Female Representation in the Performing Arts

The issue of female representation in the performing arts has been spotlighted by several media sources in the last year – The Stage (the world’s longest running theatre publication) has, in the last few months, published articles which investigate the lack of female directors in Musical Theatre and the strategies being used to redress the balance.

One report highlights information released by the Musicians Union which showed that there were no female musical directors leading pit orchestras in the West End (previous reports also showed that 90% of musicians in the orchestras were men).

The library has a subscription to The Stage and you can find the latest issue in the Print Journal section.

The Guardian have been looking at the under-representation of female composers in concert line-ups. Figures that were compiled by the Donne – Women in Music project and Drama Musica show that 95% of concerts worldwide have music composed solely by men. These figures were taken from the 2018-19 programmes of 15 large orchestras across the world. Campaigners are arguing against those who claim that a male-dominated canon is inescapable.

Classic FM have also written about the absence of female composers in last year’s best score category at the Oscars - even in the shortlist of 141 scores, only five were by female composers.

Is anything changing?

In this short video from 2017, BBC Stories document the careers of Ruth Brill and Arielle Smith, two female choreographers who have paved the way for women to take leading roles in the performing arts.

The Stage have featured more positive reports of women playwrights who have recently received increased exposure in the West End. They have also credited the Royal Court for an increasingly diverse programme which has featured many more female writers and directors. In November, the RCS staged Troilus and Cressida, their first full-length Shakespeare play with a gender-balanced cast – music by Evelyn Glennie explored and challenged gender conventions within the play.

As a reaction to the current climate of empowerment and equality for women, Glasgow Citizens Theatre has announced a season of work for 2019 showcasing female writers and women working across Scotland. The productions will be directed by women and outreach work will also focus on women in the arts. More information about what is included in the season can be found here: https://www.citz.co.uk/

Within the library we have many female playwrights including Frances Poet, Cora Bissett, Liz Lochhead and also collections such as Contemporary Women Playwrights Into the 21st Century.

The soprano Gabriella Di Laccio has created a website called the Donne project as a space dedicated to female composers both historical and contemporary. The Strad has also reported that the BBC Proms are among more than 100 international festivals that have signed up to the PRS Foundation’s ‘Keychange’ pledge to achieve a 50:50 gender balance by 2022. They have also reported on other initiatives aimed redressing the balance.

You can read issues of The Strad in the library in the Print Journals section. The library also has books which critique the music canon such as De-canonizing music history and Gender and the musical canon.

No Longer a Secret! The Lyric's Secret Theatre Project

Here's another intriguing article on the Guardian Culture Professionals website:-

"Diverse, daring and prepared to fail: how Secret Theatre rewrote the rules

 "The Lyric’s Secret Theatre project is reaching its finale. It may not have changed the face of British theatre, but it has opened up dramatic new ways of working ... " Read the article HERE.

Teach performance using Digital Theatre Plus!

 For drama staff and students

Jack Lowden is a fast-rising British actor, currently starring alongside Kristen Scott Thomas in Electra at London's world-renowned Old Vic Theatre. Jack's break-out role came just earlier this year when he played Oswald opposite Lesley Manville in Sir Richard Eyre's West End production of Ibsen's Ghosts. Both Jack and Lesley won Olivier Awards 2014 for their starring roles, and both have filmed exclusive interviews for Digital Theatre Plus with invaluable advice on acting and performance. Its well worth a look!

On Acting: Jack Lowden

Jack discusses how playing a role like Oswald enables an actor to demonstrate a rich spectrum of attitudes and emotions, how much the text allows for freedom of interpretation, and why, for a performer, confidence is key.

 Watch the interview with Jack Lowden now

       

Feminine Post Dramatic - Cara Berger Performing Ecriture Feminine

Strategies for a Feminist Postdramatic

We found this blog from Cara Berger, a researcher at the University of Glasgow. It documents feminist drama performed at The Arches in Glasgow: Fire into Song - part of Cara's doctoral studies, in the context of practice-as-research

Here's the background to Cara's work:-

Strategies for a Feminist Postdramatic

This website contains documentation of three performances that constitute the practical element of Cara Berger’s practice-as-research PhD on ‘Écriture Féminine: Strategies for a Feminist Politics of the Postdramatic’.

A video of each performance alongside excerpts which are referred to in the written section of the PhD, as well as supporting documents can be found by clicking on the names of the performances on the navigation bar at the bottom of this page.   More ...

'Whittaker' freely confesses that 'his' knowledge of feminist alternative drama is minimal, but if readers of this blog would like more postings of this nature, then please do share suggestions with us, and we'll be happy to incorporate them in our offerings to the staff, students and supporters of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland community.

Guardian Culture Professionals Network - UK Plays Going Global

Here's an interesting read for our actors and producers, published by the Guardian Culture Professionals Network (Thursday, 20th March 2014):-

Britain is brilliant at exporting plays, but what does it mean to go global?

• Nina Raine - Tribes
• Duncan Macmillan - Lungs
• Nick Payne - Constellations
• Much, much more - you'll have to read the article for yourself!

