Results for TAPS

This class is an introduction to dance studies and the complex meanings bodily performances carry both onstage and off. Using critical frames drawn from dance criticism, history and ethnography and performance studies, and readings from cultural studies, dance, theater and critical theory, the class explores how performing bodies make meanings. We will read theoretical and historical texts and recorded dance as a means of developing tools for viewing and analyzing dance and understanding its place in larger social, cultural, and political structures. Special attention will be given to new turns in queer and feminist dance studies. TAPS 11 has been certified to fulfill the Writing in the Major (WIM) requirement.

(Formerly CLASSGEN 6N.) Preference to freshmen. Tensions inherent in the democracy of ancient Athens; how the character of Antigone emerges in later drama, film, and political thought as a figure of resistance against illegitimate authority; and her relevance to contemporary struggles for women's and workers' rights and national liberation. Readings and screenings include versions of Antigone by Sophocles, Anouilh, Brecht, Fugard/Kani/Ntshona, Paulin, Glowacki, Gurney, and von Trotta.

Do we need love? And if so, what does it look like? In this class, students will learn about relationships from the inside out: through an examination and telling of their lived experiences. We will explore various perspectives on intimacy and relationships that illuminate different aspects of our lives, and then dive into our own stories to discover the many facets of intimacy. Due to the personal nature of the topic, we will emphasize safety, trust, and confidentiality throughout. The class offers the structure and guidance to 1) mine your life for stories, 2) craft the structure and shape of your stories, and 3) perform with presence, authenticity, and connection. Please fill out this short application for enrollment: bit.ly/Fall2020StoryCraft

Students cast in department productions receive credit for their participation as actors; 1-2 units for graduate directing workshop projects and 1-3 units for major productions (units determined by instructor). May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

For students working backstage, on run crew, or in the theater shops on TAPS department productions. Night and weekend time required. Pre-approval from Jane Casamajor (janecasa@stanford.edu) is required for enrollment.

Why does adoption figure so prominently in western narrative? From Oedipus to Harry Potter, the classical and popular traditions of literature often include stories of displaced children, orphans and adoptees. This course will examine the allure of the adoption narrative, both to authors and to audiences. Issues of transracial adoption will also be discussed and we will be concerned with memoir and documentary film toward the end of the quarter. No previous knowledge of adoption is required.

The improvisational theater techniques that teach spontaneity, cooperation, team building, and rapid problem solving, emphasizing common sense, attention to reality, and helping your partner. Based on TheatreSports by Keith Johnstone. Readings, papers, and attendance at performances of improvisational theater. Limited enrollment. Improv, Improvisation, creativity and creative expression. All who sign up are placed on a waitlist. Official enrollment will be determined after the first day of class. Attendance at the first class session is mandatory to be considered for enrollment in the course.

Introduction to interdisciplinary approaches to gender, sexuality, queer, trans and feminist studies. Topics include the emergence of sexuality studies in the academy, social justice and new subjects, science and technology, art and activism, history, film and memory, the documentation and performance of difference, and relevant socio-economic and political formations such as work and the family. Students learn to think critically about race, gender, and sexuality from local and global perspectives.

The world of Musical Theater is filled with stories of love, passion, joy, violence, heartbreak and rage. nnIn this workshop we will research, study and practice audition pieces from this exciting performance discipline. The class will serve as an introduction for the beginning actor and singer, and expand the more experienced performer¿s range in this genre. nnThe class will include an introduction to vocal warm-ups and skills, with exercises to develop and determine vocal range with an accompanist. In preparation for a well-rounded audition, the instructor will work with the actors on utilization of action, specificity of language, personalization, and emotional truth. nnOur class must be a place where everyone feels safe. As ensemble members, we will be responsible for each other and encourage a sense of play and relaxation in supportive environment.nnSTUDENTS ARE ENCOURAGED TO BRING THEIR OWN SUGGESTIONS. (Isn¿t there a role you¿ve always wanted to sing?)

