School Of Performing Arts Research Articles

“This is me”: Storytelling with students to reveal their mutual entanglements with the “kulturskole”

This video article illuminates what stories can be told about kulturskolen — Municipal Music and Performing Arts Schools in Norway — when pupils are the storytellers. The method is based in collaborative, long-term, performative work with a group of students in a particular kulturskole. These students Were asked to consider the question: “What does the phenomenon of the kulturskole do to us?” The primary researcher (Hauen) met with the students once per week for five months and produced videos, recordings, and notes in response to this question. Afterwards, she edited and cut the data in order to analyze the process, drawing on the work of Karen Barad and post-qualitative thinking. This resulted in three important findings, according to the students: togetherness, self- expression, and “perfor-managing.” In the video article, the students tell stories about how they develop these three elements, in the kulturskole and in the world. They ask how the kulturskole phenomenon is relevant to their everyday lives and how it helps them “to find peace and the right way,” as one of them raps in the article. In order to provide additional insight into the methodology of entanglement between researcher and participants (the students and their teacher), a concluding discussion follows the main video.

In Case You Haven't Heard…

Eleventh‐graders at a western Massachusetts high school have created their own lesson in mental health advocacy. An assignment from Pioneer Valley Performing Arts School history teacher Gary Huggett has grown into an effort to convince Massachusetts state legislators to pass a bill establishing a mandatory mental health staffing ratio serving grades K–12, Spectrum News 1 reported. Students in Huggett's civic action class reported seeing themselves and their peers dealing with issues of anxiety and depression, and they are backing a Senate bill that would require Massachusetts schools to employ at least one mental health expert for every 250 enrolled students. “They all had somewhat personal stakes that drew them to the topic, so they thought, ‘What can we do to address mental health awareness in schools that will actually live beyond our little project?’” Huggett said of his students.

From the Wings to the Stage and Beyond: Performance Anxiety and Flow in UK Vocational Dance Students

ABSTRACT Professional dancers have described high levels of performance anxiety while also experiencing flow on stage. However, such research tends to capture one period of time in the performance experience and rarely focuses on vocational dance students. The current study samples vocational dance students at a UK performing arts school and captures their cognitive, somatic, and emotional experiences from pre- to post-performance. Eleven interviews were conducted with female students aged between 15 and 17 years. Thematic analysis was employed and three themes identified: Facilitative and Debilitative Anxiety in the Wings, Constructions of Anxiety and Flow on Stage, and After the Show; the Highs and the Lows. Findings produced an understanding of the psychological journey from pre- to post-performance. Students have the potential to manipulate their cognitions to facilitate flow suggesting that dance schools can implement psychological techniques to manage anxiety and increase flow, thus enhancing well-being and performance.

A Scientific Expedition: Koyandy Fair and its Impact on the Development of Kazakh Traditional Culture

The purpose of the article is to study the legacy of the Koyandy fair and its impact on the development of traditional Kazakh culture. The research is based on the scientific expedition results collected by the authors of this work during the field trip to Karkaralinsk (Karaganda region, Kazakhstan). The work studies the history of one of the largest fairs in Kazakhstan - the Koyandy fair, which was functioned from the second half of the XIX- the up to the beginning of the XX century territory Kazakhstan. The Koyandy fair had a significant impact on the spread of the popularity among the broad masses of the works of Kazakh artists. The renowned Kazakh folk composers such as Ukili Ybray, Birzhan sal, Akhan-Sere, Estay, Tattimbet Kazangapuly, performers Amre Kashaubaev, Maira Ualikizi, Isa Bayzakov, wrestlers Kazhymukan Munaitpasov and Balauan Sholak performed at the fair. It is essential to mention that the fair was a trading place and a site for a regional art festival's conduction. The Koyandy fair was a place for exchanging and interacting with different types, genres, and traditions of diverse performing arts schools.

