Ph.D.?
Needless to say, this economy is pretty rough on the arts, and the job market has never been specially kind to actors/designers/theatrical technicians in any case (not to mention novelists. Being out of print is discouraging, and the thought of going through the finding-a-publisher rigamarole all over again is a bit of a daunting one). This being the case, I find myself wondering if it would be worth my while to pursue a Ph.D. At the very least, if I were to pursue doctoral studies, I could probably work as a Graduate Assistant and flesh out the post-secondary teaching experience bit of my CV, which could ideally make my job hunt easier. In happy news, once upon a time I wrote a dissertation/field research proposal for THEA 660 at UHM, and I am still very much interested in pursuing the subject matter. This morning, I changed a grand total of five words (mostly because I had to clarify that I now have the MFA I was working on at the time) and came up with this:
Other and Same: Gender and Representation in Evolving Cross-Gender Japanese Traditional Theatrical Arts
Through this project, I intend to explore the evolution of traditional Japanese performing arts (specifically Noh, Bunraku, and Kabuki) as performed by all-female or partially female professional theatre organizations in modern Japan, with particular regard to areas in which gender representations are or are not modified in the context of a group of performers who are not exclusively male.
Background: As a woman with a Master of Fine Arts degree in the field of Asian theatre performance, and as someone who has multiple years experience living in Japan, I am interested in the actress’ place in specifically Japanese styles of theatre. Many modern, western and experimental style troops of women work professionally in Japan‘s theatrical community, and it is not uncommon for them to present performance pieces dealing with modern women’s issues. The University of Hawaii’s library has a very good dissertation on the subject on file. On another end of the spectrum, though the topic seems rarely explored in academic literature, I find it perhaps an even more significant sign of progress toward gender equality that women are filling actor positions in the more traditional Japanese theatrical arts.
Due to strict sumptuary edicts barring women from the stage during the Tokugawa Shogunate, most traditional Japanese performing arts are now thought of as fundamentally all-male institutions. Of course, as with many situations in which women have been traditionally barred, in the modern day women have found (and are still finding) ways to break into these performing fields. Since the first female Noh professional was registered in 1948, the number of professional female Noh artists has risen into the hundreds. One distinguished and long-standing Kabuki family, the Ichikawa family, has allowed three actresses from Nagoya Musume (all-women’s) Kabuki to use the Icikawa name. Otome (all-women’s) Bunraku has altered the traditional three-man-per-puppet Bunraku style into a one-women-per-puppet system but professionally performs traditional Bunraku plays. Also, some traditional Bunraku organizations now include women professionals. The questions I would like to address in my field research are: how are these traditional arts evolving as a result of the inclusion (and in some cases exclusivity) of female performers? Are gender representations in these arts in any way different when performed by female professionals? What do these female artists feel and think about their work, and are they more often interested in protecting the long-perpetuated traditions or in advancing and changing them?
Aside from a Newsweek article on women in Noh and an exceptionally thorough book about women’s Gidayu (a traditional narrative storytelling art), there seems to have been very little written on the subject, and certainly not in English. I am interested in helping to amend that.
Significance: This proposed study pertains to a broad range of fields and interests, most notably those of performing arts, Japan studies, and gender studies. Moreover, the phenomena of women in these arts is still fairly recent and far from universally accepted, especially among their traditionalist performing peers. Women in these arts are still blazing a path and defining their own significance as performers in these fields, and I believe that is a very good reason to bring their stories and efforts to the academic forefront.
Methods/Research Plan: I plan to observe rehearsals and performances, survey audience and performer opinions, conduct interviews when possible, and if permitted, make video and audio recordings. I am largely interested in how female professionals define their roles and significance in their respective arts, so the interviews and surveys may be especially important to the process. When possible, I also plan to attend rehearsals and training sessions for young performers and observe those processes to the end of defining what could possibly make the arts different for female trainees.