What's in the National Library of Scotland?

Because it's an hour away by train, it's easy to forget that you can access the National Library of Scotland with all its fabulous resources.  

Website:- http://www.nls.uk/

Do come and ask your subject librarians here, if you need guidance on accessing the NLS.

By the way, if musicians can't physically get there, the Digitised gallery for music is here:- http://digital.nls.uk/special-collections-of-printed-music/pageturner.cfm?id=97135480  - offering you historic Scottish printed music.  Drama and theatre people will similarly enjoy the Scottish Screen Archive, or maybe Scottish poetry - again, in the Digital Gallery collection.

There's a YouTube video of NLS Head of Music, Almut Boehme, speaking about music in the NLS, which you might find informative – for her own statistics, she needs you to watch the whole thing for it to “count”.  This is how she introduces it:-

“I am very pleased to be able to announce that an introductory video about the NLS Music Collections has gone live on YouTube.  The video gives an overview on the collections, presents our online full text music and provides a case study with live music demonstrating four different versions of a Scottish tune including its famous Haydn arrangement.

This is the link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMRfIHX0TPU

Please note that you need to watch the full length of the video for the statistics to count.  The sound quality will partly depend on your own devices but I hope you’ll still find the video enjoyable."

Online Trials of Drama and Dance Resources

A Free In-House Trial for staff and students at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland - use it now and let us know what you think of it!

Theatre in Video

From today through 13th March 2013, all students  and staff may access Theatre in Video here.  (The trial can only be accessed on-site.)

"Theatre in Video contains hundreds of the world’s most important plays and video documentaries online in streaming video. For the first time, students, instructors, and researchers can bookmark specific scenes, monologues, and staging examples and then include those online links in their papers and course dissertations. Theatre In Video contains more than 250 definitive performances of the world's leading plays, together with more than 100 film documentaries, online in streaming video - more than 500 hours in all, representing hundreds of leading playwrights, actors and directors.
This release includes 265 videos, equalling approximately 338 hours."

Dance in Video

From today through 13th March 2013, all students, faculty, and staff may access Dance in Video here.

"Dance in Video is the definitive video collection for the study of 20th Century concert dance, featuring the most influential performers and companies together with dozens of documentaries, interviews, and dance instruction videos. The collection provides coverage in breadth and depth for modern dance forms, and is relevant to dance history, dance analysis, dance instruction.  It includes an overview of 20th Century concert dance, including the forerunners and pioneers of modern dance, covering ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary, experimental, and improvisation; an invaluable resource as dance is an inherently visual medium."

To get started, take a look at these custom playlists that feature samples of some of the great content included in this collection: Great Tappers, Partner dances, and CRWDSPCR.

These collections can be cross searched with all of our other video collections via video.alexanderstreet.com 

Now that you're connected, please let us know what you think about it.  Email Alan Jones, our Drama and Dance Librarian via the Library website.

Make use of it while it is there.

 

Making a severed head - the RSC instructs!

The RSC advises not to watch this during lunch ....

Making a severed head - YouTube video

Madness and Theatre

We've just come across this Wordpress blog, which originated as an Edinburgh MSc thesis on mental health in Scottish theatre:-

The Madness and Theatre Blog

"How Theatre NEMO and Anthony Neilson use drama to challenge perceptions of mental ill health in Scotland 2003-2010.

MSc European Theatre

Graduate School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures

University of Edinburgh August 19th 2011"

The author, Chris Jones, is now studying for a PhD at the University of Kent.

Mary Wollstonecraft blog by Roberta Wedge

Wollstonecraft Live by Anna Birch

Royal Conservatoire of Scotland research lecturer Anna Birch's , Wollstonecraft Live, first took place in 2005 and 2006.  It was revisited in 2011.

'Whittaker', being a mere muso, managed to miss all this.  (Somehow it slipped under the radar, which is regrettable, but hopefully forgiveable.)

ANYWAY ...

Today, we stumbled across a Mary Wollstonecraft blog by Roberta Wedge, which we share with you here. 

"Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, was thus a foremother of feminism. She was also a war reporter, a pedagogue, a spiritual quester, a radical republican, a single mother, a passionate & taboo-breaking lover. Her story is ripe for the telling. This blog gathers anecdotes, freelance research, resources, and news of current projects: your one-stop Mary Wollstonecraft shop!"

• Blog homepage:- http://avindicationoftherightsofmary.blogspot.co.uk/
• Blogpost last year about Anna's event:- http://avindicationoftherightsofmary.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/review-of-stokey-lit-fest.html
• Total Theatre Explores - blogpost about Wollstonecraft Live
• Wollstonecraft Live (including streamed material)
• The Wollstonecraft Live Experience - Anna's book with DVD (copies available from her website or from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland box office)

Research seminars: theatre

Theatre Studies Research Seminars at the University of Glasgow, 2011 – 2012 : ALL WELCOME!

