their own unique linguistic system. Border TYA, however, does not exclusively translanguage. Border TYA also incorporates monolingual dialogue and translation, and in these instances the languages, Spanish and English, function autonomously as tools for teaching audience members to recognize vocabulary and cultural experience.
ContributorsSchildkret, Elizabeth (Author) / Etheridge Woodson, Stephani (Thesis advisor) / Underiner, Tamara (Committee member) / Garcia, Lorenzo (Committee member) / Bernstein, Katherine (Committee member) / Hughes, Erika (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Predominantly White arts colleges in the United States, like many other institutions around the country, need equitable leadership frameworks that center Black and Brown students. This project is a response to that demand. The purpose of this dissertation is to develop a BIPOC equity coalition in an Arts college at a Predominantly White Institution (PWI). The choice to utilize an autoethnographic research design was based on the researcher’s lifelong work in social justice and equity. Additionally, the choice to utilize Black-centered storytelling was due to the researcher’s identity as a Black male who has a company devoted to social justice activism. The research questions for this dissertation are: 1) How does one develop a diverse equity coalition that is BIPOC-centered within a Predominantly White arts college? and 2) What leadership roles must be in place in order to develop a diverse equity coalition that is BIPOC-centered, within a Predominantly White arts college? The data sources for this dissertation are meeting notes, Facebook call for action, letter of demand, and reflective journal process. The data from this year-long experience was analyzed to describe the steps needed to develop a BIPOC equity coalition. The steps included a call to action on social media, listening sessions, formation of the coalition, development of guiding principles, and action steps taken throughout the academic year. Additionally, data revealed that roles such as having a seat at the table with administrators, and having the power of a job and a title within the arts school influenced the success of the coalition’s actions throughout the academic year. The first three chapters of the dissertation present the theoretical frameworks supporting the equity coalition. Chapter 4 and 5 presents findings and answers to research question 1 and 2.
ContributorsMcGilvery, Donta (Author) / Etheridge Woodson, Stephani (Thesis advisor) / Alhassan, Shamara (Committee member) / Tepper, Steven (Committee member) / Belgrave, Melita (Committee member) / Stewart Sr, Warren (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021