Empty Space Season 2015-2016

Queer Performativity Class
Student Showcase
April 27, 2016
This performance is not open to the public.

Undergraduate Student Showcase and Awards
April 27, 2016
An evening of performances from the undergraduate performance studies classes: COM241, COM442, COM446.

A Night of Silence
April 23 and 24, 2016

Mute
written by Gabbie Pearson
directed by Jennifer Linde
Mute is a piece inspired by a lecture given by Professor Sarah Tracy on the power of compassion.
How the Girl in the Mirror Disappeared
written by Chelsea McCasland
directed by Jennifer Linde
How the Girl in the Mirror Disappeared is an exploration of (dis)connection and loss.

The Encyclopedia Show AZ
April 15, 2016
Topic: The Supreme Court

The Encyclopedia Show is a monthly, multi-genre, age-integrated presentation of creative performances on a central theme taken from an ACTUAL encyclopedia. It is probably best to think of it as part open mic, part variety show! Each performer is assigned a specific subset of the central theme on which to write and perform. Thus, The Encyclopedia Show is a live variety extravaganza that commissions local and touring artists from many artistic disciplines to focus their individual talents toward the noble endeavor of delivering your knowledge in a fun and creative format.

Solo Performance Showcase
December 3, 2015

Undergraduate students from the solo performance class share their work.

The Undergraduate Performance Studies Showcase
December 4, 2015

Featured performances from C194:  Communication and Creativity, C241: Introduction to Oral Interpretation, C442: Communication, Performance, and Identity

Cornucopia
November 13

We take it one step beyond the ‘horn of plenty” in our annual staff, faculty, student reading/performance event.  The Hugh Downs School of Human Communication community offers its “thanks” to one another through performance, music, and readings.

The Journey: Living Cancer Outloud
November 13
written and directed by Olga Idriss Davis

"The Journey: Living Cancer Out Loud" is an example of embracing opportunity beyond the Academy. It is a performance that explores new pathways for understanding the experiences of breast cancer survivors and caregivers through university and community partnership. Framed in the narratives of women and men, this performance illuminates the meaning of breast cancer from the perspective of survivors and caregivers in the African American community.

Using narrative performance as an intervention to promote health literacy about breast cancer, the performance has several goals: (a) to highlight the lived experience of breast cancer survivors and caregivers; (b) to educate audiences through narrative performance; (c) to raise awareness of breast cancer screening, diagnosis, education, and survivorship through sharing the story, and (d) to demonstrate how narrative performance can be a viable avenue for breast cancer health intervention.

The Encyclopedia Show AZ
Topic: Candy
November 6, 2015

The Encyclopedia Show is a monthly, multi-genre, age-integrated presentation of creative performances on a central theme taken from an ACTUAL encyclopedia. Each contributor is assigned a specific subset of the central theme on which to write and perform. Participating artists perform poems, monologues, songs, rants, etc... Quirkiness and creativity are welcomed, as are fashionable falsehoods.

The Encyclopedia Show is also a world-wide event, started in Chicago by Robbie Q. and Shanny Jean, it now encompasses at least a dozen cities! The AZ show takes place at the Empty Space in Tempe and is sponsored by the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication. The creative team includes Nick Klemp, Michelle Hill, Brandon Ferderer, Andy Stone, Beth Clarke, Dwayne Holmes, and Adam Jarvie.

Civil Dialogue®
November 2, 2015

This evening of dialogue on the topics of gender and wage inequalities and guns on campus will be facilitated by Hugh Downs School of Human Communication doctoral students Sarah Jones and Carlos Flores. Students, staff, and faculty at ASU and Valley-area community members are all warmly invited to attend and participate. Professor Martín Carcasson, Ph.D., a featured speaker on the topic of civil communication, will be in attendance.

