51 - 60 of 173 results for: TAPS

This course is structured to examine manifestos as unorthodox texts, leaking with emotion, humor, and anger, in order to offer an important critical frame for studying performance art in relation to gender, power, oppression, and autonomy. By reading manifestos with and against feminist and queer performance practices, and by taking an interdisciplinary approach to Performance, Cultural, and Aesthetic Theory, the course examines the method, rhetoric, aim, style, and substance of manifestos to understand their importance and efficacy.

Transnational Sexualites is an inter-disciplinary course that considers the aesthetic, social, and political formation of sexual subjectivities in a global world. How does the transnational traffic of people, media, images, finance, and commodities shape the force-fields of desire? What is the relationship between political economies and libidinal economies? The course will explore the erotics of race and religion, neoliberalism and globalization within a wide range geo-political contexts including Indonesia, China, Egypt, India, South Africa, US, among others.

What is virtual reality and where is it heading? Was there VR before digital technology? What is the value of the real in a virtual culture? How, where, and when do we draw the line between the virtual and the real, the live and the mediated today? Concentrating on three aspects of VR simulation, immersion, and interactivity this course will examine recent experiments alongside a long history of virtual performance, from Plato's Cave to contemporary CAVEs, from baroque theatre design to Oculus Rift.

Focus is on Shakespeare's Hamlet as a site of rich critical controversy from the eighteenth century to the present. Aim is to read, discuss, and evaluate different approaches to the play, from biographical, theatrical, and psychological to formalist, materialist, feminist, new historicist, and, most recently, quantitative. The ambition is to see whether there can be great literature without (a) great (deal of) criticism. The challenge is to understand the theory of literature through the study of its criticism.

The most influential and enduring texts in the dramatic canon from Sophocles to Shakespeare, Chekhov to Soyinka. Their historical and geopolitical contexts. Questions about the power dynamics involved in the formation of canons. This course counts as a Writing in the Major course for TAPS in 2016-17.

For as long as there has been an American theatrical tradition, there have been controversies about it. From those creating theatrical performances, to those analyzing drama¿s place in society, to audiences, people have strong opinions about the purpose, nature, and impact of US theater. This course will ask questions such as: What are the best casting practices with respect to race, gender, ability, and sexuality? How has the commercialization or Disneyification of Broadway changed the theatrical landscape? Should the federal government fund the arts, and if so, does that give them the right to influence content?

This seminar introduces students to Dance Studies by exploring the topic of improvisation, a central concept in multiple genres of dance and music. We will survey a range of improvised dance forms¿from salsa to vodun to tap dance¿through readings, video viewings, discussion, and movement exercises (no previous dance experience required). When studying each genre, we will examine how race, gender, sexuality, citizenship, and other power structures affect the practices and theorizations of improvisation. Topics include community and identity formation; questions of technique versus ¿natural¿ ability; improvisation as a spiritual practice; and the role of history in improvisers¿ quest for spontaneity. Course material will focus on improvised dance, but we will also read pertinent literature in jazz music, theatre, and the law.

This course examines how dance is produced from a confluence of different social, cultural, and historical forces. Focusing on dance practices from Africa, Latin America, and Oceania, we investigate how attention to dance¿s entangled genealogies can teach us about issues of diaspora, globalization, and trans-indigeneity. Students have the opportunity to engage in stimulating discussion and debate, to participate in practical dance workshops, and to interact with specialist guest artists.

How has the topic of revenge inspired some of theatre history¿s most dramatic masterpieces? Covering works from ancient Greek and Roman tragedy to Chinese Opera, from Japanese samurai intrigues to Renaissance drama, and from nineteenth-century comedy to postcolonial plays, this course examines how the powerful impetus to take revenge has spurred or stymied some of theatre¿s most compelling characters. Blending theory and practice, we will experiment with an array of theatrical forms and styles; we will also discuss the philosophical dimensions and moral implications of revenge, including various cultural understandings of retribution and redress.