CoLLab: Theater, Dance and Performance in Liquid Times
TDM 134R Fall 2202 Tuesday 3:00 – 5:30
Offered on Harvard Zoom: See CoLLab Website tab for Zoom link
Professor Debra Levine [she/her/hers] Office Hours: Wednesday 3-5
TA: Leslie Gray [he/him/his]
HOW CAN NEW PERFORMANCE MODELS ENGAGE WITH CONTEMPORARY POLITICS?
The poet Askia Muhammad Tore asked whether Black music could become “a potent weapon in the Black freedom struggle.” Can we ask the same of theater and performance that we might identify as what playwright Naomi Wallace calls, “engaged” ? Wallace offers the term up through example rather than definition: “Engaged, for example, with questions of power and its myriad forms; questions of who has it and who doesn’t, and the reasons why. Questions of what happens to those who struggle with their disempowerment; who we are allowed to touch, what colour of skin articulates which desire; what orifices are worthy of worship; which of us is beaten to death for not following the rule book on acceptable sexual conduct – all these are questions intimately connected to our social contracts.”
This is a moment when what we formerly believed were necessary ontological qualities of theater and performance— meaning the things that make performance *performance* — including: presence, simultaneity, buildings, proximity, liveness, actors, and audiences – are not fully operative. So how can we use this aesthetic disruption to rethink the ethical possibilities and priorities of the practice and the field? What now can be done as theater? What can performance be now?
WHAT WILL WE BE DOING THROUGHOUT THE SEMESTER?
This is a research-based class. We will develop a partial snapshot of this historical moment in contemporary theater and performance. Our research is to sift through the overwhelming numbers of performance works, talks, TikTok manifestos, chats, debates, panels and archival materials uploaded to the internet and created after CoVID restrictions shut down face-to-face assembly in theatrical venues. We will identify works and project we think are both aesthetically compelling and politically “engaged.” And, at the same time, we will develop our criteria for choosing those works by reading cultural and performance theorists who insist that aesthetic forms of art and performance offer a way out of the impasse of present politics – writers who engage with artists and performers whose work offers strategies and alternatives to the grim reality of the historical now without losing the power of critical engagement with this moment.
OUR TASK:
FIND WORK WE THINK IS FORMALLY INNOVATIVE AND POLITICALLY ENGAGED
We will survey, locate, and assess where and how artists across the globe are creating new forms of engagement with performance, dance and theater, how they are inventing the “trappings and speech” in response to these historical times. We will collaborate on finding performances engaged with our present moment that can become the case studies we will watch and analyze. (Note – our task is not restricted to online work only!) Collectively we will ask and attempt to answer: why are these works still called “performance” or “theater” or “dance?” Why is that still important? And by posing these questions to each case study we identify, we will begin to develop a list of criteria a work may possess that still allows it to be categorized as performance.
We should consider a variety of performance models (including but not limited to) “rapid response theater,” trans-medial performance, socially distanced performance, performative political actions, socially engaged art, immersive online performance, and repurposed performance (among so many new designations). We are looking for work and for artists who have innovated in response to the pandemic’s restrictions on face to face assembly and that aim engage with the political contingencies of this contemporary moment.
ANALYZE THAT WORK
Class participants will be responsible for deconstructing the aesthetics and ethics of the performances and performance-based initiatives they bring to the class. We will teach what we learn to one another throughout the semester using the format of “teach-ins” (practical, participatory learning sessions that are action oriented).
You will spend a portion of your time each week surfing the internet to identify theater and dance performances, both live and archived that are formally inventive and socially engaged. In small groups each student will nominate one performance they have identified, and argue for its relevance. The performance has to demonstrate aesthetic innovation (looking at either process or final production) and political engagement. The small groups will together watch a portion (or all) of their members’ nominated works, and discuss the key elements that demonstrate the class’ criteria for formal innovation and social engagement. Groups will also identify and debate the qualities of the work that qualify it as “performance.”.
