Performing Narratives

Catalog description

Sophomores, Juniors, Seniors and Graduate Students (with instructor’s permission, after video application) This is a studio class in which performance is used as a way of investigating identity. The purpose of the work is to find nuance in how one understands one’s own identity and how one understands the identity of someone or something very different from the self. This could be another person, another idea, another entity – such as family, a nation, a corporation, a university, or a natural phenomenon. For example, one assignment might be to create a five-minute performance taking on the behavior of a real person who one cannot imagine ever being. Each student will create and present an original performance for a curated audience on the final day of class. Students do not need to be performers to participate in or to gain from this class. For those with performance experience, skills will be refined, toward increased power and increased nuance. All genres of performance are welcome: theater, music, dance, interdisciplinary. The professor will use exercises she has developed over decades, both as a teacher and in her performance work as a professional theater artist. World-class guest artists are integrated into the syllabus, collaborating with the professor to help create memorable and transformative activities. The class is conducted like a workshop, and meets once weekly on Sundays* from January 25 to April 12, excluding Sundays that are University holidays. Each student is expected to take proactive responsibility for creating an incubator environment where risk-taking is supported. Students from all disciplines and all schools throughout the university are welcome. Students from other professional schools, who are not studying artistic forms, but who wish to have greater communication skills, or who are preparing to take on leadership roles, are welcome. To…