Graduate Performance Analysis S10
From CalArtsWiki
Graduate Performance Analysis
Instructors: Norman Frisch, Mona Heinze
Teaching Assistants: Jackie Banks-Mahlum, Elizabeth English
Required Texts
Performance Analysis: An Introductory Coursebook, Edited by Colin Counsell and Laurie Wolf (Paperback - April 26, 2001)
www.amazon.com[1]
Syllabus
Paper Topics
File:GPA, Sp.10 Paper topics.doc
Recommended Performances
-Paul Chan's “Waiting for Godot in New Orleans” REDCAT, Monday February 1st
Gives insight into a project Paul spearheaded in November of 2007, when he and artists from the Classical Theatre of Harlem staged five site-specific performances of Waiting for Godot in the Katrina-devastated neighborhoods of Gentilly and Lower Ninth Ward.
-The Wooster Group. North Atlantic. Redcat, February 10-21
In that context, take note of the events that the School has arranged in preparation of the Group’s visit to Redcat. The attached flier points you toward screenings of the Group’s work, opportunities for observing rehearsals, as well as books and articles. Immerse yourselves! File:Wooster Group Visit.doc You can find the text of the piece (required reading for 2/10) by going to http://homepage.mac.com/jstrahs/
-Big Dance Theater. Euripides' Alkestis, Getty Villa, February 19-21
You can reserve a ticket by going to http://www.getty.edu/visit/calendar/events/Performances.html
-March 5 & 6:
1. Free reading of Euripides' comedy HELEN. At the Getty Villa (Turns out that Helen never stepped foot in Troy!!)
Fri and Sat at 8pm -- free tix, no parking fees, museum, bookstore and coffee kiosk open from 7pm. Sat at 3pm -- $15 per car parking fee, Museum open from 10-5 Reservations required, at link below.
http://www.getty.edu/museum/programs/performances/playreading_series.html
2. LYNN JEFFRIES AND PAUL ZALOOM PERFORM KIDS SHOW ON SAT AT 11AM IN SANTA MONICA
Lynn is performing a puppet show with The Ditty Bops this Saturday at the Geffen Playhouse at 11 am. It's part of their Saturday Scene series for children and families.
Here's the skinny -- STORM DRAIN TO PARADISE Saturday, March 6th at 11AM
by The Ditty Bops with Lynn Jeffries and Paul Zaloom Music by The Ditty Bops shadow puppets by Lynn Jeffries directed by Paul Zaloom
At
Geffen Playhouse 10886 Le Conte Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90024-3021
All tickets: $15
For tickets call the
Geffen directly at
310 208 5454
or buy tickets at the
box office the day of
If you want advance tickets through ticketmaster (surcharges apply) http://geffenplayhouse.com/Current_Season/Saturday_Scene_2009_-_2010_Season
–Rosanna Gamson/World Wide. Tov. Redcat, March 18-27
Rosanna will come and speak with us about her work on March 31st.
–Carl Hancock Rux. Poesia Negra: Race, Sex and the Myth of the American Mytopia. Redcat, April 22-24
Weekly Response
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Week 1 - 2/3 - Guest Paul Chan
Link to the Paul Chan PBS video
http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/waiting-for-godot-in-new-orleans/97
Week 2 - 2/10 - Guest Ellen McCartney
Week 2 GPA S10 Wiki Assignment
Readings for 2/10:
--James Strahs’ North Atlantic (available at http://homepage.mac.com/jstrahs/)
--From Performance Analysis, chapter 1.1 The Sign (Saussure) and 1.2 Myth (Barthes)--pages 1 - 16
Part Nine: Analysing Performance, The Patrice Pavis Questionnaire, pages 229 - 232
--Excerpt from Michael Kirby’s A Formalist Theater (hard copy will arrive in your mail box Friday 2/5)
--Article by Elinor Fuchs, “EF’s Visit to a Small Planet: Some Questions to Ask a Play” (hard copy attached to Kirby and pdf attached to this email).
Week 3 - 2/17 - Guest Lynn Jeffries
Week 3 GPA S10 Wiki Assignment
A reminder that we will start class at 9:30 on 2/17 to view the Cornerstone video
Readings for 2/17:
Recommended resources:
Staging America: Cornerstone and community-based theater by Sonja Kuftinec, 2003. Call # PN2267. K84 2003. On reserve.
