ABSTRACT/ PROCESS CURRENTLY AND NEAR FUTURE:
Charlene Gross, Assistant Professor of Costume Design, is using the Innovator Grant awarded in 2019 to evolve Theatrical Stage Makeup (THEA 146), which is taught every semester in the School of Theatre, to reframe and expand upon current class projects. This class was a purely skills course and with the aid of the grant has broadening it into a wider conversation on perceptions of beauty & gender through a series of videos. While the grant was award pre-Covid, it has proven invaluable as both a teaching tool in my class and as a mode of showing support to the theatrical community while live performance was paused.
First steps included repositioning the class’s final project, gender reversal makeup, into a drag transformation project. By reconceiving this project, the same class objectives are meet while the assumption that a student identifies as binary is removed. With the evolving perception of gender and beauty, the desire for a more inclusive classroom, and the desire to provide a space for students to discuss gender perceptions, there was an immediate need to reconceive this section of the class.
By drawing from my own living archive of professionals in the drag community, aka my network, I am working with the performers to create a series of videos that help students tackle drag makeup techniques while incorporating more opportunity for them to incorporate a sense of persona, or character, into their projects. Transformation videos do not assume one identifies as strictly male or female. Instead they offer the student access to a variety to choose from as a final project.
Currently the following videos have been completed and are being used in class:
* Bio drag (identifying female who transforms into a female persona)
* Drag King (identifying female who transforms into male persona)
*Drag Queen (identifying male who transforms into female persona) (editing to be completed by Nov 1, 2021)
This series of transformation videos (which is also inclusive of people of various skin hues, ethnicities, and genders) hopes to create a more equitable and inclusive class setting. They have been well received in the last three semesters they have been used with students expressing their excitement of being able to choose which gender they wish to express through the project. Anecdotally, I have found students strongly embraced this project and generated even more excitement in comparison to the previous gender-reversal project.
While the grant originally proposed a panel session, due to Covid, I have pivoted to develop a short video with the drag performers that speaks to the creation of their drag persona, their experiences as drag performers, and the history of drag as introductions to this module.
NEXT STEPS:
Working with younger professional performers to create a series of Basic Stage Face videos that illustrate male, female, non-binary examples in a variety of skin hues.
Moulage Videos illustrating techniques on light to dark hues of skin
This work has been presented in a series of conference workshops, panels, and sessions.
Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE)
Panel, 2021
Panel Title: Re-Examining Everything: Decolonization & Inclusivity in the DTM Classroom
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Pxm2GiRPf4ojZa-8M_w_KXJmzQWFAN9Augpin-7ktQ4/edit#slide=id.p
United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT)
Costume Commission Poster, 2021
Poster Title: Reframing Stage Makeup Projects
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1WUFZgpRVLxMvCl2z7q8JrtQwHhvqup7-bVdPiM0YU5c/edit?usp=sharing
This work being done through in the Innovation Grant is also featured as a chapter entitled “Reframing Beauty & Gender in Stage Makeup”
which is to be published by Routledge in 2022 in Teaching Performance Practices in Remote and Hybrid Spaces.
CLASS INTRO VIDEO (not part of grant but a fun explanation of the class)
