"No Experience Necessary: Modern Mass Spectacle and the Work of Amateur Performers"

September 30, 2013

4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

George Wells Knight House, 104 E. 15th Ave

Add to Calendar 2013-09-30 16:00:00 2013-09-30 18:00:00 "No Experience Necessary: Modern Mass Spectacle and the Work of Amateur Performers" Shilarna Stokes is an Assistant Professor of Theatre at The Ohio State University. She received her PhD in Theatre from Columbia in 2013. Her current research examines the politics of aesthetics in the performance of modern mass spectacles. Her developing book project, “Playing the Crowd: Mass Pageantry in Europe and the United States,” considers questions of public space, spectatorship, and collective performance through an analysis of large scale political pageants performed during the first half of the twentieth century. Her conference papers have won awards from the American Theatre and Drama Society and from the Association for Theater in Higher Education, and she was the recipient of a yearlong Dissertation Fellowship from the American Association of University Women. She has directed over forty plays professionally, worked as a Guest Director at Hampshire College, Fordham University, SUNY-Brockport, and Yale, and received directing fellowships from the Van Lier Foundation, Geva Theater, Williamstown Theater Festival, and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. She holds an MFA in Directing from Columbia University. AbstractDrawing on mass spectacles performed in early twentieth-century Russia, England, and the United States, as well as more recent spectacles such as those performed during the opening ceremonies of the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympic Games, Stokes examines why the aura of the “amateur” constitutes an essential element of mass performance. Mass spectacles rely on the performative labor of thousands of amateurs not only to achieve a sense of the monumental, but also, crucially, to produce experiences of Community, where Community is understood as an allegedly authentic expression of the latent desires of individuals to form themselves into collectives. The notion that amateurs—by virtue of their relative lack of training and experience—are capable of delivering more “natural” performances than professionals, is repeatedly invoked by the creators of mass spectacles, who themselves tend to be trained professionals. However, the amateur mystique of these colossal productions is not a form of resistance to commercialism and corporatization, but a strategy of accommodation to complex socioeconomic and political conditions.Sponsored by Performance/Politics Working Group. George Wells Knight House, 104 E. 15th Ave OSU ASC Drupal 8 ascwebservices@osu.edu America/New_York public

2013-09-30 16:00:00 2013-09-30 18:00:00 "No Experience Necessary: Modern Mass Spectacle and the Work of Amateur Performers" Shilarna Stokes is an Assistant Professor of Theatre at The Ohio State University. She received her PhD in Theatre from Columbia in 2013. Her current research examines the politics of aesthetics in the performance of modern mass spectacles. Her developing book project, “Playing the Crowd: Mass Pageantry in Europe and the United States,” considers questions of public space, spectatorship, and collective performance through an analysis of large scale political pageants performed during the first half of the twentieth century. Her conference papers have won awards from the American Theatre and Drama Society and from the Association for Theater in Higher Education, and she was the recipient of a yearlong Dissertation Fellowship from the American Association of University Women. She has directed over forty plays professionally, worked as a Guest Director at Hampshire College, Fordham University, SUNY-Brockport, and Yale, and received directing fellowships from the Van Lier Foundation, Geva Theater, Williamstown Theater Festival, and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. She holds an MFA in Directing from Columbia University. AbstractDrawing on mass spectacles performed in early twentieth-century Russia, England, and the United States, as well as more recent spectacles such as those performed during the opening ceremonies of the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympic Games, Stokes examines why the aura of the “amateur” constitutes an essential element of mass performance. Mass spectacles rely on the performative labor of thousands of amateurs not only to achieve a sense of the monumental, but also, crucially, to produce experiences of Community, where Community is understood as an allegedly authentic expression of the latent desires of individuals to form themselves into collectives. The notion that amateurs—by virtue of their relative lack of training and experience—are capable of delivering more “natural” performances than professionals, is repeatedly invoked by the creators of mass spectacles, who themselves tend to be trained professionals. However, the amateur mystique of these colossal productions is not a form of resistance to commercialism and corporatization, but a strategy of accommodation to complex socioeconomic and political conditions.Sponsored by Performance/Politics Working Group. George Wells Knight House, 104 E. 15th Ave America/New_York public

Shilarna Stokes is an Assistant Professor of Theatre at The Ohio State University. She received her PhD in Theatre from Columbia in 2013. Her current research examines the politics of aesthetics in the performance of modern mass spectacles. Her developing book project, “Playing the Crowd: Mass Pageantry in Europe and the United States,” considers questions of public space, spectatorship, and collective performance through an analysis of large scale political pageants performed during the first half of the twentieth century. Her conference papers have won awards from the American Theatre and Drama Society and from the Association for Theater in Higher Education, and she was the recipient of a yearlong Dissertation Fellowship from the American Association of University Women. She has directed over forty plays professionally, worked as a Guest Director at Hampshire College, Fordham University, SUNY-Brockport, and Yale, and received directing fellowships from the Van Lier Foundation, Geva Theater, Williamstown Theater Festival, and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. She holds an MFA in Directing from Columbia University.

Abstract

Drawing on mass spectacles performed in early twentieth-century Russia, England, and the United States, as well as more recent spectacles such as those performed during the opening ceremonies of the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympic Games, Stokes examines why the aura of the “amateur” constitutes an essential element of mass performance. Mass spectacles rely on the performative labor of thousands of amateurs not only to achieve a sense of the monumental, but also, crucially, to produce experiences of Community, where Community is understood as an allegedly authentic expression of the latent desires of individuals to form themselves into collectives. The notion that amateurs—by virtue of their relative lack of training and experience—are capable of delivering more “natural” performances than professionals, is repeatedly invoked by the creators of mass spectacles, who themselves tend to be trained professionals. However, the amateur mystique of these colossal productions is not a form of resistance to commercialism and corporatization, but a strategy of accommodation to complex socioeconomic and political conditions.

Sponsored by Performance/Politics Working Group.