Students will have access to funds to pay artists or companies as guest speakers. Guest can be invited to speak to your group or to the full class so that you can further your research. We have a pool of $2500. As a class, we will determine how those funds are spent and an appropriate fee for artist compensation.
Depending on the numbers enrolled in the class, groups will remain assembled for three weeks or a month to identify and explore nominated works in depth. Each group will be expected to produce a co-written critical response to the group of works they have explored and should generate a group of keyword descriptors for the each of the nominated performances under consideration.
IDENTIFY AND DEFINE PEFORMANCE KEYWORD DESCRIPTORS IN THE WORK WE CONSIDER
In a variety of combinations (individual, pairs, small groups, full class) you’ll be expected to identify and define the descriptors/keyword that are pertinent to the work and add them to the class’ collaborative keyword glossary .
READ THEORY AND ANALYSIS THAT HELPS US UNDERSTAND WHAT WE ARE WATCHING
In order to analyze the work you find, you will need some theoretical and analytical texts to unpack the qualities of performance you identify. We also want to read cultural theorists who have considered the relationship between performance and social movements. When you or your group finds a work and thinks about the components that allow it to be considered performance, or think about the political engagement in the work, you need to identify and read and cite texts that inform that thinking. You can find some of the critical theory from texts listed in the resource section of the CoLLab website or you can consult with Debra or Leslie to find writing that would be useful for your analysis.
BUILD A DIGITAL BOOK IN TOME (A WORDPRESS THEME)
The final results of our research – primary source material, conversations, interviews, essays, keyword, will be recorded in a collectively authored digital book, a platform that allows for different formats of critical analysis to be staged alongside the rich media that served as our research archive. The book will document our collective reflection on the significance of each of the projects we have identified by co-writing an introduction and a conclusion.
ORGANIZE A PUBLIC TEACH IN
We will invite the artists whose work we examined to dialogue with our class at the end of the semester in lieu of a final exam — we will create a public teach in about the practices and performances with which we have engaged throughout the semester.
Why theatre?
Because every one’s phone’s off in the theatre.
Because I can hear others breathing.
Because we hold our breath together.
Because in theatre I cry about something that has nothing to do with me.
Because in theatre I’m not lonely.
Because theatre can happen anywhere.
Because the audience also has a role, even if it’s hidden in the dark.
Because a performance can be stopped by anyone at any time.
And because that never happens.
[…]
Stefan Kaegi (Rimini Protokoll)
Keywords: assembly, affective relations, kinesthetic empathy, autonomy
CoLLab Aims:
The goal and hope of this course is that by bringing a number of disparate individual projects together along with our commentary and analysis, we, as artists and scholars of performance, might reveal some commonalities of “engaged” performance in the age of CoVID, learn from other artists who are working on these questions, and identify some new or reinvented possibilities between aesthetic innovation and political solidarity.
Through our class discussions, we will identify key elements of theater, dance & performance that remain when the work migrates to digital platforms. We will note what is gained , what is lost, and what has changed when the components of face-to-face assembly (its ephemerality, its capacity to respond to embodied energy, its ability to stave off loneliness) are diminished or gone. We will provide a snapshot of what has become of theater and performance at this moment. And try to support our claim that the case studies we propose ARE performance – and not film or digital media.
Our research task is to find who is using the instability of theater and performance in this moment to challenge the terms of the how the practice can be thought, done and the ways in which it is in concert with social justice initiatives and movements. We will become researchers of the present and future of the art form, seekers of those who are experimenting with liberating artistic practice, as Robin D.G. Kelly writes, in order to “build community, establish fellowship, play and laugh, and plant seed for a different way of living, a different way of hearing.”
CoLLab methodology:
CoLLab is designed to facilitate a pedagogical model of collaborative autonomy, teaching what we learn to one another.
We go into this class as non-experts of this new paradigm of performance and will collaboratively teach each other using the grassroots format of “teach-ins.”
The documentation of our research, our conversation and debates, our analysis, our case studies, and our conclusions about our study will be compiled into a public digital book that can be accessed by other scholars and practitioners.