Collaboration despite the tyranny of distance

ABSTRACT In his influential book, historian Geoffrey Blainey coined the term The Tyranny of Distance (1982) as a descriptor that continues to influence the psyche. For the first time in 2019, the three leading performing arts schools in Australia approached the design for the student exhibition at the Prague Quadrennial (PQ) as a collaborative project. The theme of isolation and its influence on current Australian politics shaped not only the conception and development, but also the curation and realisation of the exhibition. The student exhibition presented the opportunity to explore the creation of a site-specific installation but required the navigation of distance in conception and realisation as installation of the various elements could only occur once on site in Prague. Distance also needed to be negotiated between cohorts, timelines and requirements of the different institutions. The tyranny of delayed international shipping was overcome, as with all other obstacles, by the application of a distinctly Australian sense of humour in the formation of a temporary installation – ShippingWrecked – to hold our place until the full exhibition arrived. PQ presents the opportunity to overcome our physical isolation but also test the benefits that isolation extends to our artistic practice.

Roots to Routes

Presented as a retrospective dialogue between the two co-authors, this essay highlights the history of the National Dance Theatre Company (NDTC), and the Visual and Performing Arts School of Dance, Edna Manley College (EMCVPA). The essay traces the post-independence evolution of modern dance in Jamaica. Furthermore, it examines the intersections, the respective roles, functions and contributions of the two major institutions which have shaped Jamaica’s distinctive, modern dance teaching and public performances. By concentrating on their lived experiences, the co-authors explore themes of identity, educational modern dance’s history and philosophies, and Jamaican dance’s cultural and aesthetic dimensions. Finally, the essay invites a reimagining of the Caribbean contemporary dance which values folk, traditional and popular dance as sources for art and scholarship.

People with dementia as ‘spect-actors’ in a musical theatre group with performing arts students from the community

A collaborative music and drama therapy initiative with performing arts students and people with dementia yielded an innovative framework. Twelve people with dementia residing in a nursing home and twelve students from a performing arts school took part in two consecutive groups (6 residents and 6 students in each group). Each group was 10 sessions long. The groups were co-facilitated by a music therapist and a drama therapist. A qualitative research embracing action research ideas was used, and content analysis of all written documents revealed three major categories: (1) Combining music and drama expanded the emotional and creative modes of expression for people with dementia, (2) The supporting engagement of performing arts students helped people with dementia to play an active role in the musical-dramatic space, and (3) The joint framework enabled people with dementia to participate as actors in the final performance of an auto-biographical therapeutic theatre. Promoting modes of creative self-expression for people with dementia is important when autonomy is gradually lost with the progression of the disease. A new perspective of viewing people with dementia as ‘spect-actors’, moving from spectators to actors, contributes to various aspects of autonomy, such as mastery, dignity and independence.

Descriptive Analysis of the System for Observing Dance Activities in the Classroom Environment (SODANCE)

ABSTRACT Dance as physical activity (PA) is underinvestigated, with little information about artistic technical dance in public schools. This study aimed to use the System for Observing Dance Activities in the Classroom Environment (SODANCE) instrument to report PA levels, time spent in moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA), time spent in different lesson contexts, and frequency of teacher promotion of activity. Four different secondary (Grades 6–12) dance technique classes at a public performing arts school were each observed four times using the SODANCE instrument. Students engaged in MVPA 39.82 percent of the time. Percentages spent in SODANCE lesson contents were: management, 9.53 percent; knowledge, 22.29 percent; fitness, 6.94 percent; technique, 44.04 percent; choreography, 17.19 percent; and other, 0.0 percent. Percentages of teacher interaction were: promotes in-class activity, 27.67 percent; promotes out-of-class activity, 0.27 percent; and no promotion, 72.06 percent. This suggests dance technique classes offer equitable MVPA to physical education classes, but are still short of national recommendations. Dance technique classes spend the majority of time engaged in technique and choreography activities.

