Very Unpromising Material: Honors Thesis by Maria McNiece

Photo by Christina Massad

By Raven Crosby, Emory Dance Program Office Assistant

Photo by Christina Massad

Senior Maria McNiece is a double major in dance and movement studies and business, with a concentration in arts management. McNiece is in the process of completing her interdisciplinary honors thesis, Very Unpromising Material, a 40-minute performance piece rooted in modern dance that amalgamates her findings from the Emory departments of English, visual arts, and theater studies. Very Unpromising Material centers on the 20th-century absurdist play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. McNiece’s research focuses on the ways in which movement artists codify methodologies of translating text into choreography. McNiece analyzed historical examples, including Maguy Marin’s May B (1981) and Crystal Pite’s The Tempest Replica (2011).  She applied her research to construct a physical reimagining of Waiting for Godot through modern dance.

Being an honor thesis candidate in dance and movement studies has been a goal McNiece has strived to achieve during the course of her Emory career, and she says that receiving the faculty’s invitation to pursue a thesis was one of the biggest honors of her life. “The Emory Dance faculty have continually demonstrated their faith in me as a choreographer, and their unwavering support has carried me through the tough moments with the project. The fact that dancers offered me their energy, time, and bodies for this process is not something I take lightly, and it has been a privilege to have been granted that trust.” 

Photo by Christina Massad

Faculty outside of the Emory Dance Program have also helped her throughout this process. “I studied Waiting for Godot in a Beckett-centered Emory theater studies course last semester, and have worked with theater faculty like Donald McManus and Caitlin Hargraves extensively on the development of this project. Theater students have guided my cast through performative characterization and vocalization. I worked with visual art and theatre faculty members Dana Haugaard and Sara Culpepper on the design and construction of the infamous tree in Godot, which I built as an eight-foot sculpture made out of junk metal. Additionally, Dr. Laura Otis and the Emory English department have been largely influential in my research of this text as a work of literature.”