We will invite artists whose work we examined to dialogue with our class at the end of the semester — staging a public teach in of the practices and performances we have engaged with throughout the semester.
CoLLab work commitment and deliverables:
What you will do for September 8
Read assigned readings. Debra to introduce the parameters of the course. Debra will talk about three “shows” – Sophocles in Staten Island (NYC) MaYi Studios
About Questions, Scars and Shame produced by Alice Ripoll and Cia REC(Brazil) and
We Will Care for You (NYC)
produced by Target Margin Theater which, for Debra, work in a variety of different ways to address the class criteria of formally inventive and politically engaged. We will watch parts of two shows and one show in full. We will also have a guest artist visit.
Company: Alice Ripoll/CIA REC Performance title: aCORdo. Photo: Renato Mangolin
Translation note: the word “acordo” in Portuguese has a few meanings such as: Wake up, agreement, accordance, keeping, cartel and convention. Another possibility of reading of the title is in the way it’s written: a-COR-do if separated is (the-color-of).
What you will do for each week between September 15 – October20:
On your own
Read assigned readings. Find and watch at least 6 hours of performance on your own (expansively defined) produced since the onset of the CoVID 19 lockdown. You do not have to watch everything in its entirety. Keep a log of what you watch. You do have to find work that you can argue meets the criteria of 1.) formal aesthetic innovation and 2.) engaged with the politics of the times. Find the best work and nominate it for your group’s discussion. Write a three to five paragraph rationale for the selection you nominate. At the end of the rationale, propose at least three keywords that are descriptors for the aesthetics proposition in the work. Also, read the short readings assigned on the syllabus.
Group Work:
The morning of the day before class: Circulate the link to your nominated performance to your group and include your three to five paragraph rationale. If the talk, performance, text, audio file – whatever—is longer than 30 minutes, please identify a representative 30 minute section that everyone is required to watch.
Group Work:
The evening before class: Read all rationales and watch the online selections forward to you by your groupmates.
Full Class Work: At the synchronous class meeting Tuesdays 3-5:30 EST:
First 30 minutes. Full class meeting. Discussion of assigned reading and any class logistics.
Next seventy five minutes. Groups go into breakout rooms. One member of the group In rotation) will serve as a facilitator and notetaker. Groups will discuss and analyze the performances nominated by members of the group that week with the goal of ranking the works according to artistic innovation and political engagement. The group will also come up with four to six keywords descriptors that dominate the discussion and begin a working definition of those descriptors.
Final forty-five minutes. Return to full class. Facilitator for each group summarizes the group discussion, shows a clip of the most important work that was chosen by group and explain keywords. Q&A with students from the other groups.
After class:
UPLOAD: . 1. Your weekly viewing log, 2. Group facilitator uploads notes from the group 4. Add any descriptors to the keywords glossary on the class website. At this point, the keywords should be like a Wikipedia page for each word – you can embellish or add or edit if you think the description is not accurate. Check in with Leslie to ensure he has received all the work.
What you will do for October 27, November 3rd and November 10th
On your own:
Read assigned readings. Read and review one other groups nominations and notes (Debra will assign you another group). Watch parts of the work they nominated. Think about commonalities between works that your group nominated and works the other group nominated. Draw inferences creatively and broadly. For example, you could find that there are commonalities that are platform- specific or that work is made asynchronously, or that some works function as healing rituals in response to specific political events. Begin to create categories – many works can fit into those categories and works can appear in more than one category. Write up a five to seven paragraph explanation for how you came to see these synchronicities between works.
Group Work:
The morning of the day before class: Distribute your writing to your group.
Group Work:
The evening before class: Read all essays submitted by your group.
Full Class Work: At the synchronous class meeting Tuesdays 2-5:30 EST:
First forty-five minutes. Groups go into breakout rooms. One member of the group In rotation) will serve as a facilitator and notetaker. Groups will discuss each student’s observations and category designations. Do certain categories work better than others so that we can understand the key relationships between works? Try to see where categories might exclude some critical component of one of the works under consideration and instead, shift that identifier into a “subcategory.” Is there a work that best exemplifies the category? If so, identify it. Did everyone classify works in a similar manner? Can you agree on two or three categories that help us best understand the works (even if you all don’t agree which work goes into each category)? What we’re doing here is trying to find an organizing strategy for our digital book chapters. Finally – from looking at what the other group nominated, who would you most like to hear talk about their work (thinking through who we might want to invite to our final “teach-in”).