The Evaluation of Strength, Flexibility, and Functional Performance in the Adolescent Ballet Dancer During Intensive Dance Training

Adolescent ballet dancers have a higher incidence of injury than adult professional dancers. It is unclear which factors, including biomechanical changes related to intense dance training and/or the growth process itself, contribute to increased injury risk in this population. To assess changes in strength, flexibility, and functional performance in adolescent ballet dancers during a summer intensive dance program. Prospective cohort study. Performing arts school in a suburb of Massachusetts. A convenience sample of 58 male and female ballet dancers, 12 to 17 years old, was enrolled. One dancer did not have functional testing due to injury, but strength and range of motion results were included. Paired sample t-test was used to evaluate changes in (1) strength: lower abdominal muscle strength evaluated by the Kendall double leg lowering test; (2) flexibility: passive range of motion in hip extensibility, hip internal rotation, hip external rotation, hip turnout, and ankle dorsiflexion; and (3) functional athletic and dance assessment: the star excursion balance test (SEBT), vertical jump test, and dance technique performing demi-plié and passé dance positions. Change in strength, flexibility, and functional dance measurements pre- and postsummer intensive dance training. Lower abdominal strength testing improved 11° on the Kendall test (P < .001); lower extremity passive flexibility was reduced in all tested ranges bilaterally. Dance technique, in performing demi-plié and passé dance positions, improved. More dancers demonstrated correct knee alignment during demi-plié (P < .001-.002) and hip alignment during plié (P = .01-.04). Dancers also had greater active hip turnout in first position passé of 2 to 3° (P = .02-.05). No significant change was found in functional athletic performance as measured by the SEBT and vertical jump test. Adolescent dancers in this study cohort who participated in a summer intensive dance program improved lower abdominal muscle strength as well as functional dance technique in demonstrating correct alignment performing demi-plié and passé dance positions despite a decrease in passive lower extremity range of motion. Further research is needed to clarify the role of these findings in training for young dancers in order to move forward injury prevention efforts. II.

«El castigo sin venganza», Conquering the Repertoire

The essay gives an account of all the stagings of Lope de Vega’s El castigo sin venganza, from its debut in 1632 to 2014, both in Spain and abroad. The representations of the piece are gathered in the both the professional and school fields, paying special attention to the productions in the Performing Arts Schools and universities. We analyse the signs that intervened in the most praised productions, from the cast to the scenery, costumes, music, text version and dramaturgical reading of the director, commenting on the circumstances of each premiere and its subsequent impact, as well as the critical apparatus that accompanied it. The study of the scenic fortune of this fundamental pillar of our Golden Era drama opens an interesting field of investigation that relates literary-dramatic text and theatrical praxis, and allows us a deeper understanding of the theatrical phenomenon as artistic expression and also as a product subject to the tastes of the public.

You in Five Acts by Una LaMarche

Reviewed by: You in Five Acts by Una LaMarche Karen Coats LaMarche, Una You in Five Acts. Razorbill, 2016 [336p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-10199-893-9 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-10199-895-3 $10.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 7-10 Joy’s determined to be one of the rare African-Americans who manages to be a principal dancer in a ballet company; Diego’s a dancer who’d give it all up to be with Joy; Ethan’s a budding playwright, but he’s really focused on Liv, an actress whose drama is playing out more offstage than on as she spirals into a devastating addiction to pills. Each character attending the racially and socioeconomically diverse performing arts school is developed through a multi-chapter, first-person section of his or her own, addressed to the significant “you” of their individual romantic interests, and each individual chapter ends with an ominous hint of some dire tragedy to come. The tragedy unfortunately is a cliché, and readers likely will [End Page 270] not be as sympathetic to Liv as the book seems to be, given that her addiction is both cause and catalyst of what takes place. As an obvious attempt to end on a redemptive note, Joy’s finale rings overly tidy and even somewhat flat given the depth and complexity of emotion throughout, but of course the sad truth is that life goes on and dreams get modified even when the saddest things happen. The emotionally manipulative consequence here is that they happen to the sweetest character, leaving less likable and more culpable characters unscathed. Readers who enjoy tangled relationship drama and tragic love stories may still appreciate the soapy twists, turns, and jetés. Copyright © 2017 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Performing Arts in the Zapata Swamp: A Legacy of the Cuban Revolution