Ideally, I would be able to make contacts and spend 3-4 months focusing on female performers from at least one company representing each specific art (Kabuki, Noh, and Bunraku). Total, I would need at least 12 months to complete a comprehensive and comparative study of the works, ideas, and gender representations of women performing in all three.
Goal and Dissemination: Apart from this research project’s necessity for the completion of my dissertation, I believe the project is significant as a pioneer study of women in arts only recently (in historic terms) open to them. The project is intended to be a push in the right direction for theatrical gender studies and Japanese gender studies and will hopefully lead to projects that can expand on early ideas and views as opportunities continue to grow and expand for Japanese female performers.
Once my data is collected, I plan to organize my findings into a comprehensive book that I will hopefully subsequently publish. I also plan to submit articles to various theatrical and international-studies journals while I work to make publishing arrangements, and if enough video data can be collected, I hope to edit it into a short video documentary.
Mid-long term goal: Most of my mid-long term goals with concerns to my research career have to do with the publishing of the above-mentioned book that I hope will result from my dissertation research. Once my dissertation is defended and accepted, I also hope to obtain a teaching position in an institution of higher learning and help to mentor other scholars with interest in Asian theatrical studies.
Tada! A bit wordy, I’ll admit, but it’s not bad. What do you think? Should I try to sell it as gender studies, theatre studies, women’s studies, or Japanese studies? Regardless, I’d be moving back to Japan every summer for at least three years, and I couldn’t do it without aggressively hunting for funding. Grant writing can be a full time job at least as frustrating as job hunting, but at least I could apply to grants available for all of the above-listed fields. And I suppose what is really important in all of this is that I am passionately interested in studying this subject, and I suspect that I would be very good at it. Come to think of it, maybe I should start brushing up my Japanese…
For now, here’s wishing me luck and/or figurative broken legs -E.G.D.
Costume Design and Construction, for Fun, not Profit ^_^
Three Rangers (Costumes and photo by E.G.D.)
Well, what can I say? I am a theatrical designer and technician who is currently working as a housekeeper and nanny. Soooo, it should come as no surprise that I just went 110% all-out in designing Renaissance Festival and Halloween costumes for pretty much everyone in the household that is under my care (my brother-in-law opted out for reasons unknown, but I sure made my sister, niece and nephew happy!). Seeing as this website is the platform from which I am currently attempting to sell my skills to the theatrical world, I thought it might be a good idea to show some pictures. Please note that I designed all of these costumes and created my own patterns from scratch from drafted body blocks. I subsequently did all my own cutting, stitching, and embellishing. I made all the bags, pouches, pockets, sword sheathes, sword belts, and accessories, as well. The corset I am wearing in the Ren Fest pictures is 100% my own work from my own pattern (based on a historical model from the late 1800s). For each and every piece, I did all the grommet work by hand (no store-bought grommet tape for me!). Mostly, what I believe I am trying to say, is that I am highly skilled, and I wouldn’t mind doing this for a living, especially if it were for a theatrical organization. If anyone reading this is interesting in hiring a costume shop technician, please feel free to e-mail me for details and portfolios! Without further ado:
Just Tunics and Shoes (Photo by Ryan McLin)
This picture was taken at home before we left for the Ren Fest, so we aren’t wearing our full array of accessories. I like this picture because you can get a good idea of the shape of the lace-up tunics I made for the “Fantasy Ranger” line of costumes. Please note that I made the boot-caps and shoe covers for my niece and nephew completely from scratch and from my own pattern. My “Fantasy Bard” costume in this picture is pretty much complete as I wore it. Note the sleeves are functional as “Water Sleeves” which I learned how to manipulate when I was studying Beijing Opera, and they are held in place by lace-up arm cuffs. You can’t see them, but I have boot-sheath daggers and jingle-bell ribbons tied to my boots! Finally, I would like to proudly note that the only things in this picture that are made of fabric that I did not design and construct myself are the tights worn with the three ranger costumes.
