Restaging Bronislava Nijinska’s Les Noces: Multimodal Interdisciplinary Curriculum in the Performing Arts

In this article I will discuss "Performance-As-Research," as a method of pedagogy, an approach to learning and problem solving, as a practice of inquiry and of making meaning in the performing arts, and as a conduit for students to develop physical, cognitive and affective proficiencies; in the context of a first year undergraduate dance repertory course. Over the past academic year, I have begun to collaborate with entering Bachelor of Fine Arts Dance majors at Temple University (where I am an assistant professor) to restage and perform Les Noces, (French; English: The Wedding; Russian: Свадебка, Svadebka), a ballet and orchestral concert work composed by Igor Stravinsky for percussion, pianists, chorus, and vocal soloists. Stravinsky subtitled the work "Choreographed Scenes with Music and Voices." The ballet, commissioned by Serge Diaghilev for the Ballets Russes, was choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska and premiered in Paris in 1923. In my Repertory I course, the students and I have worked together to collaboratively craft a creative reimagining of the original work. This article will describe that process, and demonstrate the multiple avenues for teaching and learning that Performance-As-Research opens up in the pedagogical context of the higher education performing arts curriculum.

Not Strictly STEAM

“That which We Call A Rose,” (“Rose”) is a multi-media performance-as-research project, with puppets and robots, that I devised with a diverse ensemble of undergraduates and professionals to explore questions about planetary nomenclature, climate change, and colonization. “Rose” explicitly challenges andro-and euro-centric hegemonies embedded in 21st century space exploration and invites its audiences to do the same. STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) has become a popular pedagogy for K-12 education. Many K-12 STEAM programs claim to put art at the heart of STEM, but often prioritize science content over creative process, falling short of the potential that STEAM holds to foster lifelong learners and innovators who are curious, skilled, and literate across a variety of disciplinary and cultural boundaries. The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), on the other hand, promotes a K-20 STEAM pedagogy that acknowledges the importance of facilitating young learners’ creative inquiry as well as the potential for mature artists to become equally-valued culture creators across arts, science, and social domains. In this article, I use “Rose” as a case study to query the possibilities of implementing performance-as-research as an essential component of STEAM pedagogies. I examine the ways that artists can invite audiences across multiple social identities to join in processes of performance creation as a means of critical inquiry of STEM fields. The performance-as-research process encourages participant audiences to authentically engage in arts practices as a means of actively combatting social issues such as climate change, professional gender and racial inequity, and the colonialist traditions implicit to contemporary space exploration.

Mix(tap)ing: A method for sampling the past to envision the future

This article outlines the theoretical and aesthetic considerations of Love’s performance-as-research method for developing interdisciplinary tap dance work – a method he identifies as Mix(tap)ing. By first narrating how he arrived to his current practice as a dancemaker and artistic researcher, Love is able to show the ways in which his method samples strategies, voices and traditions from the cultural past to imagine and work towards futuristic locations of liberation and possibility. Ultimately, Mix(tap)ing allows Love to layer intellectual concepts and theatrical conventions in order to design an approach to rhythm tap dance improvisation and choreography that is expressly Black and queer. This article is, in itself, a demonstration of Love’s method as it joins written analysis with a performed lecture script to evidence how Love has previously presented one of his Mix(tap)es.

Dimensions of Academic Performance in the Context of Nepali Higher Education Institutions

Academic performance is the driving force of academic institutions to carry out innovative ideas. This research aims to identify how the faculty members are practising their knowledge of academic activities to enhance academic discourses in their academic life. The academic discourses are determined by the academic activities of the faculty and these enhance the capabilities of both faculty members and students. In this regard, applying knowledge creation theory, the study explored the dimensions of academic activities practised by the faculty members in higher educational institutions. Adopting a survey method, the data was collected from 445 faculty members from four universities of Nepal. To identify the key dimensions of academic performance, factor analysis was used. The analysis identified four dimensions of academic performance as research and publication, innovation, interactive learning, and capacity building. The study claims that research and publication are less prioritized in Nepali academia while capacity building is identified as a new priority area in the context of university.

Developing Performance Measurement Model of Mosques

The main objective of this research is to find the performance measurement model of mosques in Ngaliyan District. The performance measurement model is adopted from the performance measurement model for organizations profit. This study uses mosque resources, management processes, and mosque performance as research variables. Mosque resources are grouped into mosque management resources (ta'mir), financial resources, and mosque facilities. Process management consists of stewardship management, financial management, and planning management. while the mosque's performance is shown through the implementation of religious activities and religious social services. The survey is limited to jami’ mosques in Ngaliyan District which are listed in SIMAS-Kemenag RI (Mosque Information System of Ministry of Religious Affairs of Republic of Indonesia) 2019. By purposive sampling, there are 36 valid samples for the analysis. Path analysis was applied to analyse the data. The results of this research using quantitative method showed that were significant influences between resource and mosque performance with management processes as the mediating variables. The findings from this study will be useful for mosque stakeholders such as mosque administrators, donors, congregations, and religious authorities who are directly affected by mosque performance.

Urban Sites of the Everyday and the International

The Other City is a downloadable audio play performed by the listener in an urban setting. Its performance opens an opportunity to explore perceptions of the city through comparisons with urban experiences in Rio de Janeiro. The cities are thus encountered as aesthetic subjects, or subjects who “articulate and mobilize thinking.” This chapter begins with an overview of the field of aesthetic research into cities and how methods that have emerged in the performance-as-research paradigm have helped illuminate urbanism and critique received wisdom about contemporary urbanization. It goes on to explain The Other City and how the play mobilizes and challenges notions of performance as research. By examining how the performance of the everyday became a political gesture in Rio in preparation for the Olympics, it shows how politics can be inaugurated in the everyday. It concludes more cautiously, however, insisting that performance cannot provide political guarantees.

Pedagogies of/and Performance-As-Research: Mobilizing PAR in Pedagogical Contexts

Guest Editor's notes on PAR, pedagogy, and the articles selected for this issue.

Americans performing Afro-Brazilian maracatu and afoxé : Navigating Race, Religion, Appropriation, and the Potential of Anti-Racist Pedagogy

Austin, Texas is home to one of the largest Brazilian music scenes in North America. Significantly, the vast majority of participants are white Americans and the genres performed are almost entirely Afro-Brazilian. This setting presents a unique opportunity for Performance-as-Research into the embodied performance of transnational racial formations. This article examines teaching, learning, and performing maracatu-nação and afoxé, musics explicitly linked to Afro-matrix religions. I ask what Austinites typically learn about Brazilian society and the religious significance of the music they perform, highlighting the disjuncture that exists between the commonly held view of Brazilian genres as fun and sexy dance music, and the social justice concerns—racism, cultural appropriation, and religious intolerance to name a few—at the core of maracatu and afoxé. I trace how performers navigate their own concerns about religious expression and respectful engagement, including debates around the cultural appropriation of maracatu-nação in Brazil. I argue that experiences gained in performance are essential components in implementing anti-racist pedagogies that advance efforts to optimize cross-cultural understanding and sustain engagement with communities by facilitating collaborations between culture-bearers, academics, and artists.

Notes on Contributors: Pedagogies of/and Performance-as-Research

Notes on contributors, alphabetized by first name.