Read (or re-read):
From Performance Analysis, chapter 1.1 The Sign (Saussure) and 1.2 Myth (Barthes)--pages 1 - 16
Excerpt from Michael Kirby’s A Formalist Theater.
Websites:
http://www.cornerstonetheater.org/
Week 4 - 2/24 - Guest Stacy Dawson
Week 4 GPA S10 Wiki Assignment
A reminder that we will start class at 9:30 next week to view: On Tour The Wooster Group and Ken Kobland
The rest of our session will be divided between a discussion of Big Dance Theater’s Alkestis (10:40 to 11:30ish) with BDT collaborator Stacy Dawson and The Wooster Group’s North Atlantic (11:30ish to 12:30).
Required reading (short, please give it a close read . . .):
-From Performance Analysis, chapter 8.4, pp. 222-228, “Deep Play” from Clifford Geertz’s “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight” [originally published 1972]
-Interview with Elizabeth Le Compte (interviewer Nick Kaye) from The Twentieth-Century Performance Reader, edited by Michael Huxley and Noel Witts. Routledge, 1996. pp. 228 - 236.
-Anne Carson’s Alkestis
-“Big Dance Theater” by John Haskell, BOMB, Fall 2007, Number 101
-“Reality and Illusion Meet, Sometimes Changing Places” by Roslyn Sulcas, New York Times, Oct. 7, 2009
Websites:
Big Dance’s website: http://www.bigdancetheater.org/
Comme Toujours video: http://vimeo.com/8614967
Background information on this week’s guest, Stacy Dawson:
BIO FOR STACY DAWSON STEARNS
Stacy Dawson Stearns is a a performer, choreographer, and teacher. She was a company member of Big Dance Theater for nearly a decade and was awarded a Bessie for her performance in Another Telepathic Thing in 2000. Now residing in Los Angeles with her family, she continues to make pieces and teach. NYC and East coast audiences have seen her work at Town Hall, PS 122, St. Ann's Warehouse, Dixon Place, Galapagos, MassMoca, Jacob's Pillow, The Yard, The Dance Place (Washington D.C.), and the Southern Theater (Minneapolis). On the West Coast, her work has been presented at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT), El Cid, and Santa Barbara Summerdance Cabaret, among more mysterious, subtle venues. Her new piece, Magic Framework, will premiere this April at Highways Performance Space and Gallery in a shared evening with Tymberly Canale entitled Silver Years of Dust. For more info please visit http://www.channelb4media.com/stacydawsonstearns.html
http://www.channelb4media.com/stacydawson.html
-video of several different performances, films, dances and rehearsals followed by an interview with Stacy. She discusses dance vs. dance theater and her work with BDT
(loads slowly)
http://www.channelb4.com/outsiders.html -Another interview, also has a short bio for Stacy Dawson and Tim Cummings -the interview (with both) is about experimental performance aims and - the page is about the Outsiders dance group-- how their pieces incorporate language, dance and theater
http://www.massmoca.org/press_releases/12_2001/12_23_01.html Newsbrief about Stacy as a choreographer, -about the release of Best Western in MASS MoCA's MASS Manufacturing series of work-in-progress showings -contains a short bio of her previous works and venues. - soundbyte "As Dawson explains it, "Best Western is a hallucination that pays tribute to the legacies forged in the underbelly of country and western American folk music...a new-fashioned country western with dance and song, oddity and inspiration."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN6B6kryZiA -Pearl River Trailer. Award-winning dance piece by David Neumann and Stacy Dawson
http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-12-21/dance/rush-forward-look-back/ - Pearl River review from The Village Voice -" Pearl River might be thought of as a satire on the clichés of millennial orientalism, but anyone lucky enough to catch the show was probably laughing too hard to do much thinking. Excerpts from the soundtrack from Jackie Chan's Spiritual Kung Fu blare tough-guy dialogue and deceptively sentimental blossom-viewing talk punctuated by the sound of body-blows, grunts, and breaking glass" -paints a better picture than the trailer does.
http://www.villagevoice.com/related/to/Stacy+Dawson All reviews which feature Dawson prominently.