Ren Fest Parking Lot (Photo by F. Travis Riley)
Tada! Accessories have been added, and on the far right is my friend Sarah, for whom I designed and constructed the bodice piece/sword belt and sheath. I hand-embellished the hilts and pommels of all the weapons, too. My sister is wearing her archer gloves backward at this point, though we turned them around and fixed it as soon as we got out of the parking lot.
Liam on a Llama (photo by me)
Oona on a Pony (photo by me)
Aaaaaaaaaaaand here are my niece and nephew riding the “carousel” at the Ren Fest. How cute is that!
Halloween (photo by Ryan McLin)
And here we are on Halloween, yesterday. As you can see, I made myself a new costume so that I could match the other three! My bodice laces down both sides and I used chain and gilded-leaf embellishments that I made myself using a Gerber multi-tool. I had to get really creative to make the bodice, because I used the tail-end scraps leftover from the other five costumes (well, perhaps it’s four and a half, since my mom actually made that dress Sarah’s wearing for my Halloween costume in 1998, when I was in high school), and there were barely even tiny scraps of that pleather left once I was finished! I got exceptionally creative with pattern placement in order to get that kind of mileage out of a yard and a half of fabric (seriously! For two bodice pieces, boot caps, shoe caps, belts, bags, pockets, accessories, arm cuffs, archer gloves… you’d be hard-pressed to beat me in a battle of fabric economy. Incidentally, I just realized that in all these pictures, you can’t tell that except for the buckle area, my sister’s belt is underbust-bodice width with utility pockets and the like worked in. Clearly, I need to get some pictures of that costume from the back). Anyway, I made my new costume yesterday morning based on the inspiration thought I had soon after I woke up: “Y’know, I really don’t feel like wearing a corset today.” I basically used my body block as the pattern and made fitting adjustments on myself with pins. Anyone who has ever tailored for herself without a dressmaker’s dummy knows how crazy that can be, but my arms and shoulders are pretty flexible, so it worked out well, all the same.
Halloween Again (Photo by Ryan McLin)
So, happy November, everyone! I hope you enjoyed my little design gallery. I certainly enjoyed constructing it! Warm regards at the start of cold season- E.G.D.
Remembering the Publishing Front
My elder sister was recently looking into methods one might use to “sell one’s self” as a human resource product on the internet, and this led me to google myself. Now, we all know that really, truly weird stuff happens when a person googles herself. This time around, though, nothing really odd happened. I did find one extremely old and quirky website a friend of mine posted back in 2001 and that both of us promptly forgot about thereafter (though it is still apparently present and unchanged! It’s like a time capsule)… that’s beside the point I wanted to make, though. Nothing odd may have happened in my google searching, but something pleasantly unexpected did: I stumbled upon a guest post I wrote during a Drollerie Press Blog Tour, and I discovered that the fellow ex-Drollerie-author who posted my guest post way back then is doing really well on the publishing front since Drollerie closed. That has me thinking that perhaps while I am hunting for my dream job in theatre and/or theatre education, it would probably also be a good idea to hunt for a new publishing home for my out-of-print books. After all, if the first two For Keeps books remain unavailable, how on earth am I going to get people interested in the third? Anyhow, my start-of-fall resolution is to A) keep up the steady work looking for a good theatre job (and not become discouraged in the process) and B) seriously explore agent and/or publishing options for my complete and completely-edited novels. Wish me luck and/or figuratively broken limbs! Also, I am VERY MUCH interested in suggestions on both fronts. Please feel free to offer advice at will in the comment area below. Mahalo- E.G.D.
