Stages of Reckoning

289 Pages·2022·3.629 MB·English

by  Amy Mihyang Ginther

Stages of Reckoning
Stages of Reckoning is a crucial conversation about how racialized bodies and
power intersect within actor training spaces.
This book provokes embodied and intellectual discomfort for the reader
to take risks with their ideologies, identities, and practices and to make new
pedagogical choices for students with racialized identities. Centering the
voices of actor trainers of color to acknowledge their personal experience and
professional pedagogy as theory, this volume illuminates actionable ideas for
text work, casting, voice, consent practices, and movement while offering
decolonial approaches to current Eurocentric methods. These offerings invite
the reader to create spaces where students can bring more of themselves, their
communities, and their stories into their training and as fodder for performance
making that will lead to a more just world.
This book is for people in high/secondary schools, higher education, and
private training studios who wish to teach and direct actors of color in ways
that more fully honor their multiple identities.
Amy Mihyang Ginther is an assistant professor in the Department of
Performance, Play & Design at the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA.
Routledge Series in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
in Theatre and Performance
Series Editor: Brenda Foley
The Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) book series is an interdisciplinary
forum for exploring diverse identities, concepts, practices, and people in
theatre and performance. Through the series, the Theatre and Performance
division at Routledge aims to expand its current offerings, in response to
an overwhelming call to action by participants in the field. The new series
reflects both a structure and an ethos, cutting across existing Routledge cat-
egories of theatrical production, theatre studies, and research monographs as
a means to increase visibility and address the historical exclusion of marginal-
ized voices.
The EDI series’ commitment to diversity includes—but also extends
beyond—that which we know to be lacking in the field of theatre and per-
formance. We welcome proposals that expand our perspectives and that of the
field and look forward to reading your submissions.
Fire Under My Feet
History, Race, and Agency in African Diaspora Dance
Ofosuwa M. Abiola
Plays of Our Own
An Anthology of Scripts by Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Writers
Willy Conley
Stages of Reckoning
Antiracist and Decolonial Actor Training
Amy Mihyang Ginther
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Routledge-Series-in-Equity-Diversity-and-Inclusion-in-Theatre-and-
Performance/book-series/EDI
Stages of Reckoning
Antiracist and Decolonial Actor Training
Edited by Amy Mihyang Ginther
Designed cover image: Leah Nichols
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Amy Mihyang Ginther; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of Amy Mihyang Ginther to be identified as the author of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mihyang Ginther, Amy, editor.
Title: Stages of reckoning: antiracist and decolonial actor training /
[edited by] Amy Mihyang Ginther.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2023. |
Series: Routledge series in equity, diversity, and inclusion in theatre
and performance | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022034566 (print) | LCCN 2022034567 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367466008 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032225432 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003032076 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Acting—Study and teaching. | Social justice.
Classification: LCC PN2075 .S73 2023 (print) | LCC PN2075 (ebook) |
DDC 792.02/807—dc23/eng/20221003
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022034566
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022034567
ISBN: 978-0-367-46600-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-22543-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-03207-6 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003032076
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
To those who left our training spaces, our field,
and our industry because we failed you.
We are lesser for your absence.

Contents
List of figures ix
List of contributors x
Acknowledgments xiii
Foreword xvii
NICOLE BREWER AND WALTON WILSON
Introduction: why this book now? 1
AMY MIHYANG GINTHER
PART I
Distilling/grounding/performing identities 21
1 Black queer autoethnographies: tools for equitable
teaching and learning in predominantly white institutions 23
GREGORY KING
2 Societal othering of Asian Americans and its
perpetuation through casting 42
JOY LANCETA CORONEL
3 Embodying racial consciousness: white allyship
as given circumstance and objective for the casting
and coaching of scenework 60
RACHEL E. BLACKBURN
PART II
Embodying disruption/abstention/resistance 77
4 I’mma do me: code-switch resistance as collective
liberation in voice and speech classes 79
ALICIA RICHARDSON
viii Contents
5 The erotic of abstinence: refusing
the white-possessive and embracing settler
abstinence in performance pedagogy 95
MARIA TERESA HOUAR
6 Nepantla: lingering in-between to embody our voice 112
SAYDA TRUJILLO
PART III
Traveling across time/space/language 127
7 Representation matters: the why and how of
decolonizing Stanislavski actor training 129
ALISON NICOLE VASQUEZ
8 Empowering the somatically othered actor through
multi-lingual improvisation in training 149
KRISTINE LANDON-SMITH AND CHRIS HAY
9 The possibilities of paradox: decolonial Shakespeare
process in practice 164
AMY MIHYANG GINTHER
PART IV
Transforming across/through/around disciplinarity 197
10 A time of protest: exploring activism and acting
through Hip-Hop Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed 199
DAPHNIE SICRE
11 Whose body is dis: taksu, ase, Black queer intersections,
and the awakening of the actor’s spiritual practice 218
BUDI MILLER
12 Stigmata: biography of an Arab female body in pain 235
MAIADA ABOUD
Afterword: morning rain, parting clouds, and what is to come 248
AMY MIHYANG GINTHER AND CELIA MERCEDES ESPINOSA
Index 254
Figures
1.1 Megan Young’s Cloud of Whiteness, installation and
performance at Current Sessions (NY) with Gregory
King, 2017 28
1.2 Megan Young’s Cloud of Whiteness, installation and
performance at Current Sessions (NY) with Gregory
King, 2017 30
5.1 Kalikopuanoheaokalani Aiu and Rose Wolfe in
Leviathan, 2019 98
9.1 Riot police face off with students and faculty at wildcat
strike, UC Santa Cruz campus, 2020 165
9.2 Protester at the first assembly held by the People’s Coalition,
UC Santa Cruz campus, 2020 166
9.3 Rey Cordova’s performance in his solo show, Walled In: An
American Ritual, UC Santa Cruz campus, 2021 188
BM1 Celia and Amy pose for a selfie after their conversation,
unceded Uypi territory/UC Santa Cruz campus, 2022 253