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photo of Telory Davies  Dr. Telory Davies

Assistant Professor of Theatre, Performance Studies – BA Program Coordinator

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Telory Davies was hired by the Theatre and Dance Department at Missouri State University as an Assistant Professor of Performance Studies in 2008. She has a PhD in dramatic theory and criticism from Stanford University and a Master’s degree from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in Performance Studies. She published her first book, Performing Disability: Staging the Actual, with VDM Press in April 2009. She has also published several articles on the intersection of disability studies and performance, including “Mobility: AXIS Dancers Push the Boundaries of Access” in Text & Performance Quarterly (2008), “Race, Gender, and Disability: Cherríe Moraga’s Bodiless Head,” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism (2006), and “Freakery and Prosthetic Actuality in Joseph Chaikin’s Body Pieces,” Disability Studies Quarterly (2005). She is currently working on a second book, provisionally titled Autistic Artistry: Acting Ourselves into New Ways of Thinking, that analyzes director Robert Wilson’s work with autistic poet Christopher Knowles on the 1976 Einstein on the Beach, notably Wilson’s signature piece and the one that jumpstarted his career. This proposed project begins with Wilson and Knowles as a template for exploring a range of autistic artistry. The next chapter examines Pig Iron Theatre Company’s 2007 production, Chekhov Lizardbrain, which merges the triune brain theory of Paul MacLean, autistic scholar Temple Grandin’s book on Animals in Translation, and modern dramatist Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters. Further chapters will cover a selection of texts and films that make direct use of autistic artistry or the concept of autism as an artistic device.

Telory’s stage career includes acting with Philadelphia’s Pig Iron Theatre Company at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and directing a wide variety of material at Stanford University. These productions include Hélène Cixous’s Portrait of Dora, Lanford Wilson’s The Rimers of Eldritch, Gilbert and Sullivan’s Princess Ida, Seymour Barab and Evelyn Manacher Draper’s A Game of Chance, and Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist. She also appeared as Jenny Diver in director Carl Weber’s Stanford production of Threepenny Opera. Davies will direct MSU’s first Fall 2009 production, Strindberg’s Miss Julie, in the Balcony Theatre.

Davies has presented at a number of theatre, dance, and performance studies conferences. Her most recent papers include “Thinking Spatially, Speaking Visually: Director Robert Wilson Cons Verses with Autistic Poet Christopher Knowles” presented at the 2009 Society for Disability Studies conference in Tucson, Arizona and “The Dancing and Acting Body: Behold Chekhov Lizardbrain!” for the 2009 Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference in New York City.

Her course topics include Theatre for Social Change, Performance of Literature, Writing for Theatre, Scripting and Performing for Solo Performance, and an Introduction to Performance Studies. She looks forward to working with students in shaping the future of Performance Studies.



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