Remainder of Class. Return to full class. Facilitator for each group summarizes the group discussion. The group whose work the presenting group considered will ask questions and offer observations. All groups should get a chance to present their ideas and all groups should get a chance to respond to the observations about their work. The last twenty minutes should be reserved for a discussion of the artists students would most like to hear from.
After class:
UPLOAD: . 1. Your five to seven page review of the work you were asked to read, 2. your nomination and rationale, and 3. links to your selection, and your 4. keywords to the class website. If you were a group facilitator, upload the notes from your breakout group discussion. Check in with Leslie to ensure he has received the work.
What you will do for November 17, November 24th and December 1st
This will be a combination of individual and group work organized to produce our digital book.
Organize materials and write our digital book. In preparation for class on November 17th (the week before Thanksgiving break), review the notes of the class conversations in the past three weeks. Think about the category/chapter you would most like to write about and work on organizing material for that category (reading lists, links to other shows that students have watched throughout the semester, photos, videos, articles, artist interviews, theoretical or analytical essays on the topic). This is the “chapter” of the digital book you will work on – and groups will be reorganized by chapter.
Leslie will be scheduling 1.5 hour sessions outside of class on how the digital books (created in Tome) get organized and assembled. Leslie will be tracking all the material the class has generated to date and will help you organize the way in which you want to produce your chapter.
Class time will be devoted to group meetings to produce these chapters. Your work outside of class can either be group or individual work to produce your chapter. The chapter group has to come to consensus on a writing strategy (Does each member write a short section? Do you want to write a portion collectively? Do you want to produce media — artist interviews, video clips/citations? Do you want to produce a video or audio essay rather than write text?) You can be as creative with your book chapter as you would like. The chapter should include a recommended reading list and a bibliography.
Example of a digital Tome Book: https://howmovementmakesmeaning2019.tome.press/
The last half hour of the final three classes will be devoted to organizing our “teach in.” The teach in will follow the ideas of the digital book and you can program artists or scholars to participate in your section of the teach in.
Our public “teach in” on December 8th. Please reserve 2-6pm EST for this Zoom event. Our Tome book should be complete by the time the teach-in begins.
Class attendance is imperative. It counts for 50% of your grade.
Making work. By yourself and with others is what it’s all about.
It counts for 50% of your grade.
Content Warning/Trigger Warning
This is an unusual course because you, the students, choose and curate the case studies that compose the majority of the content of each class.
That means we have to collectively consider how content we choose on our own might affect others in our classroom (in whatever physical or virtual incarnation that “classroom” takes).
We will be looking and listening to art (performance, theater, dance & media), and art takes the whole of social existence as its subject matter. Additionally, I am asking you to find and present art that is engaged with social and political dilemmas of our present moment. Many of those issues – like police brutality – are highly sensitive and triggering. The form and content of art that references this violence may be triggering as well. We may be looking at work that imitates “realistic-typical violence,” or involves dubious consent or nonconsensual sexual behavior, and/or hate speech. What I hope is that if any of these “triggers” may appear in the work, they do so because the artist or artists have included them in a critical manner, as we are seeking work that helps us to understand and transform this moment into a future that is far more equitable and sustainable than our present moment.
So far as I’ve been able to determine, the required reading material does not include graphic realistically depicted violence; extensive gun violence; nonconsensual sexual situations that would be rated R or NC-17 in a film; or self-harm in realistic contexts.