Preference and Training VS. Disposition and Experience
I was out and about this weekend in the Museum District of Houston, TX. It was free-museum-day, and an old college friend and I made it to seven museums before winding up rounding off our day at a little coffee house just off the museum-circuit path. By that time, it was pouring buckets, and the coffee house had filled to the brimming with what appeared to be mostly college students taking shelter from the rain with homework in hand. There was not an unoccupied table on the premises that wasn’t located on the uncovered patio, and my friend and I were not interested in becoming more soaked than we already were, so we swooped down on a four-seat table occupied by a lone woman of approximately our own age. She was not averse to company, so we settled in to sit out the rain, and the three of us struck up a long, thoughtful, interesting conversation about our experiences and adventures in A) education, B) employment, C) our searches for employment post-graduation. At some point in the conversation, something shot out of my mouth that I do believe to be true, but which hadn’t occurred to me in so many words prior. I said something along the lines of “I’m an actor by preference and training, but really, I’m a teacher by disposition and experience.” Huh. Now, what prompted me to spout that? It is funny how sometimes a person’s dialogue can get three steps ahead of her brain, but in my case, I actually have a pretty clever and observant motor-mouth. Now, this is not to say that I do not have experience in acting or do not have training in teaching. I have a great deal of both. It’s simply that my education subsequent to high school focused primarily on performance, while I have a great deal more professional teaching experience than paid acting experience. I am passionate about my theatrical work. I also love to teach. At the heart of things, though I am a good and accomplished actor, I had to work as hard as I ever have in getting to the point where I could say that and know it was the truth. Teaching came as easily to me as breathing.
Anyway, the conversation was really quite entertaining, and it is an amazing thing to meet a like-minded person in passing. In the end, the woman whose table we had invaded scurried out the door when the sun broke through the clouds in hopes of catching the last moments of free-museum-day, and my old friend and I made our way homeward. We never exchanged contact information, only names and stories.
All told, the conversation at the coffee house was just as worthwhile and educational as all seven of those museum experiences combined. Life can be surprising! Now that I’ve gone and defined the situation, here’s knocking on wood that I can suit my professional preference and my natural disposition at the same time in the near future. -E.G.D.
Posting a Paper
For the first time in more than a year of filling out job applications, a job to which I am applying requested a link to a sample piece of academic writing. The reason that most places I have applied did not request such was probably that an MFA is a terminal degree, but it is a practical one, not a paper one (my thesis was three extremely complicated performances that were the culmination of intensive training in very specific styles). Still, I am actually quite surprised it took this long, in that university professors are usually required to have academic papers and/or books published in order to achieve tenure, and in any case it seems prudent to make sure that a prospective professor can write well enough to clearly state an academic point. Anyhow, the reason that I am now writing this front-page post is to let anyone who is interested know that the link to the paper I used is available from the sidebar. If somebody has stumbled upon this paper and would like to cite it for one of their papers, they are welcome to do so, bearing in mind that they must properly cite it. It would be valid enough in that I am, well and truly, an expert on the subject, and an even greater expert on the subject gave me a good deal of positive margin commentary on it back in 2010 when I submitted it as my final paper for Kabuki Seminar, a 700-level class at the University of Hawaii. Whoever you may be, though, you may not run off with it wholesale, as it is my work, and all the usual copyrights apply.
Moving on, though, I think it is fun and interesting to note that the application-receiving University for which I posted this paper is NYU… (wait for it)… Abu Dhabi. Before discovering this job listing, I had no idea there was a branch of NYU in Abu Dhabi. I do believe that is the most interesting international position to which I have applied since graduating with my MFA, though I’m sure I would have quite fancied that job in Shanghai, had I been hired. Here’s wishing myself luck and/or figurative broken legs, and in the meantime, I hope they and you enjoy the paper. -E.G.D.
Oh, the Transient Internet!
