Absurdism: Performance and the Uncanny

Catalog description

A survey of the origins and applications of the term Absurdism. What is the style it provokes? This course traces the roots, definitions, and contemporary resonance of Absurdism. How and why would we stage the impossible? How could we re-new the term for the 21st century?does a post historical post apocalypse necessitate a new approach? In this class we will investigate and perform the works of Eugene Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Sarah Ruhl, Charles Ludlam, Virginia Woolf and the Cirque du Soleil. We will also examine the pathos of silent film and consider the influence and the inheritance of The Uncanny by Sigmund Freud and The Creative Mind by Henri Bergson. (PMA-AU)