Sharon Mazer
Biographic Data
| ID | 241688 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sharon Mazer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sharon |
| FAMILY NAME | Mazer |
| SIGNATURE | MAZER S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Auckland University of Technology |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9473-5109 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1990 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Performance in Popular Culture
Fragments of the past, cabinets of curiosity and cultural convergences
From Performance to Performativity: The Christchurch Mosque Murders and What Came After
On Friday 15th March 2019, a white Australian man armed with assault weapons attacked Muslim worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Fifty-one people were murdered. Another 49 were injured. Families and their communities were devastated. Almost a year later, they are evermore deeply into the hard, impossibly sad process of recovery. The city of Christchurch, still reeling from the catastrophic earthquakes of 2010-2011, took the b…
TDR Cont: Sharon Mazer responds to Stephanie Nohelani Teves
June 01 2019 TDR Cont.: Sharon Mazer responds to Stephanie Nohelani Teves Sharon Mazer Sharon Mazer Sharon Mazer is Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies in Te Ara Poutama, the Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Development at Auckland University of Technology. She is author of Professional Wrestling: Sport and Spectacle (University Press of Mississippi, 1998) and I Have Loved Me a Man: The Life and Times of Mika (Auckland Universit…
That was then, this is now: Māori Performance Research Comes of Age
Then. The way I see it, Māori Performance Research as it is coming to be practiced now started in the late 1990s at the University of Canterbury. Te Rita Papesch and I had been thrown together there as its only two female heads of school – she in Māori Studies, I in Theatre and Film Studies. Bonded by gendered necessity in a male-dominated academic environment, our chat ran along the lines of ‘You show me your research, and I’ll show you mine’. S…
A Bicultural Dream in Aotearoa New Zealand: (De)Colonising Shakespeare
This essay came into being as a way of ‘thinking out loud’ about the stirring of traditions – Shakespearean and Māori – into an idealised spectacle of reconciliation that belies its own theatrical, historical and social foundations.[1] When I was coming up as a theatre director in the USA, the production of Shakespearean theatre was aspirational, requiring rigorous training in textual analysis as well as physical and vocal grace, as was evident i…
Donald Trump Shoots the Match
Over a decade after he faced off against WWE owner and quintessential heel Vince McMahon in WrestleMania’s “Battle of the Billionaires,” Donald J. Trump is President of the United States. Professional wrestling makes a show of American values. The bodies are huge (“yuge!”), the hyperbole is excessive, and kayfabe rules. Wrestling is about heat, not truth. It’s never a fair fight. The guy with the money decides who wins, who loses, and on what ter…
Mika Haka Foundation: Performing Empowerment
Mika is famous for his boundary-bursting performances, and as a lifestyle liberationist who has used his brand more to create social change than to campaign for an Oscar. Working with young people, including those who might be termed ‘at risk’, has always been at his core, even if he’s kept that kind of work predominantly ‘in the closet’. He auditions them, trains them up, enforces health literacy, financial literacy and political and cultural aw…
Breaking the Stage: From Te Matatini to Footprints/Tapuwae
There’s too much talk of decolonising the stage, as if the theatre were not itself a colonial artefact, a hangover from the settlers’ desire to appear civilised in what they saw as a savage land. Here we reject the notion of ‘syncretic’ or ‘hybridic’ theatre, because when European and Māori performance practices meet and mingle under the proscenium arch waters that should be troubled are smoothed beyond recognition. We want to see the stage broke…
But can it be Art? Kapa Haka as a contemporary indigenous performance practice
This talk represents the latest stage in our ongoing conversation. As with our previously performed public dialogues such as ‘Crossing the Cultural Divide’ in 2001and ‘Stages of Pōwhiri’ in 2008, we’re staking positions that are to some degree more contrary than we might hold in private (see Papesch and Mazer 2001 & 2010). We do this for the sake of argument, to have a bit of a play with thinking out loud in ways that you may, or may not, find ac…
A Case for Creative Misunderstanding
The differences between us necessitate the dialogue, rather than disallow it – a dialogue must take place, precisely because we don’t speak the same language. (Ahmed, 2000, p. 180, italics in the original)Human ways of life increasingly influence, dominate, parody, translate, and subvert one another. (Clifford, 1986, p. 22)I begin with an admission: I’m not Māori, not indigenous in any place or in any way that would allow me to speak and write wi…
Pacific Performances: Theatricality and Cross-Cultural Encounter in the South Seas (review)
