Elon junior Aubrey Kocsis wants to fight the patriarchy, literally.
“My project is looking at the movement and also gender theory to find what does it mean to incorporate a feminist perspective into stage combat, and hopefully combat 2,500 years of sexism in the performing arts, literally and metaphorically,” Kocsis said.
A Lumen Scholar winner, Kocsis first became familiar with stage combat when she travelled to Oxford, England in high school to attend a Shakespeare Summer Intensive. She learned so much about what she calls the “illusion of violence,” but also left the program feeling discouraged.
“I felt like an action hero. I felt so cool,” Kocsis said. “And then, as we were working on our scenes, every offer I put out got rejected, that they they didn't want to hear my voice in the room, and that was really disheartening, and made me think that stage combat wasn't a good fit.”
Kocsis grew up dancing. A member of Elon’s cheer team, she always knew she wanted to be a performer, and when she came to Elon as an acting major, she found herself performing stage combat for Elon Performing Arts department’s production of “As You Like It.” She said the director, Kevin Otis, created the role of Charlene, a wrestling sister, specifically for her.
“It was really exciting to get this part that was made for me. And then Jeff A.R. Jones, the fight director, he worked to incorporate some dance and acrobatics to elevate the fight and really leverage my strengths there,” Kocsis said.
Elon professor of performing arts Jeff A. R. Jones served as the fight director for “As You Like It”. He said working with Kocsis was exciting because her acrobatic skills allowed her to bring the choreography to life.
“We had a great time working on that show because she brought so much movement vocabulary in that dance gymnastic space,” Jones said.
Jones said his process as a fight director is collaborative, and he tries to first consider the skills actors initially bring to the table.
“Anywhere I can lean into what the performer is strong in is going to be better than if I come in and try to train them in something that's new,” Jones said.
Kocsis said she started to think back on her first interaction with stage combat and realized that there was a way for her to dive deeper into the frustration she felt being a woman in a typically male-dominated space.
“Reflecting on my two incredibly different experiences, I thought, I never want another performer to feel like she didn't belong in stage combat,” Kocsis said.
She started the planning process last spring when she was the fight captain for Elon Performing Arts department’s production of “Grapes of Wrath”. It was then that she started recording her own fight scenes to use for research.
Then, she studied abroad in London in fall 2025. She became certified in hand-to-hand combat and rapier fighting, which is similar to fencing but with a long-bladed, single-handed sword.
Kocsis said her research process is tedious. She is using her own abilities for research and is learning stage combat techniques as a part of the analysis. The learning process already took a while, she said, but what takes even longer is combing through the recordings.
She closely studies her videos, often hitting the pause button less than every second.
“I could take a piece that is a minute long and it would be like 60 or so different movements,” Kocsis said.
She is combining Leban movement analysis with gender theory to study the differences between masculine and feminine portrayals of aggression and violence. Leban movement analysis examines the qualities and intentions of movements to identify patterns, which tell a story within a specific piece or a style of movement, according to Kocsis.
Her final presentation of research will include the documentation of her process in a typical essay form, but also a stage combat demonstration. Kocsis said she is still workshopping how the demonstration will look, but plans to hold auditions for performers in the fall.
“One of the things I learned from watching theater in London is that you can't fight the patriarchy without the patriarchy existing,” Kocsis said. “So I think that there probably will also be male-identifying performers in there, but this is still part of the discovery and the process this semester.”
Even though she’s been immersed in stage combat for almost an entire year now, Kocsis said she is still very interested in the performance style and is excited to continue with her research throughout her senior year.
“What I love about stage combat is it's magic. It's trying to get the audience to see something that didn't happen. So you're creating an illusion,” Kocsis said. “So not only are you acting with this precision, because every movement you do has to be precise, but you also have to put chaos over it, so you have the juxtaposition of precision and chaos to create magic. And I think that's really fun, that it's another form of magic.”