crit studies
TRANSCRIPT
Crit studies
3/3/14- Critical studies- The Broadway Tradition
- “America is a vast conspiracy for making you happy.” John Updike
What is Critical Studies? - Studying theatre in relation to society - Studying society in relation to theatre- History - Literary studies- Philosophy - Anthropology - Sociology - Theatre/film studies- Ethics- Semiotics - Phenomenology - Aesthetics
What is Theatre?- A place for viewing action- A place to feel pleasure, be entertained, challenged and to think
Music Theatre:- Words make you think thoughts, music makes you feel a feeling and a
song makes you feel a thought- Bobby Mcfarren
Communication across time: - George Gershwin quote- True music must repeat the thought ad
aspirations of the people and the time. My people are American’s… I try to put the pulse of my times into my music and do it in an original way”.
- Walt Whitman- “The subtlest spirit of a nation is expressed through its music and the music acts reciprocally upon the nations very soul.”
- Adrian Piper- Funk lessons were a series of participatory social events in which the artist taught white participants about black funk music and how to dance it. The aim to transmit and share a physical language that everyone was then empowered to use.
- People sharing an experience- about the enjoyment not ability or technique/structure.
- “Less about sexism, more about sexuality.”- Black funk music brings people together, forgetting about the fear and
anxiety of racism. - Funk is black, and funk is back.
A way to consider lived culture. Funk lessons. - The workshop allowed white people to physically express black culture. - Talk about the feelings- Racism/fear from college educated white people.
- Embarrassment from European descended traditions as it involved being sexual to and extent.
- Acetic differences in the kinds of dance, example; Ballet/funk. - Workshops sometimes elicited condescension and embarrassment from
middle class blacks. - The reason for Adrian doing the workshops was that it gave her the
chance to affirm and explore the culture dimension of her identity as a black in that that illuminate her personal and political connect to other cultural heritage
What is a musical? - A stage, television or film production utilizing popular style songs,
dialogue optional- to either tell a story, or showcase- Musicals1O1.com
How can we study musicals?- Popular culture- Musicals in relation to the market place- In relation to gender- An anthropological approach: thick description - Through musicology - As a part of history
- WALSH AND PLATT- musical sociology—BOOK SHOP
- The musical as the portal to the American Dream- “know your part, learn your lines, sing the notes you are given, if you can do that better than anyone else you will become a star”.
- Musicals are part of the so-called entertainment industry, ruled by a brutal bottom-line philosophy.
- KURT WEILL
The self-reflexive artist- Anthony Giddens:- What to do? How to act? Who to be? These are focal questions for
everyone living in circumstances of late modernity…- A person’s identity is not to be found in behavior, nor important though
this, in the reactions of other but in the capacity to keep a particular narrative going.
- The self-reflexive artist knows that creativity is informed by historical knowledge, social awareness, and critical and technical expertise.