2008 Student Research Conference:
21st Annual Student Research Conference

Inventive Performance: Examining the Knack of Originality and the Capacity to Flee Supposition
Marissa K. LaRose
Dr. Dana Smith, Faculty Mentor

We are encouraged as performers to depart from our assumptions and test known boundaries - but does that escape label our actions original? And is the task of wholly abandoning assumptions something that can, in fact, be achieved? In creating original works of art we borrow from our culture and our lives things we have seen, heard, or lived before. Nothing is left to be original. We have the tendency to express our histories and cultures through ways of which we are not always conscious, enabling our culture to speak through us and leave insightful impressions. Using the work of Augusto Boal and Charles Mee as a baseline, I offer a closer examination of how humans attempt to escape assumptions and stereotypes while testing the boundaries our culture inaugurates. Through alternative forms of performance I call for a deeper examination of the assumptions that lie within expressing ourselves as humans.

Keywords: theatre, alternative forms, stereotypes, self-expression, Augusto Boal, Charles Mee

Topic(s):Theatre

Presentation Type: Performance Art

Session: 13-2
Location: OP Black Box Theatre
Time: 8:30

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