Poetic Performance, on the Stage and Online

My project will investigate the performance of poetry—how theater and other performative arts transform the poetic text.

My most recent research has focused on the renowned Moscow theater director Kama Ginkas’s stagings of short stories by Anton Chekhov. Ginkas presents the stories almost verbatim, yet he transforms the words through the interplay of multiple voices—characters share and battle over lines, moving back and forth between harmony and cacophony, humor and violence. This summer, I would like to extend my investigation of literary performance into poetry. I plan to examine Tatiana Morozova’s recent staging of “Kinfiia” (“Cynthia”), a cycle of poems written by Elena Shvarts from the perspective of an invented Roman poet. I have written extensively on Shvarts, and I am eager to combine my interest in her poetry with my new research on performance. As an extension of this research, I plan to read more broadly about recent trends in poetic performance, including new media forms such as flash and twitter poetry.

I imagine collaborating with students who are interested in adaptation studies (moving artistic texts across generic borders), performance studies, or new media forms of poetry in any cultural tradition. Students could participate in the project either through critical research (examining a particular form of poetic performance) or through a creative performance of their own.

Willamette University

Liberal Arts Research Collaborative

Address
900 State Street
Salem Oregon 97301 U.S.A.
Phone
503-370-6737

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