Reviewed by: Pacific Performances: Theatricality and Cross-Cultural Encounter in the South Seas Sharon Mazer Pacific Performances: Theatricality and Cross-Cultural Encounter in the South Seas. By Christopher B. Balme. Studies in International Performance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007; pp. xiv + 256. $80.00 cloth. The first encounters between European sailors and Pacific islanders were necessarily theatrical, argues Christopher Balme in Paci…
Steel Chair to the Head: The Pleasure and Pain of Professional Wrestling
Books
June 01 2005 A Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical; Lydia Thompson: Queen of Burlesque A Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical. By WolfStacyLydia Thompson: Queen of Burlesque. By GänzlKurt Sharon Mazer Sharon Mazer Head of the Department of Theatre and Film Studies at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar …
Books
June 01 2004 Vanishing Women: Magic, Film, and Feminism Vanishing Women: Magic, Film, and Feminism. By BeckmanKaren Sharon Mazer Sharon Mazer Head of the Department of Theatre and Film Studies at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Sharon Mazer Head of the Department of Theatre and Film Studies at the University of Canterbury in…
Books
September 01 2003 Female Spectacle: The Theatrical Roots of Modern Feminism Female Spectacle: The Theatrical Roots of Modern Feminism. By GlennSusan A. Sharon Mazer Sharon Mazer Head of the Department of Theatre and Film Studies at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. She is the author of Professional Wrestling: Sport and Spectacle (University Press of Mississippi, 1998). Search for other works by this author on: This Site G…
Books
December 01 2000 Spectacular Suffering: Theatre, Fascism, and the Holocaust; Staging the Holocaust: The Shoah in Drama and Performance Spectacular Suffering: Theatre, Fascism, and the Holocaust. By PatrakaVivian M. . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999; 168 pp. $35.00 cloth, $14.95 paper.Staging the Holocaust: The Shoah in Drama and Performance. Edited by SchumacherClaude . New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998; 371 pp.; illustration…
Books
December 01 1999 Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage; Spectacular Nature: Corporate Culture and the Sea World Experience Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage. By Kirshenblatt-GimblettBarbara . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997; 311 pp.; illustrations. $50.00 cloth, $18.95 paper.Spectacular Nature: Corporate Culture and the Sea World Experience. By DavisSusan G. . Berkeley: University of California Press…
From Acting to Performance: Essays in Modernism and Postmodernism (review)
Reviewed by: From Acting to Perfomance: Essays in Modernism and Postmodernism Sharon Mazer From Acting to Perfomance: Essays in Modernism and Postmodernism. By Philip Auslander. London: Routledge, 1997; pp. x + 173. $55.00 cloth, $15.95 paper. Philip Auslander has long had a prominent voice in the ongoing conversation about performance, postmodernism, and politics. From Acting to Performance assembles Auslander’s previous writings; only one of th…
Dance Marathons: Performing American Culture in the 1920s and 1930s
This penetrating analysis of one of the most extraordinary fads ever to strike America details how dance marathons manifested a potent from of drama. Between the two world wars they were a phenomenon in which working-class people engaged in emblematic struggles for survival. Battling to outlast other contestants, the dancers hoped to become notable. There was crippling exhaustion and anguish among the contenders, but ultimately it was the couplin…
The Power Team: Muscular Christianity and the Spectacle of Conversion
At the center of a nondescript auditorium stage, John Jacobs, a thicknecked muscular man wearing a red-white-and-blue, stars-and-strips nylon athletic costume, stands in a spotlight. His wrists have been first wrapped in silver duct tape and then locked into handcuffs. Another similarly dressed man-Mike Hagen-stands a step behind Jacobs and demands silence so that Jacobs can concentrate on the ordeal of breaking the handcuffs. Hagen holds a micro…
Faust/Gastronome
Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture
The Doggie Doggie World of Professional Wrestling
On Sunday, 2 April 1989, Macho Man Randy Savage fought to defend his World Wrestling Federation (WWF) national championship belt against challenger Hulk Hogan in a spectacular showdown at Wrestlemania V. For a long time Hogan's demise seemed certain as we watched him, apparently exhausted, his forehead bleeding, struggle simply to stay in the squared circle with the Macho Man. But in the event's final seconds, the Hulkster (as he is known to his …
Better People: A Surreal Comedy about Genetic Engineering
The Doggie Doggie World of Professional Wrestling
On Sunday, 2 April 1989, Macho Man Randy Savage fought to defend his World Wrestling Federation (WWF) national championship belt against challenger Hulk Hogan in a spectacular showdown at Wrestlemania V. For a long time Hogan's demise seemed certain as we watched him, apparently exhausted, his forehead bleeding, struggle simply to stay in the squared circle with the Macho Man. But in the event's final seconds, the Hulkster (as he is known to his …