Recommended resources on the Wooster Group:
Brace Up (2003). Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters, transl. by Paul Schmidt, dir. by Elizabeth Le Compte (DVD3711)
House/Lights (DVD3710 and DVD2019). The Wooster Group’s take on Stein’s Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights
The Wooster Group Work Book by Andrew Qick. Routledge, 2007. (pdf of Andrew Qick’s concluding chapter, “Only Pragmatics,” and Interview with Liz LeCompte on House/Lights attached) Call #: PN2277.N52 W667 2007
Wooster Group, 1975-1985: Breaking the Rules by David Savran, 1986. Call #: PN2277. N52 W667 1986
Actors and Onlookers: Theater and Twentieth-Century Scientific Views of Nature by Natalie Crohn Schmitt, Northwestern Univ. Press, 1990. Call #: PN2266.5 .S36 1990
Week 5 - 3/3 - Guests: LAPD's John Malpede & Henriette Brouwers
Week 5 GPA S10 Wiki Assignment
Assignment for the next wiki deadline (Tuesday 3/2 at noon.)
REQUIRED READING ASSIGNMENTS --
a) Before our next meeting we are requiring that everyone read or re-read the two Wooster articles by Andrew Quick from The Wooster Group Workbook:
“Only Pragmatics” and “Animating House/Lights”
We have made hard copies of these articles to facilitate the reading. They will be in your student mail boxes on the third floor by Friday late afternoon.
b) Please explore carefully and in detail the website that documents John Malpede and Henriette Brouwers' 2004 project for Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentucky: RFK in EKY.
The website information is extensive -- a collection of artists' statements (prior to and following the performances), documentation (written, oral and photographic), detailed descriptions of the event itself, and data on the implications of the project for future activity after 2004. It will take you about an hour to examine and absorb.
John and Henriette will be discussing and screening some video from the project in class on Wednesday.
c) Please read a synopsis of the Akira Kurosawa film RED BEARD, which is the basis of the L.A.P.D. performance of the same name, a video of which will be screening at 9.30 am on Wednesday.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Beard
FURTHER (OPTIONAL) READING/VIEWING CONNECTED WITH LAPD:
--Art, dialogue, action, activism : case studies from Animating Democracy / editors, Pam Korza and Barbara Schaffer Bacon. (Call Number: NX180.A77 A74 2005)
--Real deal [videorecording] / directed by Tom Jones ; produced by Tom Jones and Jaclyn Hoekstra. (Call Number: DVD 2731)
-- LAPD Jupiter 35 [videorecording] / Los Angeles Poverty Dept. (Call Number: VHS 3036)
--And a number of links:
LAPD's website: http://lapovertydept.org/
The RFK in EKY project: http://rfkineky.org/
Photographs of RFK in EKY: http://rfkineky.org/project/performance/sept9-1.htm
Bios for John & Henriette - sent as pdfs.
'Recreating Imbalance' - John's article on "RFK", "Agents & Assets" & "Red Beard" - sent as pdf
'Making the Case for Skid Row Culture' - Article by John & Maria Rosario Jackson from a cultural study on Skid Row (really long) - sent as pdf
Article on 'Skid Row History Museum' from LA Times - sent as pdf
RECOMMENDED PERFORMANCE:
At RedCat this weekend, through Saturday -- from Chile, Teatro en el Blanco
http://www.redcat.org/event/teatro-en-el-blanco
From the roiling imagination of Chilean writer-director Guillermo Calderón comes this politically charged, haunting drama about a near-future war in the Andes. Peppered with surprising doses of pitch-black comedy, Diciembre takes place in Santiago on Christmas Eve 2014 with the city besieged by Peruvian forces. Young soldier Jorge returns home on a 24-hour leave to celebrate the holiday with his pregnant twin sisters, who each have sharply different views on nationalism and the morality of war. One wants Jorge to defect, the other demands he return to the fight. Jorge, however, has his own take on the matter. Smartly produced by his dynamic Santiago-based company Teatro en el Blanco (“Theater on Target”), Calderón’s play strips away ostentatious theatrical conceit for us to hear clearly the terror knocking at the door. Featuring Paula Zúñiga, Trinidad González and Jorge Becker. Performed in Spanish with English supertitles.
Week 6 - 3/10 - Guests: Chorea, Tomasz Rodowicz
Week 6 GPA S10 Wiki Assignment
Required readings:
The readings for next week have two points of focus:
a) information on next Wednesday’s guest, Tomasz Rodowicz (this is all below--please follow all links!)
b) eight pages of excerpts from Grotowski’s and Barba’s writings, which provide some historical context for the conversation about CHOREA (these hand-outs were delivered to your mail boxes on Friday . . .)
