Gestural Economies and Production Pedagogies in Deaf West’s Spring Awakening
Abstract
In Deaf West’s Broadway revival of Spring Awakening, embodied gestures expose and
challenge representational and infrastructural norms that drive commercial musical
theatre. The company’s blend of ASL and spoken text extends the overarching message
about failed sociocultural ideals to the realm of deaf culture. Micro-practical actions
and interactions function tacitly to denaturalize audio-centric standards that guide
theatrical reception, internal cueing, and technical production.
Type
Journal articlePermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/17247Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1162/DRAM_a_00553Publication Info
Wilbur, S (2016). Gestural Economies and Production Pedagogies in Deaf West’s Spring Awakening. TDR/The Drama Review, 60(2). pp. 145-153. 10.1162/DRAM_a_00553. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/17247.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Sarah Marie Wilbur
Assistant Professor Of The Practice of Dance
Sarah Wilbur (Assistant Professor of the Practice/Dance) is a cross-sector choreographer
and performance researcher who studies arts labor, economies, and institutional support
principally in a US context. She brings a strong field orientation to bear on her
academic research, including over twenty years of experience working across the uneven
economies of concert dance, theatre, musical theater, opera, K-12 education, health
care, and Veterans’ Affairs. Sarah's

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