Dance Marathons: Performing American Culture in the 1920s and 1930s
This penetrating analysis of one of the most extraordinary fads ever to strike America details how dance marathons manifested a potent from of drama. Between the two world wars they were a phenomenon in which working-class people engaged in emblematic struggles for survival. Battling to outlast other contestants, the dancers hoped to become notable. There was crippling exhaustion and anguish among the contenders, but ultimately it was the couplin…
The Doggie Doggie World of Professional Wrestling
On Sunday, 2 April 1989, Macho Man Randy Savage fought to defend his World Wrestling Federation (WWF) national championship belt against challenger Hulk Hogan in a spectacular showdown at Wrestlemania V. For a long time Hogan's demise seemed certain as we watched him, apparently exhausted, his forehead bleeding, struggle simply to stay in the squared circle with the Macho Man. But in the event's final seconds, the Hulkster (as he is known to his …
Better People: A Surreal Comedy about Genetic Engineering
Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture
The Power Team: Muscular Christianity and the Spectacle of Conversion
At the center of a nondescript auditorium stage, John Jacobs, a thicknecked muscular man wearing a red-white-and-blue, stars-and-strips nylon athletic costume, stands in a spotlight. His wrists have been first wrapped in silver duct tape and then locked into handcuffs. Another similarly dressed man-Mike Hagen-stands a step behind Jacobs and demands silence so that Jacobs can concentrate on the ordeal of breaking the handcuffs. Hagen holds a micro…
Faust/Gastronome
Dance Marathons: Performing American Culture in the 1920s and 1930s
This penetrating analysis of one of the most extraordinary fads ever to strike America details how dance marathons manifested a potent from of drama. Between the two world wars they were a phenomenon in which working-class people engaged in emblematic struggles for survival. Battling to outlast other contestants, the dancers hoped to become notable. There was crippling exhaustion and anguish among the contenders, but ultimately it was the couplin…
From Acting to Performance: Essays in Modernism and Postmodernism (review)
Reviewed by: From Acting to Perfomance: Essays in Modernism and Postmodernism Sharon Mazer From Acting to Perfomance: Essays in Modernism and Postmodernism. By Philip Auslander. London: Routledge, 1997; pp. x + 173. $55.00 cloth, $15.95 paper. Philip Auslander has long had a prominent voice in the ongoing conversation about performance, postmodernism, and politics. From Acting to Performance assembles Auslander’s previous writings; only one of th…
Books
December 01 1999 Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage; Spectacular Nature: Corporate Culture and the Sea World Experience Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage. By Kirshenblatt-GimblettBarbara . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997; 311 pp.; illustrations. $50.00 cloth, $18.95 paper.Spectacular Nature: Corporate Culture and the Sea World Experience. By DavisSusan G. . Berkeley: University of California Press…
Books
December 01 2000 Spectacular Suffering: Theatre, Fascism, and the Holocaust; Staging the Holocaust: The Shoah in Drama and Performance Spectacular Suffering: Theatre, Fascism, and the Holocaust. By PatrakaVivian M. . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999; 168 pp. $35.00 cloth, $14.95 paper.Staging the Holocaust: The Shoah in Drama and Performance. Edited by SchumacherClaude . New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998; 371 pp.; illustration…
Books
September 01 2003 Female Spectacle: The Theatrical Roots of Modern Feminism Female Spectacle: The Theatrical Roots of Modern Feminism. By GlennSusan A. Sharon Mazer Sharon Mazer Head of the Department of Theatre and Film Studies at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. She is the author of Professional Wrestling: Sport and Spectacle (University Press of Mississippi, 1998). Search for other works by this author on: This Site G…
Books
June 01 2004 Vanishing Women: Magic, Film, and Feminism Vanishing Women: Magic, Film, and Feminism. By BeckmanKaren Sharon Mazer Sharon Mazer Head of the Department of Theatre and Film Studies at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Sharon Mazer Head of the Department of Theatre and Film Studies at the University of Canterbury in…
Steel Chair to the Head: The Pleasure and Pain of Professional Wrestling
Books
June 01 2005 A Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical; Lydia Thompson: Queen of Burlesque A Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical. By WolfStacyLydia Thompson: Queen of Burlesque. By GänzlKurt Sharon Mazer Sharon Mazer Head of the Department of Theatre and Film Studies at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar …
Pacific Performances: Theatricality and Cross-Cultural Encounter in the South Seas (review)