(Information kindly forwarded by Dr Simon Murray, Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies at the University of Glasgow)

Wednesday 16^th November at 5.15, Seminar Room 208, 2 University Gardens.   Dr Kate Dossett, University of Leeds: Our Actors May Become Our Emancipators: Race & Realism in 1930’s American Political Theatre.

 Kate Dossett will talk about 1930s political theatre and, in particular, a production of a labor-race play, Stevedore. Performed in New York in 1934, Stevedore is pre-Federal Theatre, but has important implications for leftist and black theatre debates about realism, empathy, and how best to rouse the masses to action. It was also performed by 'Negro' Units of the Federal Theatre a couple of years later.

Thursday 1^st December at 5.15, Room 408 in the Gilmorehill Centre, home of Theatre, Film and Television Studies and Centre for Cultural Policy Research. Charlotte Higgins, chief arts writer on the Guardian: Newspapers, criticism and the web: reviewing the arts in the Twitter age

Until very recently, only newspapers had the means to publish and distribute arts criticism widely, cheaply and quickly. But what happens when the old “authority” of newspapers crumbles in the face of self-publishing on the web? Is there still a place for professional critics? Charlotte Higgins surveys the current scene.

Thursday 19^th January, at 5.15, Room 408 in the Gilmorehill Centre, home of Theatre, Film and Television Studies and Centre for Cultural Policy Research. Alexander Weigel: Theatre in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) – the Deutsches Theater in Berlin.

Alexander Weigel is a dramaturg and author. He studied history in Leipzig and worked as assistant director and assistant dramaturg in Rostock and Greifswald before joining the prestigious Deutsches Theater Berlin as a dramaturg. Weigel remained in this role from 1964 to 2001 and worked with some of the leading playwrights, directors and actors of the time: Heiner Mueller, Adolf Dresen, Jürgen Gosch and Matthias Langhoff. Weigel edited the programme notes of the Deutsches Theater, organised events such as rehearsed readings and lectures in the theatre, and curated a number of exhibitions. Since retiring from the theatre has worked as a freelance author, editor and lecturer.

Thursday 9^th February at 5.15, Room 408 in the Gilmorehill Centre, home of Theatre, Film and Television Studies and Centre for Cultural Policy Research.  Dr Katie Gough, Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies, University of Glasgow: Between the Image and Anthropology: Theatrical Lessons From Aby Warburg's 'Nymph’.

In this talk Katie Gough will reconsider Richard Schechner’s “Restoration of Behaviour” by rewinding the clock to a time that predates the film technology that animates this paradigm. In doing so, she will consider the still image whose movements animate an analogical performance paradigm that the late art historian, Aby Warburg, began to theorize in the 1890s: a paradigm he called the “Pathos Formula,” and conceptualized around the figure of woman in movement who he referred to as “Nympha.” In considering Warburg’s theories as an antecedent to the Restoration of Behaviour, Katie will explore the ways that the invocation of film strips (“strips of behaviour”) as culturally neutral inflected performance studies from the outset with a gendering that has been reified, reflected and contested ever since.

Thursday 8^th March at 5.15, Room 408 in the Gilmorehill Centre, home of Theatre, Film and Television Studies and Centre for Cultural Policy Research.  Dr Laura Bissell, Lecturer in Theatre  Studies, University of Glasgow: The Female Cyborg as Grotesque in Performance

Intermedial artist Julia Bardsley’s performance Aftermaths: a Tear in the Meat of Vision is an example of contemporary performance that makes the connection between historical female hybrids and current ones. By using Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the grotesque and feminist responses to this, alongside ideas expounded in Donna Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto’, Laura will explore the similarities between female bodies that have been rendered hybrid historically through the grotesque and the contemporary figure of the cyborg.

                                                             

Thursday 3rd May at 5.15, Room 408 in the Gilmorehill Centre, home of Theatre, Film and Television Studies and Centre for Cultural Policy Research.  Professor Hans-Thies Lehmann, Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the University of Kent and Professor of Theater Studies, Goethe-University, Frankfurt:  Postdramatic Tragedy without drama?

Hans-Thies Lehmann, author of Postdramatic Theatre (Routledge 2006), will discuss two texts which seem to have a "tragic" theme at their heart and are nonetheless nowhere similar to dramatic "tragedy". How are we to think of the notions of tragic drama and tragedy in these cases? How does the notion of 'performance' fit into this problem? Hans-Thies Lehmann will discuss texts by Heiner Mueller, Wolokolamsker Chaussee Part 1 (The Road of Tanks, "Russian Opening", translated by Marc van Henning; and Sarah Kane, 4.48 Psychosis.

Lee Hall, playwright and theatre director, author/script writer for Billy Elliott, Spoonface Steinberg and The Pitman Painters, has agreed to talk at one of our seminars in 2012. Dates and further details to be confirmed.

Welcome to Whittaker Live - the RSAMD's long-established performing arts blog. We've just moved to blogger.com, to give the blog a fresh new image. You'll still find the same mix of performing arts news and reviews, useful websites, interesting books and recordings, and the occasional link to study skills or careers advice info. News of our alumni, too! We're happy to post links to our staff, students and alumni's websites so that their achievements are profiled for all the world to see.