Wide : a live, solo, participatory performance
department or school: Creative and Critical Studies, Faculty of (Okanagan)
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCO
creator: Cummings, Miriam Jessica
issued: 2024-05-30T21:42:01Z
issued: 2024
related degree: Master of Fine Arts - MFA
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: My thesis, WIDE, is a live, solo, participatory performance that asks: Where does the body end? WIDE tells the story of my dad’s sudden death while I was training to be an actor. The piece compares the performances we put on in everyday life—such as the need to perform that we’re ‘doing well’ in the face of grief—with the performances of actors on stage. ‘Wide’ refers to the wide open state of being required to connect with my dad beyond his lifetime; the same state is required of a stage actor. Grief, combined with academic and professional pressures, narrowed me. WIDE is a eulogy for my dad and an act of expansion intended to continue the relationship between him and me beyond his living body. In performance, my story becomes a metaphor for the expansion that the audience is invited to experience as well. The methodologies used to create WIDE are improvisation and discovery, informed by Mary Overlie’s Six Viewpoints and Tectonic Theater’s Moment Work, two techniques that offer practical tools for creating performance. Five performances total took place on campus between February 1-4, 2024, in the University Theatre, a proscenium theatre with 200 seats and a large, deep stage. The audience was seated in chairs on stage, in a circle. This ‘theatre in the round’ orientation placed the audience in a relationship to each other that highlighted the shared vulnerability of being seen and implicated the audience as participants, not spectators but ‘spect-actors’, a term coined by prolific participatory theatre maker and educator Augusto Boal. ‘Wide’ also refers to the wide open shape of the circle. As audience members step into the open space, they are encouraged to explore where their own bodies end. WIDE invites participants to experiment with sending their voice, presence, and actions beyond their bodies to reach their fellow spect-actors. WIDE asks: How far does the body go? In this support paper I reflect on the process of making WIDE, from initial inspiration to the…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/88395
note: WIDE: A LIVE, SOLO, PARTICIPATORY PERFORMANCE by Miriam Jessica Cummings B.F.A., Concordia University, 2013 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF FINE ARTS in THE COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Interdisciplinary Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan) May 2024 © Miriam Jessica Cummings, 2024 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the College of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a thesis entitled: WIDE: A LIVE, SOLO, PARTICIPATORY PERFORMANCE submitted by Miriam Jessica Cummings in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Fine Arts . Denise Kenney, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies Supervisor Tracy Ross, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies Supervisory Committee Member Michael V. Smith, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies Supervisory Committee Member Astrida Neimanis, Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences University Examiner iii ABSTRACT My thesis, WIDE, is a live, solo, participatory performance that asks: Where does the body end? WIDE tells the story of my dad’s sudden death while I was training to be an actor. The piece compares the performances we put on in everyday life—such as the need to perform that we’re ‘doing well’ in the face of grief—with the performances of actors on stage. ‘Wide’ refers to the wide open state of being required to connect with my dad beyond his lifetime; the same state is required of a stage actor. Grief, combined with academic and professional pressures, narrowed me. WIDE is a eulogy for my dad and an act of expansion intended to continue the relationship between him and me beyond his living body. In performance, my story becomes a metaphor for the expansion that the audience is invited to experience as well. The methodologies used to create WIDE are improvisation and discovery, informed by Mary Overlie’s Six Viewpoints and Tectonic Theater’s Moment Work, two techniques that offer …
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2024-09
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0443824
language: eng
degree discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Kenney, Denise
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/88395