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- Creators: Arizona State University
Description
The purpose of this project is to introduce Bryan Johanson's composition for two guitars, 13 Ways of Looking at 12 Strings, and present an authoritative recording appropriate for publishing. This fifty-minute piece represents a fascinating suite in thirteen movements. The author of this project performed both guitar parts, recorded them separately in a music studio, then mixed them together into one recording. This document focuses on the critical investigation and description of the piece with a brief theoretical analysis, a discussion of performance difficulties, and guitar preparation. The composer approved the use and the scope of this project. Bryan Johanson is one of the leading contemporary composers for the guitar today. 13 Ways of Looking at 12 Strings is a unique guitar dictionary that takes us from Bach to Hendrix and highlights the unique capabilities of the instrument. It utilizes encoded messages, glass slides, metal mutes, explosive "riffs," rhythmic propulsion, improvisation, percussion, fugual writing, and much more. It has a great potential to make the classical guitar attractive to wider audiences, not limited only to guitarists and musicians. The main resources employed in researching this document are existing recordings of Johanson's other compositions and documentation of his personal views and ideas. This written document uses the composer's prolific and eclectic compositional output in order to draw conclusions and trace motifs. This project is a significant and original contribution in expanding the guitar's repertoire, and it uniquely contributes to bringing forth a significant piece of music.
ContributorsSavic, Nenad (Author) / Koonce, Frank (Thesis advisor) / Rotaru, Catalin (Committee member) / McLin, Katherine (Committee member) / Feisst, Sabine (Committee member) / Landschoot, Thomas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This thesis explores the ways two contemporary artists engage the archive to challenge ideas calcified through visual culture. Steven Yazzie and Lorna Simpson respond to constructions of history through art making strategies and practices. Yazzie's photogravure Tsosido Sweep Dancer (2009) presents a carefully constructed image of a ceremony drawing on symbols of Indianness to provoke a critical dialogue that questions the role of the American Indian stereotype in the United States imaginary. Simpson's Counting (1991) is a multilayered work that juxtaposes text and image to address the capriciousness of memory, power and other issues found at the intersection of race and gender. These photography-based works draw on the histories of ethnographic and criminal photography to deconstruct the same knowledge that photography helped to construct. Throughout the thesis I examine the relationship of the photographic archive to colonial histories by considering whose history is represented through photography. These thoughtful and challenging artworks contribute to a growing body of work that proposes new narratives drawing on embodied knowledge and experience to create a counter-archive.
ContributorsWaitoller, Lekha Hileman (Author) / Malagamba-Ansótegui, Amelia (Thesis advisor) / Lineberry, Heather S (Committee member) / Mesch, Ulrike C (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Drawing from Foucault's notion of heterotopias, my dissertation identifies and examines three distinct but related events that resignified (re-imagined) Chile during 2010, the year of its Bicentenary, namely: the Rescue of the 33 Miners trapped in the San José mine, the Chilean Military Parade performed in celebration of Chilean Independence, and the Mapuche Hunger Strike of 32 indigenous people accused of terrorism by the Chilean State. My central hypothesis states that these three events constitute heterotopias with strong performative components that, by enacting a utopian and a dystopian nation, denounce the flaws of Chilean society. I understand heterotopias as those recursive systems that invert, perfect or contest the society they mirror. In other words: heterotopias are discursive constructions and material manifestations of social relations that dispute, support, or distort cultural assumptions, structures, and practices currently operating in the representational spaces of a given society. In addition to following the six heterotopological principles formulated by Foucault, these case studies have performance as the central constituent that defines their specificity and brings the heterotopias into existence. Due to the performative nature of these heterotopias, I have come to call them performance heterotopias, that is, sets of behaviors that enact utopias in the historical world, the place in which we live, the site in which "the erosion of our lives, our time and our history occurs," as Foucault puts it. Here, performance would act as the interface, the point of interaction, and suture between the conceived, the perceived and the representational spaces each heterotopia articulates. Thus, a performance heterotopia would be a particular type of heterotopia which is enacted through performance. A relevant aspect that emerged from my research is that heterotopic places not only mirror, contest, and compensate their own host society, but also refer to, and intersect with other contemporaneous heterotopias enacted in that society. In my conclusion I suggest that such interactions also happen between heterotopias that emerge in different countries and cultures. If so, the mapping of utopias enacted in the macro socio geographies of Latin American countries could offer new perspectives to understand the sociopolitical processes that are underway in the region.
