"Theatre Training News" Article on Dr. Jennifer Martin's ATME Digital Journal Project
Groundbreaking Kinetic Journal to Feature UMKC Production of The Country Wife
by Thomas Canfield
Even though The Country Wife, William Wycherly’s Restoration comedy, is over three centuries old, UMKC Theatre will be blazing a trail through previously-uncharted territory with its production this season.
Last year, Hall Family Foundation Professor of Theatre Dr. Jennifer Martin was asked by the board of the Association of Theatre Movement Educators (ATME) to develop and launch a peer-reviewed, kinetic journal. However, unlike other professional journals dealing with physical movement, this valuable resource for movement educators and specialists will be accessible in a digital format.
After taking a sabbatical to conduct research and develop the concept, Martin successfully presented her proposal in May 2007 to the board of directors at the ATME conference in Staunton, Va. The purpose of the journal, which ultimately will be distributed in either an online or DVD format, is to “document the original artistic and pedagogical process of theatre movement specialists,” says Martin.
Nothing of the sort has been created before, even though there is a real need for movement specialists to transcend the limitations of the printed word in documenting their work and sharing it with others in the field. While many traditional journals dealing with the discipline of movement are already in existence, Martin notes, “Even the most eloquent wordsmith encounters a real challenge to distil the kinetic essence of movement into the fixed word.”
“Traditional printed text avenues have proved inadequate in initially recording and then evaluating movement-based work, yet they remain the major source of documentation,” says Martin. Because “digital documentation records the essence of movement far more effectively than the printed word,” the goal of the new ATME Journal will be “to provide a peer-reviewed outlet for those original processes in pedagogy and performance development which are best documented through action rather than in printed text form,” she says.
The journal will be comprised of kinetic movement articles submitted by authors in MiniDV tape form. Ranging in length from 12-15 minutes, the articles will consist primarily of filmed action that demonstrates and illustrates the development of original pedagogical and performance processes in the making.
In preparation to launching this new journal, Martin has begun compiling a prototype article that will be used to guide potential contributors. As a basis for the article, she is using her work as the movement coach on this season’s UMKC Theatre production of The Country Wife. Filming of the article began in early November, with the full support of Karen Vorst, Dean of Arts and Sciences, Tom Mardikes, UMKC Theatre chair and Ted Swetz, the Patricia McIlrath Endowed Chair in Theatre Arts who will be directing the production.
The Country Wife is an excellent choice for this groundbreaking, prototype article because it offers the opportunity to document a period movement score from the late seventeenth century. For UMKC students, however, perhaps the most exciting aspect of this entire project is that it will incorporate filmed excerpts of rehearsals as examples of adapting period movement to production. The article will credit all the student and faculty artists involved in the production whose work is featured in it, and they will be able to list their participation in the ATME Journal article as a résumé item.
While it might be obvious that the article will feature graduate students in the acting program who are demonstrating the process of learning the period movement score for the production, the student designers whose work may appear in the article, in the form of visual and sound images, will be acknowledged in the credits as well. For example, because Martin always uses music of the period–as recorded on period instruments–whenever possible as a backdrop to the movement training, rehearsal and performance process, the sound designer who compiles the score for the production will be credited. The Country Wife will employ the design talent of scenic designer Jenn McDuffee (’09), costume designer Megan Turek (’09), lighting designer Andrea Strange (’11) and sound designer Matt Janszen (’08).
Anyone else involved in the production who appears in the film also will receive mention in the credits, as well as the UMKC faculty mentors who will be supervising the student designers and technicians. To assure that the rights to all designers’ original images, sounds, and realized designs are protected, the participants will sign a standard artist’s release form, and the article will contain a copyright notice.
This new electronic journal will offer a unique format whereby theatre movement specialists can record and share their techniques and ideas with each other. Not many theatre movement specialists have “successfully contextualized their work so that the value of an original contribution is understood by other movement specialists and by the wider theatre community,” says Martin. The ATME Journal not only will document innovations in the field of kinetic scholarship; it also will allow movement specialists to see how their peers in the same field articulate their approaches in class, rehearsal and performance, and to evaluate these processes for their effectiveness more accurately.