Reviewed by: Pacific Performances: Theatricality and Cross-Cultural Encounter in the South Seas Sharon Mazer Pacific Performances: Theatricality and Cross-Cultural Encounter in the South Seas. By Christopher B. Balme. Studies in International Performance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007; pp. xiv + 256. $80.00 cloth. The first encounters between European sailors and Pacific islanders were necessarily theatrical, argues Christopher Balme in Paci…
But can it be Art? Kapa Haka as a contemporary indigenous performance practice
This talk represents the latest stage in our ongoing conversation. As with our previously performed public dialogues such as ‘Crossing the Cultural Divide’ in 2001and ‘Stages of Pōwhiri’ in 2008, we’re staking positions that are to some degree more contrary than we might hold in private (see Papesch and Mazer 2001 & 2010). We do this for the sake of argument, to have a bit of a play with thinking out loud in ways that you may, or may not, find ac…
A Case for Creative Misunderstanding
The differences between us necessitate the dialogue, rather than disallow it – a dialogue must take place, precisely because we don’t speak the same language. (Ahmed, 2000, p. 180, italics in the original)Human ways of life increasingly influence, dominate, parody, translate, and subvert one another. (Clifford, 1986, p. 22)I begin with an admission: I’m not Māori, not indigenous in any place or in any way that would allow me to speak and write wi…
Mika Haka Foundation: Performing Empowerment
Mika is famous for his boundary-bursting performances, and as a lifestyle liberationist who has used his brand more to create social change than to campaign for an Oscar. Working with young people, including those who might be termed ‘at risk’, has always been at his core, even if he’s kept that kind of work predominantly ‘in the closet’. He auditions them, trains them up, enforces health literacy, financial literacy and political and cultural aw…
Breaking the Stage: From Te Matatini to Footprints/Tapuwae
There’s too much talk of decolonising the stage, as if the theatre were not itself a colonial artefact, a hangover from the settlers’ desire to appear civilised in what they saw as a savage land. Here we reject the notion of ‘syncretic’ or ‘hybridic’ theatre, because when European and Māori performance practices meet and mingle under the proscenium arch waters that should be troubled are smoothed beyond recognition. We want to see the stage broke…
Donald Trump Shoots the Match
Over a decade after he faced off against WWE owner and quintessential heel Vince McMahon in WrestleMania’s “Battle of the Billionaires,” Donald J. Trump is President of the United States. Professional wrestling makes a show of American values. The bodies are huge (“yuge!”), the hyperbole is excessive, and kayfabe rules. Wrestling is about heat, not truth. It’s never a fair fight. The guy with the money decides who wins, who loses, and on what ter…
TDR Cont: Sharon Mazer responds to Stephanie Nohelani Teves
June 01 2019 TDR Cont.: Sharon Mazer responds to Stephanie Nohelani Teves Sharon Mazer Sharon Mazer Sharon Mazer is Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies in Te Ara Poutama, the Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Development at Auckland University of Technology. She is author of Professional Wrestling: Sport and Spectacle (University Press of Mississippi, 1998) and I Have Loved Me a Man: The Life and Times of Mika (Auckland Universit…
That was then, this is now: Māori Performance Research Comes of Age
Then. The way I see it, Māori Performance Research as it is coming to be practiced now started in the late 1990s at the University of Canterbury. Te Rita Papesch and I had been thrown together there as its only two female heads of school – she in Māori Studies, I in Theatre and Film Studies. Bonded by gendered necessity in a male-dominated academic environment, our chat ran along the lines of ‘You show me your research, and I’ll show you mine’. S…
A Bicultural Dream in Aotearoa New Zealand: (De)Colonising Shakespeare
This essay came into being as a way of ‘thinking out loud’ about the stirring of traditions – Shakespearean and Māori – into an idealised spectacle of reconciliation that belies its own theatrical, historical and social foundations.[1] When I was coming up as a theatre director in the USA, the production of Shakespearean theatre was aspirational, requiring rigorous training in textual analysis as well as physical and vocal grace, as was evident i…
From Performance to Performativity: The Christchurch Mosque Murders and What Came After
On Friday 15th March 2019, a white Australian man armed with assault weapons attacked Muslim worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Fifty-one people were murdered. Another 49 were injured. Families and their communities were devastated. Almost a year later, they are evermore deeply into the hard, impossibly sad process of recovery. The city of Christchurch, still reeling from the catastrophic earthquakes of 2010-2011, took the b…
Performance in Popular Culture
Fragments of the past, cabinets of curiosity and cultural convergences
Art (20 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Theatre and Performance Studies (12 works) · Visual arts (12 works) · History (11 works) · Media studies (11 works) · Art history (9 works) · Aesthetics (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Political science (7 works)