Abstract:

Theatre history, dramaturgy, and theory professors are often asked to teach a first-year students “library class,” usually a one or two session introduction to undergraduate, MFA, or PhD-level research for new theatre, performance, and dance students. In our experience at a range of theatre departments--from small conservatory programs to large, public universities--colleagues trust theatre studies colleagues to teach research skills from a scholar’s point of view. Meanwhile, in their own classes, practice focused professors are teaching their students a variety of research skills that might have little to do with the library, online databases, book stacks, or bibliographies. This presentation by dramaturg and theatre historian, Jeanmarie Higgins and costume designer and archive director, Charlene Gross proposes that the skills folks associate with scholars versus practitioners—and vice versa—have more in common with each other than we might allow. In other words, teaching “library class” does not have to be a dry slog of leading students through how to use the library site (although that is also an essential teaching task); it can and perhaps should be an interdisciplinary endeavor informed not only by reading, but writing, drawing, and performing. Along with this how to guide for teaching theatre, dance and performance studies library orientation, the presenters will introduce ways to document untraditional research materials, pointing out how performing arts students can use library resources beyond printed material to fuel their creative research practices. Finally, the presenters will offer best practices for introducing, demystifying, and "gamifying" citation practices. Learning "how to cite" can be more enjoyable and memorable when instructors use design, playwriting, performance, dance theory to fuel this teaching. The presenters proceed from culture theorist and feminist, Sara Ahmed, who proposes that bibliographies mark bodies that matter, and that therefore citation is a political practice. Reading bibliographies for the cross-temporal conversations they host, the scholarship and practices they choose to honor, and omissions and gaps they expose teaches students to consider their ethics and values as they embark on their own research processes.

Keywords:

Library orientation, performance studies, costume archives, citation, theatre.