I just spent well over an hour updating links inside my resumes, and let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. I don’t think that anyone ever clicks on those links (they’re mostly linked to programs and press releases from shows I’ve been in, more or less to prove I’m not making these things up), but the way I see it, if I’m going to have links at all, they may as well work! Nothing ever stays the same, and this is triply true of anything on the internet. The University of Hawaii at Manoa’s theatre website underwent a total move and re-vamp in the past year, and by virtue of this, not a single link to my thesis performance information was active, and as usual, that was only the tip of the iceberg. Quite a few of the other sites I had linked to had disappeared, moved, or been specifically removed by newspapers that no longer have free archives. Really, I find myself wishing I had printed everything out and made a plain-old scrapbook like one of my thesis committee members suggested. How foolish I was! There I was thinking that a website was worth ten scrapbooks, and the head of my committee agreed wholeheartedly. It was 2011, after all. In the computer age, shouldn’t a website be more useful, more convenient and accessible to a wider audience? Well, in a way, I suppose I had a point, but in the meantime, the Black Box festival website has so many broken links to reviews and press releases that it makes me go cross-eyed just thinking about it, I spent most of my fourth-of-July this year fixing links pertaining to my out-of-print novels, and for an unknown length of time nearly all the links in my resumes were completely useless. I seriously did not notice until this morning.
I suppose my ultimate point is that the internet is a wonderful and useful tool, but I am finding that it isn’t what one could call dependable. Oh well! For the time being, it looks like things are more or less in order. Now it’s time for an iced tea break. -E.G.D.
Acknowledging Publishing Purgatory
First things first: Happy Independence Day! Second things second:
I’ve neglected to mention on the front page of this site that Drollerie Press went out of business in late October of last year, rendering both of my novels with them out-of-print. It is a sad truth, but a truth nonetheless. For some reason, I spent most of my Independence Day updating bits of my websites and fixing broken links, which brought this to mind. You see, I followed the links from http://kinleakeeper.com to the excerpts of Kinlea Keeper and Curse, and of course both of the excerpts had been taken down from the Drollerie website. It makes sense, given that it’s been a bit more than eight months. In any case, I fixed the links by posting the excerpts on my own web-space, and I am pleased to announce that I added an excerpt for Anna Marie Anomaly, the third book in the series. It isn’t an end-all edit of the first 35 pages, but it is the first 35 pages, and I expect that fans of the first two books will enjoy the sneak-peek.
I suppose that my real point, though, is that Kinlea Keeper, who so joyously escaped publishing purgatory in 2009, somehow managed to re-enter publishing purgatory in 2011. I’ve been (a bit listlessly, I’ll admit) poking at other publishing options since then, though I have been giving my quest to find long-term theatrical employment top priority. Perhaps once I find a more permanent place in my chosen profession, I can work on finding a more permanent place in my hobby-turned-secondary-profession. For either and both, I would welcome tips, if you have them. I find that for the time being, my personal strengths are strangely difficult to sell. Anyhow, here’s to perseverance and the good old-fashioned American dream- E.G.D.
Dreaming about my Dream Job… in Hobbs?
I’ve been sending my credentials and my hopes out into the void for quite some time now (ever since I graduated with my MFA, which is the terminal degree in my field), and I have been checking job listings and applying to jobs constantly for the past year. I know that I have written before that my first priority is to work in a theatre and my second is to teach, but I just discovered a job listing that is very much both, and I have never coveted a job more in all my days. I can remember coveting a job as much (the JET Programme job teaching at Tatebayashi Girls’ High School), but not more, and never with so many long-term hopes for the future. I knew that the JET Programme was a short-term but wonderful way-station between undergraduate and graduate degrees. Now I’m making plans for the long-run, and I am shocked to say that the job that has struck this chord in me is in Hobbs, New Mexico, at New Mexico Junior College. What were the odds? I just went through the rigamarole of moving to Texas after being a citizen of New Mexico for more than 20 years, and here I find myself counting chickens back in New Mexico before they’re hatched. Life throws the funniest curve balls!