The purpose of this conversation is to investigate the symbiotic framework governing art and the socionatural community where it grows and develops. Our case study will feature the unique binomial that we find in Cuba between a community arts institution (KORIMAKAO) and the unique ecosystemic, social and historical environment that propels life and meaning to the project since 1992 (the municipality of Cienaga de Zapata, about 180 kilometers south of Havana). Korimakao, with its twenty-four years of experience bringing art and aesthetic sensibility to the remotest population pockets of Cuba, aims to become pioneer Centre of Caribbean and Latin American Communitarian Art. In the language of the first Siboney nomadic inhabitants of the Zapata Swamp, 'Kori' means man and 'Macao' the arthropod that takes refuge in the shells of certain mollusks. There we go, Korimakao, a semisedentary living organism, fusion performing arts school (theater, dance, music) consisting of over 80 young artists, who every summer during the months of July and August, and not unlike Lorca’s legendary La Barraca travelling theatre, take their backpacks and their idiosyncratic stagings on a tour across the eighteen communities that make up the Zapata Swamp, delving into the identitarian and ecological roots of their beholders.

Neck Pain in a Performing Arts Student

HISTORY: 24-year old female operatic student at a performing arts school with history of C5-6 left paracentral disc protrusion presented with worsening left-sided neck pain that began 1 day after a low impact motor vehicle accident (MVA). At the visit she denied any upper extremity tingling, numbness or weakness. She denied headaches, head injury or symptoms of concussion. PHYSICAL EXAM: She had full active range of motion of her cervical spine but some left-sided neck discomfort with right lateral flexion and rightward rotation. Her C-spine was tender in the midline at C7. Spurling’s was negative and upper and lower extremity neurological exams were normal. DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS: 1. Cervical disk pathology (worsened from previous) 2. Cervical muscle strain/soft tissue sprain 3. Bony injury TESTS AND RESULTS: Cervical spine AP, lateral flexion and extension views: Normal MRI Cervical spine 1. Concentric T1 hyperintense signal involving the left vertebral artery at the C5-6 level suspicious for focal dissection with intramural hematoma 2. Small left paracentral disc protrusion, largely unchanged from prior study MRA: Vertebral artery dissection at the V2 level with intramural hematoma and <33% artery narrowing MRI Brain obtained to evaluate for occult stroke: normal FINAL WORKING DIAGNOSIS: Traumatic left vertebral artery dissection TREATMENT AND OUTCOME: 1. Started on oral aspirin, discharged to outpatient follow up 2. At follow up 1 week later, MRA showed worsening vertebral artery dissection with concern for complete occlusion 3. CTA ordered to further assess artery lumen, confirmed that artery was not completely occluded 4. Admitted and started on IV anticoagulation; discharged on rivaroxaban 5. Currently restricted from dance and any vigorous activities or exercise, will reassess activity level at 3mo follow up with Neurology