If a nominated performance you bring to the class to consider (either to your smaller group or to the full class) seems to you to require a content warning specific to that work, please include that warning in your weekly post and then again in the description for the nominated show. The warning should be brief, descriptive, and, if it pertains to a visual sequence, please try and note the beginning and ending time codes of the sequence. Please read your classmates notes before you watch the show they propose. If you find that there may be something that would trigger you personally, you have the leeway to skip viewing that show or forward through parts that you may find problematic. Art is messy. One artist’s attempt to be thoughtful and critical still may be emotionally challenging for the work’s interlocutor Take care of yourself and do what you need to do in order to study performance, for performance offers necessary knowledge and the space to rehearse how you can imagine and engage in the world at large.
Weekly reading schedule.
Note: All reading/viewing/assignments for the week need to be completed before class.
Sept 8th. Week 1. What is the “essence” of performance and why the binary division of aesthetics and ethics?
Phelan, Peggy. “The Ontology of Performance: representation without reproduction.” Unmarked : the Politics of Performance. Routledge, 1993, 146-166.
Shaw, Helen. “How Parents, Children, (and Playwrights) made Oedipus Rex and Antigone at Home.” Vulture (New York Magazine online), 14 August 2020.2020.ttps://www.vulture.com/2020/08/sophocles-in-staten-island-family-does-greek-plays-at-home.html
American Theater Editors. “Ma-Yi Theater Launches Digital Streaming, Live Capture Studio.” American Theater (online), 29 July 2020. https://www.americantheatre.org/2020/07/29/ma-yi-theater-launches-digital-streaming-live-capture-studio/
Collins-Hughes, Laura. “Digital Theater Isn’t Theater. It’s a Way to Mourn Its Absence.; critic’s Notebook”. The New York Times , July 8, 2020 Wednesday. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/theater/live-theater-absence.html
Jesse Green. “The (Virtual) Theatrical Fringe Moves Front and Center; critic’s notebook”. The New York Times, August 3, 2020 Monday.
Ben Brantley, Jesse Green and Maya Phillips. “This Is Theater in 2020. Will It Last? Should It?”. The New York Times , July 12, 2020 Sunday.
Wallace, Naomi. “Strange Times.” The Guardian Online. 28 March, 2003. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2003/mar/29/theatre.artsfeatures
Harrison, Margot. “The Horror Novel Lurking In Your Online Life.” The New York Times 18 July 2020 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/books/review/cyber-horror-virtual-life-uncanny-valley.html
September 15th. Week 2. Expanding The Boundaries of Performance.
Taylor, Diana. Chapter 1 “Framing Performance” and Chapter 4 “New Uses of Performance.” Performance. Duke University Press, 2016, 1-41 and 89-116
https://read-dukeupress-edu.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/books/book/126/Performance
Sept 22th. Week 3. Liveness, Mediation, Medium
Auslander, Philip. “Introduction: An Orchid in the Land of Technology.” “Live Performance in a Mediatized Culture,” “Liveness : Performance in a Mediatized Culture. 2nd ed., Routledge, 2008, 1-9, -10-72
Westerman, Jonah. Between Action and Image: Performance as “Inframedium”’, Tate Research Feature, January 2015. https://www.tate.org.uk/research/features/between-action-and-image
Sept 29th. Week 4. Radical Imaginings
Artaud, Antonin. “No More Masterpieces” and “Theater of Cruelty.” The Theatre and Its Double, Trans. Victor Corti, Association Calder: Calder Publications: Riverrun Press, 1938, 55-63 and 64-67.
Brustein, Robert. “No More Masterpieces.” Theater, vol. 3, no. 2, 1971, p. 30.
