Abstracts Category : Other

Nora's Transformative Journey: From A Doll's House and The Little Mermaid to The Way Home

by Rania Al-Harthi

This critical engagement paper employs the practical work and researchconducted for my MFA graduating installation performance The Way Home. Fordecades, domestic violence researchers analyzed abused women coping with abuse basedon their psyche, which portrayed them as having certain needs that abuse fulfils. Theassumption that there is something about abused women that makes them want to beabused overlooked major stress and obstacles that occur when choosing to leave anabusive relationship. While the pursuit of breaking the cycle of violence remains animportant issue, I argue for giving more value to women's thoughts and feelings as theyundergo the transition to living life on their own. Human pain and social suffering, pastand present, can be rendered through art in such a way that its representation nurturesand illuminates life. Art can contribute to blocking the repetition compulsion of genderedviolence; in particular, as I have found, it can make its mark through visual re-cognition,textual re-telling and physical re-enactment. As an artist, I found myself equipped withthe will for self-preservation and the drive to find a sense of being in contextualizinghome through the act of art. In Chapter One, I use women's intercultural performance,feminist nomadism, and postmodern fairy tales and myth portrayal to outline theaesthetic, critical and cultural context of this project. In Chapter Two, I discuss currenttheoretical constructions of the social and cultural discourse that informs genderviolence, as well as the interdisciplinary nature of my work. In Chapter Three, I discussthe conceptual and practical methodology of the project, and conclude, in chapter four,with the possible outcomes.Advisors/Committee Members: Bracht, Kathryn (advisor), Saul, Gerald (advisor), Streifler, Leesa (committeemember), Ramsay, Christine (committeemember).