Civil Dialogue (CD) is a structured format for public dialogue that provides a tool to build bridges across the chasm of public viewpoints. CD can be used in multiple contexts to help people communicate in civil productive ways, especially when they face "hot topics" and need to employ "cool heads." In a Civil Dialogue session, volunteer participants consider a provocative statement and have the opportunity to embody a position on the statement ranging from "agree strongly" to "disagree strongly." Participants are asked to follow guidelines for civility that are explained by the facilitator. The dialogue is then extended to the broader audience who are encouraged to respond with their own opinions and questions. CD was developed by John Genette in 2004 and he, Jennifer Linde, and Clark Olson continue to develop the format at Arizona State University.

Mirror Image and Twin

October 16, 2015
two short solo performances written and performed by Heidi Rose, Ph.D

Mirror Image explores the experience of two cousins born five months apart to identical twin mothers.  Shaped by their mothers’ careers as 1950s pop singers, these women both complement and contradict one another as their lives unfold.  Mirror Image reveals a life and relationship that now exist only in dreams, memories…and on stage.  Twin addresses identical twin girls who each have a personality that is in some ways too big for their bodies. Too big to control. Too big to contain. They have lived their whole lives off-balance. Would they have been better proportioned had the egg not split? Twin performed as a work in progress and the audience is invited to offer feedback and suggestions.

Dr. Heidi Rose holds a B.S. in Speech/Theatre from Northwestern University, an M.A. in Communication from Emerson College, and an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Communication and Performance Studies from Arizona State University. She is currently an associate professor in communication, with an emphasis on performance studies, and director of the graduate program in Communication at Villanova University. Dr. Rose's teaching and research focus primarily on performance, culture, and identity.

Civil Dialogue
Fall 2015 Library Series

October 7 - Goodyear Branch Library, 14455 W. Van Buren Street, C-101, Goodyear, AZ 85338
Hot Topic: "Ducy land trust for education; Immigration"
October 13 - Mesa Public Library, 64 E. 1st Street, Mesa, AZ 85202
Hot Topic: The "Trump" effect and the divided response to the global refugee crisis

Civil Dialogue (CD) is a structured format for public dialogue that provides a tool to build bridges across the chasm of public viewpoints. CD can be used in multiple contexts to help people communicate in civil productive ways, especially when they face "hot topics" and need to employ "cool heads." In a Civil Dialogue session, volunteer participants consider a provocative statement and have the opportunity to embody a position on the statement ranging from "agree strongly" to "disagree strongly." Participants are asked to follow guidelines for civility that are explained by the facilitator. The dialogue is then extended to the broader audience who are encouraged to respond with their own opinions and questions. John Genette developed CD in 2004 and he, Jennifer Linde, and Clark Olson continue to develop the format at Arizona State University.

"We have to learn to disagree without demonizing." - Rick Warren

Intersections of Civil, Critical, and Creative Communication (I-4C)
2015-2016 Speaker Series

The I-4C Collective mobilizes resources from rhetoric, performance, and critical-cultural studies to explore the intersections of civil, critical and creative communication.

Depressive Realism is Why No One Showed Up to My 6th Bday Party
September 17, 2015

This solo performance piece revolves around the desire to reinvent and rediscover our understandings of failure and optimism. Through discussions of miscarriage, tattoo misspellings, and the birthday party where no one came we find that failure can be (re)constructed as a queer understanding of a life worth living. And, rather than work to redeem our failures, they become significant milestones in our re-articulation of what the imaginary "good life" can be.

Join us for a post-performance response and discussion facilitated by Sarah J. Tracy, member of the I-4C Collective and Professor in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication.

Dr. Desiree Rowe: (Ph.D. 2009, Arizona State University) grew up with the crashing waves of the Jersey Shore and the busy intersections of New York City. This duality has shaped her epistemology and, well, her life. Her work lives at the intersections of queer performance ethnography, feminist perspectives on popular culture, and digital discourses. She is currently an assistant professor of Communication Studies at Towson University. Her work includes articles in Women and Language, Text and Performance Quarterly, Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies, Rethinking History: A Journal of Theory and Practice, Qualitative Inquiry, and many book chapters. She also co-hosted/founded the popular academic podcast The Critical Lede.