Advisory Faculty: Professors: BUCKY, D. EDWARDS, EPPEL, HOPPIN, OCKMAN, DARROW, Coordinator. Associate Professors. CASSIDAY, A. SHEPPARD. Assistant Professors: BEAN*, Coordinator, BURTON, S. HAMILTON, KAGAYA*, L. JOHNSON. Lecturers: BROTHERS, JAFFE.
Performance Studies provides an opportunity to inhabit a place where the making of artistic and cultural meaning intersects with critical reflection on those processes. The program has as its primary goal the bringing together of those students and faculty engaged in the creative arts, i.e., studio art, creative writing, dance, film and video, music, and theater with those departments that reflect in part on those activities, e.g., Anthropology and Sociology, Art History, Classics, foreign languages, Comparative Literature,English, History, Music, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion and Theater.
The program allows faculty and students to conduct intensive and focussed interdisciplinary studies in performance. The central ideas which performance studies confronts-action, body, frame, representation, race, ethnicity, gender, politics, history and transcultural experience-circulate within and through the subjects and fields upon which the program draws.
Students in Performance Studies are encouraged to do four things: 1) take Theatre 328, Approaching Performance Studies; 2) try different artistic media, both in the curriculum and beyond; 3) move between the doing of art and performance and thinking about that process; and 4) prepare a portfolio of their work in different media. The list of courses below is divided between doing courses (practica) and reflection/criticism courses. Voluntary portfolios are entirely optional. What we suggest is that portfolios should draw on at least four projects or productions. They should show critical self-reflection on the creative processes, a comparison of the artistic media employed and also demonstrate performance criticism on the work of others. Preparation of the portfolio should normally begin in the second semester of the junior year. It will be done under the supervision of a member of the advisory committee and will be presented in the senior year to faculty and students interested in the program.
Reflection and Criticism Courses
Anthropology 328T Emotions and the Self
Anthropology 364T Ritual, Politics, and Performance
Comparative Literature 111/English 120 The Nature of Narrative
English 373/Comparative Literature 343 Modern Critical Theory
English 376/ArtS 384 Documentary Technologies (Deleted 2002-2003)
INTR 242/ArtH 268/ArtS 212/Religion 289 Network Culture
Japanese/Comparative Literature 276 Premodern Japanese Literature and Performance
Religion 302 Religion and Society
Theatre 205 The Culture of Carnival
Theatre 210 Multicultural Performance
Theatre/ArtS/Women's and Gender Studies 323 Theatre of Images
Theatre 328 Approaching Performance Studies
Practicum Courses
ArtS 230 Drawing II
ArtS 241 Painting
ArtS 288 Video
English 281 The Writing of Poetry
English 283 Introductory Workshop in Fiction
Music 203T, 204T Composition I and II
Music 212, 213 Jazz Theory and Improvisation I and II
Music 214 Basic Conducting
Music 215 Choral Conducting
Physical Education Dance, Pilates Method Matwork
Theatre 201 The Design Response
Theatre 306 Advanced Acting
Theatre 307 Stage Directing
Theatre 322T Performance Criticism
Theatre 324 Theatre for the Ear: Telling Stories Through Sound