And a drum roll, please! This job I’m longing for would basically make me responsible for the theatre aspect of the performing arts department, down to and including community and school-system involvement, and even recruitment. The job description actually says I would get to “yearly, coordinate and host multiple performing arts productions” and that I would be expected to “develop a following of ‘Raving Fans’.” Whoever wrote this job listing is clearly a person after my own heart. I could use my skills not only in performance, but in production, directing, design, and technical theatre, and I could build a team of students and community members who want to make theatre happen and to make it wonderful. I could spread my love of world theatrical styles to a new generation. I could teach people about the glories of my favorite team art-form. I would be on cloud 9 if I landed this job. The funny thing is, I think several of my undergraduate professors would laugh at me if they ever read this. I remember feeling even a little hurt once upon a time when (more than a decade ago, now) three separate professors my freshman year at TU expressed their “feelings” and guesses that someday I was going to work as a theatre professor instead of as an actor. Well, now I am an actor (I even have a piece of paper saying I’m an expert actor), and yes I love it, but what was I thinking, way back then? This professor position would clearly be the greatest job ever. It would basically include a theatre company I could have at my fingertips for all the wonderful projects that percolate in the back of my mind every day of my life. And really, I do find teaching extremely rewarding and fun. I see no downside, even if it does mean another move.
What can I say, those TU professors were right, and it must have been strictly due to inexperience that I didn’t see it then. I really, really, really want this job. Of course, there is always a hitch (what would life be without its challenges?), and this application opportunity cropped up now, in the middle of the summer, when most of my go-to recommendation-writers are busy traveling, meeting publishing deadlines, and generally working very hard, long hours just to meet their own obligations. I need four letters of recommendation. Thus far, I have secured one. Yipes! Anyhow, I’m not going to give up. Wish me luck, and if you happen to be someone who knows me who would like to write me a letter of recommendation, you will win my undying gratitude (granted, most of you already have). Sending my hopes, once again, into the void- E.G.D.
All the World’s a Stage… is it Community Theatre?
To quote an earlier post: “Would anyone out there like to hire a competent and well-rounded theatre person? The only theatre position at which I do not believe I could perform well is head electrician. Actually, I’m only a mediocre scenic designer, and I’ve only ever designed lights with a pre-fixed lighting grid, but I’m a fair hand at most everything else, and I am absolutely invaluable during strike (bring on the heavy lifting and the power tools!!). I act, produce, direct, design, stage manage, and work tech/crew with comparable verve, and I’m even skilled at things like web design and office filing. I write decent plays. While we’re at it, I’ve been told I’m an excellent teacher, though I consider teaching a secondary passion to theatre. I’d take a job teaching theatre, certainly, especially if I could produce, direct, or perform on the side.”
To expand on that, I feel that I can give myself points for not feeding into other people’s daily, off-stage and back-stage dramas. That’s what has made me a successful producer in the past, certainly, though I’ll admit that in my experience it can make angry people angrier when others do not rise to the occasion and become angry in return. I strive to treat people with courtesy, politeness, and respect, even if they are not extending me the same kindness. I’m realizing more and more in recent days that that is my real and true strength as a human resource. I make it a point to be professional about the way I perform my world-stage’s acting role (playing the role of 100% myself, of course! I wouldn’t want it any other way). I suppose it would be unfair of me to expect full-out professional quality acting work from the world at large in daily interactions, though, because I’m pretty sure that if all the world’s a stage, it’s clearly the universe’s largest instance of community theatre ^_^. Community theatre is valuable, vital, worthwhile, and important, but not necessarily held to the same standards as the shows one would expect to see on the West End or Broadway. Such is life. At the very least, it’s awfully entertaining!
I dearly hope to find myself in the thick of a threatre company soon, because I know I have so much to give and would love to give it. I miss being a part of a defined artistic team. I’m sure there are a great many theatre people in the same boat, though, at the moment. Competition is fierce! I suppose that all I can do is wait, hope, and continue to apply to every position I can find. Wish me luck!
Dabbling in Color Headshots
I took a new series of headshots today, and I have come to the conclusion that the best light for portraits happens outside and just before a great big thunderstorm. Now, if only I could get my printer to print this without weird stripes of lighter color down the front… Anyhow, enjoy! -E.G.D.
E.G.D. Headshot 2012
I’m auditioning in Houston tomorrow, which is why I was bent on getting a decent color headshot. Cheers to a good start in a new town! -E.G.D.
Worlds of Words 