ContributorsBravo Goldsmith, Néstor (Author) / Underiner, Tamara (Thesis advisor) / Melo, Carla (Committee member) / Foster, David W (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Traumas are moments which disrupt a way of being, often involving death or injury and a period of recovery for its survivors. They can be personal, experienced by an individual, or collective, experienced by a group of individuals, such as a family. Others, like the bombing of Hiroshima, impact much larger communities, such as an entire town, an entire nation, or even the world. These national traumas often include large-scale death or injury and impact the lives of thousands. In addition to their immediate physical and material affects (mortalities, economic impact, creating a need for aid), these events shatter not only an individual's sense of well- being, but also larger notions of national identity, stability and security. In many cases, they also reveal the limits of prevailing concepts of national cohesiveness, citizenship and belonging while often simultaneously upholding or reconstructing newly problematic concepts of national cohesion. Traumas are documented and grappled with through various media, including literature, poetry, art, photography, and journalism. This dissertation, "Performing Nation, Performing Trauma: Theatre and Performance after September 11th, Hurricane Katrina and the Peruvian Dirty War" examines how theatre and performance are utilized to respond to, document, memorialize and represent national traumas resulting from such historical crises as the Peruvian Dirty Wars, Hurricane Katrina, and September 11th, as well as how they resist dominant narratives that construct national traumas as such. These traumas are relived and expressed through performance perhaps precisely because the members of a nation (consciously or subconsciously) recognize that nation is also performed. This dissertation focuses on both the content of and the reception of these performances and the particular implications that performances about national traumas hold for theatre critics/scholars, performance practitioners and audience members (those immediately connected and not so obviously connected to the event).
ContributorsNigh, Katherine Jean (Author) / Underiner, Tamara (Thesis advisor) / Woodson, Stephani (Committee member) / Whitaker, Matthew C. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Bisexuality is a unique kind of sexual identity, as a gray area between heterosexuality and homosexuality. The piece You made up the Story and I Played with all the Parts explores bisexuality as a lived artistic experience based on my sexual journey within a society that advocates heterosexuality. The piece includes movement phrases and text derived from conversations with intimate partners, characters based on former partners, storytelling, a 1950s-style sex education video parody, and audience participation via dialogue. The creation of movement and dialogue manipulated heteronormative social stigmas into a canny social acceptance of bisexuality. The multifaceted nature of the piece provokes viewers to consider how sexuality is constructed socially through my own interpretation. As a result, the work suggests that bisexuality is a legitimate sexual identity and represents a culture within American society.
ContributorsBedford, Crystal (Author) / Corey, Frederick (Thesis advisor) / Dove, Simon (Thesis advisor) / Jackson, Naomi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Research has shown that the ability to smell is the most direct sense an individual can experience. With every breath a person takes, the brain recognizes thousands of molecules and makes connections with our memories to determine their composition. With the amount of research looking into how and why we smell, researchers still have little understanding of how the nose and brain process an aroma, and how emotional and physical behavior is impacted. This research focused on the affects smell has on a caregiver in a simulated Emergency Department setting located in the SimET of Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona. The study asked each participant to care for a programmed mannequin, or "patient", while performing simple computer-based tasks, including memory and recall, multi-tasking, and mood-mapping to gauge physical and mental performance. Three different aromatic environments were then introduced through diffusion and indirect inhalation near the participants' task space: 1) a control (no smell), 2) an odor (simulated dirty feet), and 3) an aroma (one of four true essential oils plus a current odor-eliminating compound used in many U.S. Emergency Departments). This study was meant to produce a stressful environment by leading the caregiver to stay in constant movement throughout the study through timed tasks, uncooperative equipment, and a needy "patient". The goal of this research was to determine if smells, and of what form of pleasantness and repulsiveness, can have an effect on the physical and mental performance of emergency caregivers. Findings from this study indicated that the "odor eliminating" method currently used in typical Emergency Departments, coffee grounds, is more problematic than helpful, and the introduction of true essential oils may not only reduce stress, but increase efficiency and, in turn, job satisfaction.
ContributorsClark, Carina M (Author) / Bernardi, Jose (Thesis advisor) / Heywood, William (Committee member) / Watts, Richard (Committee member) / Rosso, Rachel (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Japanese literature of the Heian Era (794-1185) abounds with references to musical instruments and episodes of performance. This thesis provides some insight into that music by translating sections of the "Wakana II" (Spring Shoots II) chapter of the early 11th-century novel Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji). It explains the musical references and shows how, in the context of the novel, musical performance, musical teaching, and interpersonal relationships were inextricably intertwined. Detailed appendices provide background on traditional Japanese musical instruments, musical theory, and related subjects.