Bio for next week’s guest Tomasz Rodowicz (Poland)
Now developing a body of work and research with his own company, CHOREA, Tomasz Rodowicz trained with Grotowski at the Teatr Laboratorium and was until very recently an actor, director with – and co‐founder of ‐ the Gardzienice Theatre Association from Poland. Gardzienice are acclaimed progenitors of a particular East European music‐theatre genre of ‘ethno‐oratorio’ that transforms native folk culture into extraordinary avant‐garde works. Highly charged, dynamic and energetic, with stirring structures of sound, harmony and dissonance, Gardzienice combine an intensely physical performance style with rich vocal work, fusing the ancient and contemporary in compelling and beautiful music‐theatre. Gardzienice training is a study of the state of the body, as of the spirit and of psychic energy. Their training of the voice has been inspired by the Lapp yoiking, the use of the voice in Korean Ku’t, antiphonal ways of singing from Mount Athos (Greece), polyphonic ways of singing in Ukraine and the Balkan countries, “singing with the body”. Tomasz’s teaching continues to teach theatre in close relation with an understanding of traditional folk cultures, reaching humanitarian and spiritual values by work with word, music, movement, theatrical space. It emphasizes indigenous culture; cultivating and restoring archaism for the common universal heritage of humans; building bridges between low and high culture.
From USC's Polish Music Newsletter: http://www.usc.edu/dept/polish_music/news/jan10.html
ABOUT TOMASZ RODOWICZ AND CHOREA: Following a four-year period of collaboration with Jerzy Grotowski's Teatr Laboratorium, Tomasz Rodowicz became a founding member and Music Director of The Association of Theatrical Practices Gardzienice (Gardzienice) in 1977 with WŁódźimierz Staniewski. Gardzienice is the internationally recognized theater group that sought to continue Grotowski's work as he moved away from theatrical productions. In collaboration with actors from Gardzienice, Rodowicz established the CHOREA Theatre Association in Łódź, Poland. With the goal of re-creating the bond between performers and audience that exists in ritual, CHOREA continues to make "expeditions" to communities in Europe, and in particular, to study ancient Greek theater and religious rites. The company is known for its sung performances, strenuous physical and vocal training, and anthropological fieldwork.
Chorea videos on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/choreatheatre -- these videos show the company's combination of ancient classical music and tradition with extreme physical performance.
Gardzienice Theatre Association has used several classical works as points of departure for their work; eg, Apuleuis' The Golden Ass and Euripedes' Elektra. More information and pictures of Gardzienice Theatre: http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/theater/gardzienice.html
"Chorea" or "choreia" is both an ancient Greek circle dance and the term used for a family of neurological disorders characterized by involuntary and dance-like movements of the body. From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choreia_%28dance%29
A brief notice about the upcoming performance at REDCAT from LA Stage Blog, includes several photos of Chorea http://www.lastageblog.com/2009/12/24/chorea/
Bibliographical info on the readings included in the hand-out, which you received as a hard copy:
––“The Theatre’s New Testament” (1964) by Jerzy Grotowski from Modern Theories of Drama: A Selection of Writings on Drama and Theatre, 1840-1990, edited by Geroge W. Brandt (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), pp. 200-204.
––“Methodical Exploration” (1967) by Jerzy Grotowski from Twentieth-Century Theatre; A Sourcebook, edited by Richard Draan (Routledge, 1995), pp.277-280. Call #: PN2020 .T88 1995
––“Words on Presence” by Eugenio Barba, from The Twentieth-Century Performance Reader, edited by Michael Huxley and Noel Witts, (Routledge, 1996), pp.36-43 Call #: PN1584 .T84 2002 (on library reserve)
Recommended readings: As we discussed, theoretical essays from Performance Analysis are optional. Don’t despair if you feel unsure about the exact definition of the “liminal” versus the “liminoid.” Much can land if you wrestle with the concepts in writing (see suggestion for wiki post above).
"Liminal and liminoid” chapter 8.1 (pp. 202 - 210) from Performance Analysis--excerpt form Victor Turner’s “Liminal to Liminoid, in Play, Flow, and Ritual”
Chapter 16, “The Gardzienice Theatre Association of Poland” by Paul Allain from Acting (re)considered : a theoretical and practical guide / [edited by] Phillip B. Zarrilli. Call number: PN2061.A3.2002. Book is on reserve and chapter is attached as pdf.
