As part of a 500 words introduction to my 20.000 words MFA dissertation in Actor Training and Coaching, at Royal central School of Drama and Speech, University of London. needs to integrate my Tutor’s feedback as below.
Could you kindly include Barbara Houseman’s approach as well in the introduction and find synonymous to the words issues and experience, repeated 3 times? Also, the introduction needs a proper closing. Here is the text I edited a little bit, on which you can continue to work on. Thank you again.
MY TEXT, Add 275 words according to the tutor’s instructions.
“Title: Embodying Poetry in Dante’s Inferno.
Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy is considered the milestone of Italian heritage and therefore in Italy it is part of the mandatory curriculum between the age of 15 and 18 in high schools. However, this work by Dante is perceived, both by teachers and students, as a challenging and complex text, mostly due to its philosophical and theological epic structure, working at several levels of meaning such that it seems to demand much explanation (A. Iannucci, 1997: ix).
Therefore, the scholastic obligation to study all the heavy commentary notes in order to critically paraphrase the text is pedantically concealing the beauty and joy of the poetry, frightening and boring students, whilst frustrating and disappointing teachers.
Consequentially, my research intends to investigate ways to engage contemporary students-actors in an intuitive and imaginative performative experience with Dante’s poetry. Specifically, my approaches would like to facilitate them “to read it – Dante’s Divine Comedy – in innocence” (J.L. Borges, 1999: 270) that is to be able to access to the delight and happiness of its fairy tale texture, in accordance with the ancient Italian oral storytelling tradition.
More specifically I would like to report and analyze one application of a theatrical approach to Dante’s Divine Comedy I did in Fall 2019: five workshops I designed and gave at Francesco Redi grammar school in Arezzo, Italy, as an attempt in opening some Italian secondary school students to a direct physical and emotional connection with Dante’s poetry.
The case study is intended to study how to embody poetry and applying the findings with diverse actors as the main larger issue (Hurt, 2014: 209). Referring to the same issue with Shakespeare, it is undeniable that the larger area of study develops an understanding of the practice of actor training through a well-developed emotional facility, imagination, physical expressivity, and improvisation used in describing the larger issue of embodying poetry (Seton, 2010: 5-20).
Similarly, Michael Chekhov argues that through transformation, working with different impulses, outer and inner gesture and imagination are central (Chekhov, 2013: 98). Likewise, other practitioners such as Patsy Rodenberg, Cicey Frances, and Kristin Linklater speak very much about embodying the poetic text (Rodenberg, 1991: 107). For example, they use physical image-creation through imagination to guide students-actors into realms of inner exploration.
Consequently, the project will utilize Paulo Freire’s theory of giving power to the oppressed to empower students-actors to experience classical and poetry text directly (Friere, 1993: 109). The theory empowers students-actors to encounter classical and poetry text directly without explanations and commentary (Eldredge, 1996: 207-321). For example, considering the approaches to the text for Shakespeare as a broad area of study, there is an application of physical image-creation through imagination that guides the students-actors into realms of inner exploration (Shakespeare, 2007: 47). The literary output gives a wider sketch that is close to the whole experience as possible giving students-actors the experience in exploring poetry text (Syler, 2017: 317-328).
”
Here is my tutor feedback:
“Step back to look at the larger texture in which your case study is contained. Your case study is a very specific example of a larger issue: it sits in a larger discussion of issues related to actor training. My case 29.40 study is a very specific issue worth 6.000 related to a larger issue worth 14.000 words. You might be able to start referencing to those larger issues in your introduction, that might be related to speaking poetic text and agency. For example, you might argue that speaking poetic text like Dante’s Inferno takes very specific skills. Those skills are related to comprehension, imagination, physicality, and there is a lot to talk about in terms of one might embody poetic or arguably classical text. Your case study is a very, very specific example of that larger issue. In your introduction it appears at the moment that you are focussing solo on the case study, which is all and fine, but what I am suggesting is that perhaps you can zoom out and start contextualizing the case study in your larger issue that you are identifying in actor training. I am also suggesting, in embodying the poetic text, specifically Dante, is very much related to embodying Shakespeare’s text. There might be some helpful research to be done related to: How does one approach poetic or classical text? You might start looking at practitioner such Cicely Frances Berry, Patsy Rodenberg, Kristin Linklater, female practitioners, who speak very much about how one goes embodying the poetic text. In their specific instance it is Shakespeare, but there is a parallel in my understanding, to your work with Dante. When you were talking about the overintellectualizing of the commentaries for Dante’s work, Shakespeare has the same problem. Every student that I ever talk faces this baggage of critical commentary and text notes, this is the way that you should do this, this is the way you should speak this, in so many ways that takes away from the student direct relationship with the text. And as yoy were describing your process in the introduction I was having flashbacks of my own experience with my research in relation to performing Shakespeare. There is some parallel that might be useful for your own work.”
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