Family Matter

Family Matter Alex Poppe (bio) I’m pretty sure I could kill someone if I had to. Fico says I’d pussy out, but he complains about ball-sag and he’s only fifteen, so what does he know? I’ll check his palms the next time I see him, which will be in about two minutes. He likes to raid our kitchen after school. Three–two–one. That’s Fico knocking on the kitchen patio door before he slides it open. He thinks the knock shows he has manners. He beelines for the cabinets and fishes out something his mom won’t buy him. Today it’s a can of Pringles. When he rips off the foil seal and smiles so that his vampire tooth shows, I know exactly what he looked like when he was four. Your child-self shows when you’re doing something purely joyful. Fico’s child-self shows when he’s performing or about to eat something he shouldn’t. I’ve known him since he was nine and I was ten, and his mom started talking to my dad about preadolescent junk food consumption in the checkout line at Jewel. Her version of flirting. Fico was petting a box of Twinkies in our shopping cart and I was scratching my mosquito bites until they bled. Fico and I got to talking because we were both there. Turned out he lived three streets away. Not a lot has changed since then, except now he’s at the performing arts school and I’m at the regular high school, which means I get out earlier than he does and have way more free time. Fico’s first name is Frank, but no one calls him that. My name is Nastasia, but I want everyone to call me Nastia like the girls on my dance squad do. My mom had a big girl-crush on Nastassja Kinski, so that’s where the name comes from. That’s all I know about my mom. That, and she left. No stories. No pictures. I used to joke with Dad that he invented her, but he’d get so quiet I stopped. No one likes father-sulking. Dad’s heart is a cabinet of a thousand little drawers, each one stuffed shut and locked. I wait for Fico to lick all the potato chip crumbs off his fingers before I take his hand, palm-up, in mine. He’s close enough for me to smell his sour cream and onion breath. “What are you doing?” “Reading your palm.” [End Page 545] Fico focuses on my right eye. “What are you really doing?” He swears the one eye changes from gray to brown when I lie. “Checking for calluses. I don’t want you to have ball cancer.” The truth is I can’t afford to lose Fico. He’s the second most important person in my life. “What do calluses have to do with it?” “Maybe your balls are saggy because maybe you jerk off too much. Calluses are a giveaway.” “That’s an urban myth.” “Maybe they don’t sag at all. Maybe you have high standards combined with low self-esteem. Maybe you should let me check.” When Fico and I were kids, we used to practice kissing until a bee stung him on his bottom lip, turning it red and puffy. “That’s okay.” Fico’s right hand checks how poochy his belly is before he heads back to the cabinets. “Don’t be such a pussy. C’mon. I’m being a generous friend here.” He pulls out a package of Oreos and starts unscrewing cookie tops. “You can check my breast. Tit for sac.” “Got milk?” “Right here.” I Scarlett-Johanssonize my voice as I lower my gaze and thrust my chest forward. Fico spits crumbs as he laughs. Neither of us take my flat-as-a-board chest seriously. If Mom had big ones, at least I’d have hope. But it’s not like I can ask. “Hey, Pops, was Mom a meal or a mouthful?” Fico stacks three Oreo tops and shoves them into his mouth. After he swallows, each tooth...

Attitudes and Practices that Shape Children's Drawing Behaviour in Mainstream and Performing Arts Schools

AbstractPrevious research shows that key parties involved in children's drawing perceive the value and benefits of art and drawing very differently. However such research has been restricted to the examination of children attending mainstream schooling across the UK. The present study therefore compared the views and practices of key parties involved in mainstream and performing arts educational contexts. Teachers and children were interviewed and parents completed a postal survey. Some 225 children, 115 of their teachers and 176 of their parents and carers formed the mainstream school group whilst 180 children, 42 of their teachers and 145 of their parents and carers formed the performing arts school group. Main findings indicated that pupils', parents' and teachers' views about the benefits, and how to support drawing behaviour at school and at home, varied across contrasting educational contexts. In particular, pupils attending arts‐based schools and their teachers valued expressivity over technical support, pupils reported enjoying drawing more, had higher self efficacy and foresaw engaging in the activity beyond their school years more than their mainstream counterparts. The results suggest that mainstream educational contexts could foster drawing behaviour and the related emotional benefits to a greater extent.

Seeing futures in ballet: the storylines of four student ballet dancers

This paper explores the storylines of four student ballet dancers who attend a specialist performing arts secondary school and who, in differing ways, envisage futures which ‘look straight at ballet’. When decisions about schooling intermingle with long-held imaginings of futures in ballet, thought is provoked about ways the young adolescents embody and express notions of becoming. A Deleuzian lens is employed to explore assemblages of the self through the deterritorialisation that is provoked when unforeseen images emerge and imaginings are challenged. The data discussed in this paper include interview transcripts and pictures participants have drawn of themselves. The analysis uses notions of rhizomatic becoming and positions students' decision-making in oscillation between deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation as new languages make sense of how a future in ballet is configured from different perspectives. Themes of being in love with ballet and identities of dancers/non-dancers are negotiated through the data. As talented ballet students are compelled to move away from schooling in order to move closer to their future, concepts of schooling are problematised. Understandings of rhizomatic structures offer insight into the working out of desires, particularly in the context of a specialist performing arts school.

