Performing Culture, Performing Me: Exploring Textual Power through Rehearsal and Performance

This thesis project explores Chicana feminist Gloria Anzaldúa's notion of a new mestiza consciousness, in which the marginalized ethnic American woman transcends her Otherness, breaks down the borders between her different identities, and creates a Thirdspace. Through the rehearsal and performance process, three ethnic American women employed Robert Scholes' model of textuality-the consumption and production of texts-as a framework to construct a new mestiza consciousness, and create a Thirdspace. The project set to determine what strategies were significant rehearsal techniques for encouraging the cast members to exercise textual power and claim a new mestiza identity, a Thirdspace. The results reveal four overarching factors involved in assuming textual power through rehearsal and performance in the production-building trust, having appropriate skills, assuming ownership and responsibility, and overcoming performance anxiety. The discussion addresses the direct link between Thirdspace and Scholes' notion of production of original texts.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of North Texas

Year dc:date

2005

Author dc:creator

• Gonzales, Melinda Arteaga

Contributors dc:contributor

• Allison, John M., Jr.
• Taylor, Kelly Shaver
• Gossett, John S.

• Ethnicity in the theater.
• Ethnicity -- United States.
• Theater rehearsals.
• Anzaldúa, Gloria.
• Scholes, Robert E.
• textual power
• communication
• performance
• US ethnic relations
• Hispanic Americans
• rehearsal
• social conditions

Statement dc:rights

• Public
• Copyright
• Gonzales, Melinda Arteaga
• Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

oclc: 68903126
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc4965/
ark: ark:/67531/metadc4965

OAI identifier oai:identifier

info:ark/67531/metadc4965