Focuses on the company’s work from 1989-1993 and its approach to mind/body training for the actor.
Book on Gardzienice Theatre Association & CD-ROM (on order for CalArts library): Hidden Territories: The Theatre of Gardzienice - by Wlodzimierz Staniewski, edited by Alison Hodge (Routledge, 2003)
You may want to check this out when it comes in--both for its detailed study of this company and for its innovative approach to documentation (CD-ROM, high-quality graphics, etc.).
Week 7 - 3/17 - Guest: Paul Zaloom
Week 7 GPA S10 Wiki Assignment
Required Reading:
1.) Explore Paul Zaloom's website in detail, paying close attention to tabs marked "show" & "video": http://www.zaloom.com/
2.) Article on THE MOTHER OF ALL ENEMIES: http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_151/paulzaloomspuppet.html
3.) Article on DANTE'S INFERNO: http://www.unima-usa.org/publications/toc/19_selections.html
4.) "Paul Zaloom's Puppets May Push Your Buttons": http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/07/18/zaloompuppetry/
5.) "The Radicality of Puppet Theater" seminal article by Peter Schumann, founder of Bread & Puppet Theater will be distributed via .pdf, please check your email.
Recommended Viewing: Some of Paul's influences. All clips are approx. 5-8 min. long.
1.) Karagoz - traditional shadow puppetry from Greece, Turkey & Egypt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJz0g1-12PE
2.) Old Punch & Judy film. Great traditional-style children's show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asp7rqB8muA (WARNING: Blackface puppets. Racist, sexist and violent as hell. Historically shameful dimensions of the Punch tradition, which Paul's work directly addresses. --NF)
3.) Soupy Sales and Pookie. Bad puppetry plus bad jokes = genius. See broken table incident; it was live TV. Soupy was a huge inspiration to me in both puppet work and for Beakman. Yes, this is a kids show. Could never do this today.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcb87xi8cVg&feature=fvw
4.) Lord Buckley, comedian, theologian, philosopher, and the greatest giant of world comedy that no one knows. The Train: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3vbxeBvaU0
Optional 'Performance Analysis' Text Reading:
8.2 - The Pageant pp. 210-215
8.3 - Carnival pp. 216-221
Week 8 - 3/31 - Guest: Rosanna Gamson
Week 8 GPA S10 Wiki Assignment
Required Readings & Viewings:
Please spend some time looking closely at Rosanna Gamson’s website, i.e. her bio, past works, and Tov. http://www.rosannagamsonworldwide.org/
Also look at video clips of Tov from YouTube (pay particular attention to use of the dancers' voices and sound):
-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu7MUSfv2CQ&feature=related
-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bl9H_QqdS0&NR=1
-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VpiRAAkmTc&feature=related
Read chapter 5.2 from Performance Analysis “Moving Bodies: the mime” by Patrice Pavis (pp.133-140)
Recommended Readings & Viewings:
–– chapter 3.5. “Acting camp” by Moe Meyer from Performance Analysis (pp. 86-93)
potentially illuminating in relation to Paul Zaloom, but also the Wooster Group and BDT
–– chapter 5.4 from Performance Analysis “The body adorned” by Elizabeth Wilson (pp. 146-153)
In CalArts library on Rosanna Gamson:
-- Winter dance concert 09 [videorecording]. 2009. call number DANCE DVD 052
-- Winter dance concert [videorecording] / California Institute of the Arts ; Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance. 2008. call number DANCE DVD 040
-- Winter dance concert, 2007 [videorecording] / CalArts ; Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance. 2007. call number DANCE DVD 018
-- Spring dance concert. Program A [and] Program B [videorecording]. 2007. call number DANCE DVD 001
On the Web:
video of Ravish: pt 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8fH_1YASEk
pt 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGsvQh66Ly8
video of 'Again Not Again' pt1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD7qmvb_GVs&feature=related pt2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqrhOy1qZpU&feature=related
LA Times article on Tov: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-rosanna-gamson14-2010mar14,0,2313461.story
A review of 'Ravish' (the Bronte piece): http://www.voiceofdance.com/v1/features.cfm/1631/Bronte-Country-Rosanna-Gamson-World-Wide631.html
Review of 'Ravish' from LA Times: http://www.cathypruzan.com/press_rosannagamson_LAtimes.html
(It's also worth reading/comparing the two reviews of the same piece)
Week 9 - 4/7 - Guest: Stephan Koplowitz
Week 9 GPA S10 Wiki Assignment
Required reading for 4/7/10:
Introduction and chapter 3 from Site Dance (distributed as hard copy before spring break and on reserve in the library)
In addition, please review the background information on Stephan (listed below).