Kelley, Robin D. G. “Preface,”When History Sleeps A Beginning.” Freedom Dreams : the Black Radical Imagination. Beacon Press, 2002, ix-xii, 1-36
Sahlins, Marshall. “Teach-Ins Helped Galvanize Student Activism in the 1960s. They Can Do So Again Today.” The Nation. April 6, 2017. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/teach-ins-helped-galvanize-student-activism-in-the-1960s-they-can-do-so-again-today/
Oct 6nd. Week 5. Histories and Cultural Forms
Kelley, Robin D. G. “Dreams of the New Land” .” Freedom Dreams : the Black Radical Imagination. Beacon Press, 2002, 1-36
Oct 13th. Week 6. Utopian Imaginings
Kelley, Robin D. G. “Keeping It (Sur)real: Dreams of the Marvelous.” “When History Wakes: A New Beginning” in Freedom Dreams : the Black Radical Imagination. Beacon Press, 2002, 157-199
Oct 20th. Week 7. Undoing Plots and Immobility
Hartman, Saidiya. “The Plot of Her Undoing.” Notes on Feminisms-2. The Feminist Art Coalition, 2019, 1-6
Nsele, Zamansele. “Inside the Circle: A Review of Saidiya Hartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments.” 10 April 2020.
Minh-ha, Trin T. “The Walk of Multiplicity.” Notes on Feminisms-4. The Feminist Art Coalition, 2019. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c805bf0d86cc90a02b81cdc/t/5dba078d6b3c5850e78da8fc/1572472718083/NotesOnFeminism-4_TrinhT.Minh-ha.pdf
Oct 27th. Week 8. Black Feminist Imaginaries
Kelley, Robin D. G. “This Battlefield Called Life: Black Feminist Dreams.” Freedom Dreams : the Black Radical Imagination. Beacon Press, 2002, 135-156
Nov 3rd. Week 9. Fugitivity and Institutions
Harney, Stefano, and Fred Moten. “The Wild Beyond: With And For The Undercommons,” “Politics Surrounded,” “The University and The Undercommons” The Undercommons : Fugitive Planning & Black Study. Minor Compositions, 2013, 2-43
https://www.minorcompositions.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/undercommons-web.pdf
Nov. 10th. Week 10.
Individual and Group Work. Find the readings you need to create your Tome chapter.
Nov. 17h Week 11.
Individual and Group Work. Find the readings you need to create your Tome chapter.
Nov. 24h Week 12.
Individual and Group Work. Find the readings you need to create your Tome chapter.
Dec. 1st Week 13.
This is the final “official” class. Find the readings you need to create your Tome chapter.
Our public “teach in” on December 8th. Please reserve 2-6pm EST for this Zoom event.
_______________________________________________________
This syllabus is subject to change based on the needs of the class.
Books
Artaud, Antonin. The Theatre and Its Double, Trans. Victor Corti, Association Calder: Calder Publications: Riverrun Press, 1938.
Auslander, Philip. “Liveness : Performance in a Mediatized Culture. 2nd ed., Routledge, 2008.
Kelley, Robin D. G. Freedom Dreams : the Black Radical Imagination. Beacon Press, 2002.
Phelan, Peggy. Unmarked: the Politics of Performance. Routledge, 1993.
Taylor, Diana. Performance. Duke University Press, 2016.
Articles
American Theater Editors. “Ma-Yi Theater Launches Digital Streaming, Live Capture Studio.” American Theater (online), 29 July 2020.
Brantley, Ben, Jesse Green and Maya Phillips. “This Is Theater in 2020. Will It Last? Should It?”. The New York Times , July 12, 2020 Sunday.
Collins-Hughes, Laura. “Digital Theater Isn’t Theater. It’s a Way to Mourn Its Absence.; critic’s Notebook”. The New York Times , July 8, 2020 Wednesday. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/theater/live-theater-absence.html
Green, Jesse. “The (Virtual) Theatrical Fringe Moves Front and Center; critic’s notebook”. The New York Times , August 3, 2020 Monday.
Harrison, Margot. “The Horror Novel Lurking In Your Online Life.” The New York Times 18 July 2020 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/books/review/cyber-horror-virtual-life-uncanny-valley.html
Hartman, Saidiya. “The Plot of Her Undoing.” Notes on Feminisms-2. The Feminist Art Coalition, 2019, 1-6https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c805bf0d86cc90a02b81cdc/t/5db8b219a910fa05af05dbf4/1572385305368/NotesOnFeminism-2_SaidiyaHartman.pdf
Harney, Stefano, and Fred Moten. “The Wild Beyond: With And For The Undercommons,” “Politics Surrounded,” “The University and The Undercommons” The Undercommons : Fugitive Planning & Black Study. Minor Compositions, 2013. https://www.minorcompositions.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/undercommons-web.pdf
Minh-ha, Trin T. “The Walk of Multiplicity.” Notes on Feminisms-4. The Feminist Art Coalition, 2019. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c805bf0d86cc90a02b81cdc/t/5dba078d6b3c5850e78da8fc/1572472718083/NotesOnFeminism-4_TrinhT.Minh-ha.pdf
Nsele, Zamansele. “Inside the Circle: A Review of Saidiya Hartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments.” 10 April 2020.