ContributorsBotway, Lloyd (Author) / Creamer, John (Thesis advisor) / Chambers, Anthony (Committee member) / Solis, Theodore (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
"YouTube Shakespeares" is a study of Shakespeare online videos and the people who create, upload, and view them on YouTube. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, this work is a remix of theories and methodologies from literary, performance, (social) media, fan, and Internet studies that expands the field of Shakespeare studies. This dissertation explores the role of YouTube users and their activities, the expansion of literary research methods onto digital media venues, YouTube as site of Shakespeare performance, and YouTube Shakespeares' fan communities. It analyzes a broad array of Shakespeare visual performances including professional and user-generated mashups, remixes, film clips, auditions, and high school performances. A rich avenue for the study of people's viewing and reception of Shakespeare, YouTube tests the (un)limitations of Shakespeare adaptation. This work explores the ethical implications of researching performances that include human subjects, arguing that their presence frequently complicates common concepts of public and private identities. Although YouTube is a "published" forum for social interactivity and video repository, this work urges digital humanities scholars to recognize and honor the human users entailed in the videos not as text, but as human subjects. Shifting the study focus to human subjects demands a revision of research methods and publications protocols as the researcher repositions herself into the role of virtual ethnographer. "YouTube Shakespeares" develops its own ethics-based, online research method, which includes seeking Institutional Board Review approval and online interviews. The second half of the dissertation shifts from methodology to theorizing YouTube Shakespeares' performance spaces as analogs to the interactive and imaginary areas of Shakespeare's early modern theatre. Additionally, this work argues that YouTube Shakespeares' creators and commentators are fans. "YouTube Shakespeares" is one of the first Shakespeare-centric studies to employ fan studies as a critical lens to explore the cultural significance and etiquette of people's online Shakespeare performance activities. The work ends with a conversation about the issues of ephemerality, obsolescence, and concerns about the instability of digital and online materials, noting the risk of evidentiary loss of research materials is far outweighed by a scholarly critical registration of YouTube in the genealogy of Shakespeare performance.
ContributorsFazel, Valerie Margaret (Author) / Thompson, Ayanna (Thesis advisor) / Ryner, Bradley (Committee member) / Fox, Cora (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The integration of yoga into the music curriculum has the potential of offering many immediate and life-long benefits to musicians. Yoga can help address issues such as performance anxiety and musculoskeletal problems, and enhance focus and awareness during musical practice and performance. Although the philosophy of yoga has many similarities to the process of learning a musical instrument, the benefits of yoga for musicians is a topic that has gained attention only recently. This document explores several ways in which the practice and philosophy of yoga can be fused with saxophone pedagogy as one way to prepare students for a healthy and successful musical career. A six-week study at Arizona State University was conducted to observe the effects of regular yoga practice on collegiate saxophone students. Nine participants attended a sixty-minute "yoga for musicians" class twice a week. Measures included pre- and post- study questionnaires as well as personal journals kept throughout the duration of the study. These self-reported results showed that yoga had positive effects on saxophone playing. It significantly increased physical comfort and positive thinking, and improved awareness of habitual patterns and breath control. Student participants responded positively to the idea of integrating such a course into the music curriculum. The integration of yoga and saxophone by qualified professionals could also be a natural part of studio class and individual instruction. Carrie Koffman, professor of saxophone at The Hartt School, University of Hartford, has established one strong model for the combination of these disciplines. Her methods and philosophy, together with the basics of Western-style hatha yoga, clinical reports on performance injuries, and qualitative data from the ASU study are explored. These inquiries form the foundation of a new model for integrating yoga practice regularly into the saxophone studio.
ContributorsAdams, Allison Dromgold (Author) / Norton, Kay (Thesis advisor) / Hill, Gary (Committee member) / McAllister, Timothy (Committee member) / Micklich, Albie (Committee member) / Standley, Eileen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The indigenous communities of Chiapas, Mexico, have long manifested resistance to oppression and discrimination. This study centers on the analysis of Chiapas: el fin del silencio (1998) by Alberto Turok, connecting the work of the photographer to the problems faced by indigenous people in the region, such as inequality and marginalization. Race, class, gender, and globalization, in addition to the emergence of the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN), are essential factors to the discourse of resistance. EZLN, an armed indigenous group in Chiapas, led by its famed leader, Subcomandante Marcos, clearly opposed the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In examining resistance, ritual, and performance, the photography of Turok serves as testimony of the struggles of indigenous people and the relevance it has for a diverse Mexican society.
ContributorsArizmendi, Aaron (Author) / Foster, David W (Thesis advisor) / Tompkins, Cynthia (Committee member) / Rosales, Jesus (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012