Recommended reading from Performance Analysis:
Part six: “The space of performance”, especially 6.1. “Enacting space” from Yi-Fu Tuan’s “Space and Context” (pp.155-164)
Background information on Stephan Koplowitz:
Website: http://www.koplowitzprojects.com/
In CalArts library:
Site dance : choreographers and the lure of alternative spaces / edited by Melanie Kloetzel and Carolyn Pavlik. Call # GV1785.A1 S58
YouTube clips of some of his site-specific work:
Fenestrations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcMW78qRuSo&feature=related
The Grand Step Project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DblIGFB4J20&feature=related
Trailer for Liquid Landscapes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OISL4_-iTA
Liquid Landscapes the UK piece in 7 Chapters (courtesy Dartington School/DartingtonTV):
1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPtzVTE25I8
2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX9qIBdbqjA&feature=related
3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17D49uefZqo&feature=channel
4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1cLDIAWhmo&feature=channel
5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMFQOJcSNb0&feature=channel
6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwiPzI-OQUA&feature=channel
7 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyxAUytmvFs&feature=channel
Catching the 5:23, a dance film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2KC3lYkWqo&NR=1
(Not live performance, but illustrates how S.K intersects dance, site specificity & everyday life)
Articles available online:
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/14/nyregion/public-lives.html
(NY Times article, first third is an interview with S.K. about Fenestrations . . .)
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/09/arts/adventurous-performers-in-unexpected-places.html
(more on Fenestrations)
(about S.K., his work thru '97 & Dancing in the Streets)
Week 10 - 4/14 - Guest: Mady Schutzman
Week 10 GPA S10 Wiki Assignment
ASSIGNED READINGS:
1. Introduction to PLAYING BOAL and Glossary (distributed as hard copies to your mail boxes on Friday 4/9)
2. Part of chapter 5 of Boal's THEATER OF THE OPPRESSED: A - Need for the “Joker”; B - Goals of the “Joker” (distributed as hard copies to your mail boxes on Friday 4/9)
3. From PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS (but an ASSIGNED reading, nonetheless): Article 2.2: Epic Theatre (by Bertolt Brecht) (pp. 43-48)
ASSIGNED ONLINE VIEWING:
1. Obituary & interview with Boal on "Democracy Now" (9 minutes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rkVD_Oln7g
2. Tribute to Boal by the Neo-Futurists (4 minutes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvgavR8wSMc
3. Video of Thai Likay, a "low" form of itinierant folk operetta most often performed for poor citizens in rural villages and low-income urban neighborhoods, both in Thailand and Cambodia. (8 min)
This rather mysterious, impressionistic police video depicts moments of public performance and a "blooper real" of actors in rehearsal.
Watch closely for glimpses of the "low" (painted) clown characters, the distinctions between "pure" and "crafty" characters, "brave and cowardly", "shrewd" and "foolish", etc. Also at the way that the sets are constructed and changed from scene to scene.
Mady and I have both traveled in Thailand in search of "likay", and will most likely discuss it a bit.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7471777656868650921#docid=-5510478317678685102
ADDITIONAL LINKS:
The International Theatre of the Oppressed: http://www.theatreoftheoppressed.org/en/index.php
Rimini Protokoll: http://www.rimini-protokoll.de/website/en/index.php
RECOMMENDED READING (on reserve in CalArts Library):
-- Playing Boal : theatre, therapy, activism / edited by Mady Schutzman and Jan Cohen-Cruz. Date: 1993 Call Number: PN2049 .P59 1994
-- Boal Companion Author/editor: Schutzman, Mady Call Number: Personal Book Schutzman, Mady-Spring 2009
From PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
-- Article 3.4: Gestic Criticism (by Elin Diamond) (pp. 77-85)
BIO FOR MADY SCHUTZMAN, Assistant Dean School of Critical Studies
Mady Schutzman is a writer, scholar, and theater artist. She received her master's degree in sociocultural anthropology and her doctorate in performance studies at NYU. Schutzman has published academic scholarship, creative non-fiction, and fiction in a diverse range of anthologies and journals including The Drama Review, Women and Performance, American Journal of Communication, Journal of Medical Humanities, Errant Bodies, and Black Clock. Her book, The Real Thing: Performance, Hysteria, and Advertising (Wesleyan 1999) is an image driven text that critically addresses the mediated social body and mass consumption of popular advertising. She has also contributed text for several art events curated by Steven Hull, and most recently by installation artist, Jonathan Berger.