Building with blocks

After 15 years at the fringes of the educational establishment DasArts, the renowned performing arts school in Amsterdam, is about to embark on a new phase as a Master of Theatre programme. This essay explores and examines not only the school's unique qualities, but also its commonalities with other alternative arts education initiatives: great moments in history that have created new scenarios for the production and communication of artistic knowledge. These are the reflections of an insider, closely involved in the school's creation and development at the side of its visionary first director Ritsaert ten Cate, wondering what will come of DasArts' ideal of reaching out beyond specialisms, beyond hierarchies and beyond the separation of art and everyday life, now that its days of self-determination have passed.

Staging the Asian Modern: Cultural Fragments, the Singaporean Eunuch, and the Asian Lear

771 An early version of this essay was presented at the International ConsumAsian Workshop on Intra-Asian Cultural Traffic, University of Western Sydney, Australia, 24–26 February 2000. Thanks to Beth Helsinger, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Chris Connery, Lee Weng Choy, Chua Beng Huat, Tay Tong, Lee Chee Keng, Lucy Davis, the late Kuo Pao Kun, Ong Keng Sen, Ray Langenbach, Arjun Appadurai, Jean Comaroff, Tay Tong, Uchino Tadashi, and Charlene Rajendran for responses to the essay, and also to Ien Ang and the workshop’s participants. General discussions with Aihwa Ong, Don Nonini, and Pheng Cheah also helped. Krishen Jit and Marion d’Cruz maintain an enlightening and ongoing discussion on Malaysian and Singapore theater. Thanks too to Traslin Ong and Lucilla Teoh at TheatreWorks (Singapore) Ltd., and also to Wong Yen Yen of the Practice Performing Arts School. Finally, thanks to Brenda S. A. Yeoh and the staff at the former Centre for Advanced Studies, National University of Singapore, where the initial research was undertaken. A note on the usage of Japanese and Chinese names in the article: by and large, I put the family name first, following the custom of both cultures. The exception will be when a writer is better known by the inverted use of their names or when their publications use that order. Staging the Asian Modern: Cultural Fragments, the Singaporean Eunuch, and the Asian Lear

Reflexive Dialogues

This article outlines a reflexive, dialogical approach to evaluation in which lived experiences, meanings and underlying values become the subject of reflexive dialogues among as many interested people as possible in order to heighten their understanding. Dialogue is considered as an open, divergent conversation. In contrast to a persuasive dialogue, this type of dialogue builds on reflection, the willingness to pause in a conversation, to spend time and to explore more deeply what seems to be essential to the participants themselves. Narrative (versus argumentative) rationality informs this kind of dialogue. A case example illustrates the approach. It concerns a formative evaluation of an injury-prevention programme in two performing-arts schools. The case shows how art students in particular experience the pressures of performance. Getting students, teachers and (para) medical experts to engage in reading stories of each other's experience also raises issues pertinent not only to their personal and mutual understanding but also to the culture of the institution.

Case studies of music facilities in schools

Case studies of new music facilities in elementary through junior college school levels are presented with a focus on the design process. The study includes issues raised in establishing design criteria with architects and clients; acoustic space planning, organization, and other preliminary design issues; budget, design criterial, and material selection issues; acoustic models and prediction tools; background noise and noise control issues; sound system integration; constructed spaces and follow-up acoustical measurements; and client and user comments regarding the performance of the spaces. Each specific issue is presented within the context of built projects ranging in scope from elementary school practice rooms to a high school auditorium for a magnet performing arts school. The case studies present issues regarding the relationship between established acoustical design criteria, predict tools, architectural integrity, and budgetary constraints as determiners of successful spaces for listening.