Sahlins, Marshall. “Teach-Ins Helped Galvanize Student Activism in the 1960s. They Can Do So Again Today.” The Nation. April 6, 2017. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/teach-ins-helped-galvanize-student-activism-in-the-1960s-they-can-do-so-again-today/
Shaw, Helen. “How Parents, Children, (and Playwrights) made Oedipus Rex and Antigone at Home.” Vulture (New York Magazine online), 14 August 2020. 2020.ttps://www.vulture.com/2020/08/sophocles-in-staten-island-family-does-greek-plays-at-home.html
Wallace, Naomi. “Strange Times.” The Guardian Online. 28 March, 2003. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2003/mar/29/theatre.artsfeatures
Westerman, Jonah. Between Action and Image: Performance as “Inframedium”’, Tate Research Feature, January 2015. https://www.tate.org.uk/research/features/between-action-and-image
Resources (list in-formation)
See resources tab on class website
Keywords:
Act Amateur Character Choreography Collecting Composition Curating Documentation Duration Ephemerality Experience Economy Improvisation Installation Live Media Narrative Participation Performativity Postdramatic Poststudio Prop Reenactment Relational Score Site Spectator Theatricality Virtuosity
http://intermsofperformance.site/. Jackson, Shannon and Marincola, Paula eds. In Terms of Performance (a keywords anthology) . Produced by the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, Philadelphia Arts Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 2016.
Time Archive Historiography Historicity Inscription Liminality Memory Narrative/narratology Reenactment Remains Reproduction Syncopation Trace Quotation Endurance art Section 2: Space Discipline Environmental Theater Found/artificial space Hypocritical/fake space Hierarchy Landscape Theater Mise en scene Paratheater Performative Photography Prison Culture Proxemics Scenography Site Specific Performance Surveillance Virtual Performance Section 3: Action Appropriation Art Choreography Collaboration Cybernetics Dance Event Experimental Music Hybridity Liveness Matrixed/non-matrixed Mediation Media Mimesis Mimicry New Genre Public Art Negative Mimesis Performatics Play Post-linearity Propaganda Repertoire Simulacra War Section 4: Performer Actor Affect Alterity Animalworks Camp Circus Devising Digital Performance Docudrama Double-coding Drag Embodiment Emotions Ethnic Drag Explicit Body performance Extreme Performance Gender Gestus Glossolalia Parody Pornograpy Obscenity Restored Behavior Rhetoric Roles Subject Position Section 5:Audience Communitas Emotional Contagion Empathy Frame/Framing Gaze Invisible Theater Prosthetic Performance (including Critical Subjectivity and Documentation) Reception Theory Spectator Part 2: Methodologies and Turning Points Introduction Animal Studies Anti-Art Auteur Theater Body Art Ecological Theater Epic Theater Feminisms Fluxus Globalization/Glocalization Happenings Identity Politics Identification/dis-identification Intercultural Performance Intermediality Marxism Minimalism Modernism Montage Multicentricity Performance Art/Live Art Performance Studies Phenomenology Postcolonial/Subaltern Studies Postmodernism Post-Porn Modernism Robotics and information Art Semiotics/semiology Terrorism and Performance/Theater of Cruelty Transnationalism Race Whiteness
Gabrielle Cody, & Meiling Cheng. (2015). Reading Contemporary Performance. London: Taylor and Francis.
*This text can be also be accessed in Hollis and then by signing up for Taylor & Francis open access.