Schutzman is an internationally acclaimed scholar and freelance practitioner of the techniques of Augusto Boal's Theater of the Oppressed. She is co-editor with Jan Cohen-Cruz of Playing Boal: Theater, Therapy, Activism (Routledge 1994) and A Boal Companion: Dialogues on Theatre and Cultural Politics (Routledge, 2006). She is author of UPSET! (2006), a Boalian style play, about the anti-hero Rodney King and the L.A. riots of 1992. It was produced at Plaza de la Raza and REDCAT in 2006, and at the University of Southern California in 2007.
Week 11 - 4/21 - Guest: Carl Hancock Rux
Week 11 GPA S10 Wiki Assignment
Required reading:
1. Carl Hancock Rux, “Eminem: The New White Negro”
2. Carl Hancock Rux, review of Spalding Gray biography in American Theatre, March 2010 (distributed as hard copy to your mail boxes on Thursday evening)
3. Check out Carl Hancock Rux’s website at http://www.carlhancockrux.com/
Required viewing (provided you don’t have a production requirement):
Carl Hancock Rux POESIA NEGRA: RACE, SEX AND THE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN MYTOPIA, Redcat, April 22-24, http://www.redcat.org/event/carl-hancock-rux
We encourage you to come on Saturday the 24th; Carl will be available for a discussion with the class after the performance.
POESIA NEGRA is in conversation with the following (i.e. viewing strongly encouraged):
1. Teorema by Pier Paolo Pasolini (1968) DVD 2142, VHS 2926, VHS 1379
2. Portrait of Jason by Shirley Clarke, DVD 2928
“The subject and constant object of this film is male prostitute Jason Holliday giving a stream-of-consciousness "confession" of his life. He performs a pas de deux with the process of making the film: questions from the director and crew are heard, the crew laughs with him at his jokes, at times the camera runs out of film but the sound continues, with black leader replacing the picture. The film itself was shot over a twelve-hour period.”
3. James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket by Karen Thorsen (1989), VHS 1239
“. . . uses striking archival footage to evoke the atmosphere of Baldwin's formative years - the Harlem of the 30s, his father's fundamentalist church and the émigré demi-monde of postwar Paris. Newsreel clips from the '60's record Baldwin's running commentary on the drama of the Civil Rights movement. The film also explores his quiet retreats in Paris, the South of France, Istanbul and Switzerland - places where Baldwin was able to write away from the racial tensions of America.
Writers Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed, William Styron and biographer David Leeming place Baldwin's work in the African-American literary tradition - from slave narratives and black preaching to their own contemporary work. The film skillfully links excerpts from Baldwin's major books - Go Tell it on the Mountain, Notes of a Native Son, Another Country, The Fire Next Time, Blues for Mister Charlie, If Beale Street Could Talk - to different stages in Black-white dialogue and conflict.”
4. Swimming to Cambodia by Spalding Gray (1987) VHS 173
Recommended sources:
Any of “Rux Articles” on website
http://www.carlhancockrux.com/index.php?section=24
Interviews on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTL0UYoKQ04&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7sqc9vPp78&feature=user
Good Bread Alley video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WOFfoQNRsc&feature=user
and from Performance Analysis, part four, “Performing Ethnicity,” esp. 4.2 Eric Lott, from Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class
Week 12 - 4/28 - Guest: Peter Sellars
Week 12 GPA S10 Wiki Assignment
So the complete assignment is:
1. View Sellars documentary on DVD in library (90 minutes, of which we already saw 35 min.)
2. Read the two attached articles -- one a speech by Sellars to graduating students at UC Berkeley, the other an interview with theater scholar Bonnie Marranca from Performing Arts Journal.