TAPS 119M Special Topics courses feature the annual Mohr Visiting Artist. The Mohr Visiting Artist program brings acclaimed and emerging artists to campus for a one-term period to teach a credited course and provide a presentation, exhibition or performance for the Stanford community and the public.nnThe Winter 2020 course is titled multi-hyphenate // liberating our artistic selves and is taught by Haruna Lee: n From Donald Glover to Yoko Ono, Beyoncé to Gertrude Stein, the multi-hyphenate artist who has not one but many disciplines continues to innovate and thrive across time, space and cultures. This course invites you to liberate all your creative selves- writer, director, designer, performer, producer, organizer, leader- by seeding an original theater or performance project that centers your freedom first and foremost. We will move our bodies together, find breath and ritual, engage with our own creative writing practice, find inspiration in unlikely and charming poetics and landscapes, devise and collaborate with each other, and share our creative material while learning to give and receive constructive feedback and direction. We will often look to Adrienne Maree Brown for guidance on how to call in our collective liberation, pleasure, ancestor work and healing, while using anti-oppression frameworks and emergent strategies to discuss ethical and equitable collaboration. This course is open to persons with a strong desire to embody a multi-hyphenate artistic practice and share creative work within a guided community.

A substantive introduction to the basics of the craft of acting, this course gives all incoming students the foundation of a common vocabulary. Students will learn fundamental elements of dramatic analysis, and how to apply it in action. Topics include scene analysis, environment work, psychological and physical scoring, and development of a sound and serviceable rehearsal technique. Scene work will be chosen from accessible, contemporary, and realistic plays. Outside rehearsal time required.

The Main Stage Theater Project provides students the opportunity to receive units for participating in a TAPS Main Stage Show. In Autumn 2020, the main stage show is Beyond the Wound is a Portal. In Winter 2021, the main stage show is StageCast.

Formerly TAPS 20. Creative play, ensemble work in a supportive environment. Designed for the student to experience a range of new creative skills, from group improvisation to partner work. Introductory work on freeing the natural voice and physical relaxation. Emphasis on rediscovering imaginative and creative impulses. Movement improvisation, listening exercises, and theater games release the energy, playfulness and willingness to take risks that is the essence of free and powerful performance. Course culminates with work on dramatic text.

This course is an exploration of movement techniques for the actor, designed to provide a foundation for performance practice. Students will develop a more grounded sense of ease and breath onstage, learn fundamentals of physical partnership, and acquire an expanded physical vocabulary. Areas of study include Laban movement analysis, observation and embodiment, basic contact improvisation, and physical characterization. Students will also engage a personalized warmup process for rehearsal and performance. All coursework will be entirely experiential, practical, and participatory. No previous experience necessary. Some outside rehearsal/investigation time required.

Costume in Film will explore the process of costume design from the page to the screen. This course will discuss a range of period and contemporary films in order to discover how character development, storytelling and iconography relates to clothing and costume. In addition to film analysis, there will be assignments where students will explore the practical process of design and how it relates to film.

For students stage managing a production in the Department of Theater and Performance Studies.

From Youtube star to performing at Coachella, every performance needs a producer. The struggle to produce a work is quite astonishing, and often unbelievable. The challenging process of germinating an idea, deciding on a venue, assembling a collaborative team, sticking within a limited budget, to finally getting audience to attend. This class will not only give you the knowledge and skills to make it big, but more importantly prevent you from being the next box office flop or Fyre Fest failure.

A seminar course for students performing significant production work on Theater and Performance Studies Department or other Stanford University student theater projects. Students serving as producers, directors, designers or stage managers, who wish mentorship and credit for their production work sign up for this course and contact the instructor, Laxmi Kumaran. nPrerequisite: consent of instructor.

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.

How does race function in performance and dare we say live and in living color? How does one deconstruct discrimination at its roots?n nFrom a perspective of global solidarity and recognition of shared plight among BIPOC communities, we will read and perform plays that represent material and psychological conditions under a common supremacist regime. Where and when possible, we will host a member of the creative team of some plays in our class for a live discussion. Assigned materials include works by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Amiri Baraka, Young Jean Lee, Ayad Akhtar, Susan Lori Parks, David Henry Hwang, Betty Shamieh, Jeremy O. Harris, and Christopher Demos Brown.n nThis class offers undergraduate students a discussion that does not center whiteness, but takes power, history, culture, philosophy, and hierarchy as core points of debate. In the first two weeks, we will establish the common terms of the discussion about stereotypes, representation, and historical claims, but then we will quickly move toward an advanced conversation about effective discourse and activism through art, performance, and cultural production. In this class, we assume that colonialism, slavery, white supremacy, and oppressive contemporary state apparatuses are real, undeniable, and manifest. Since our starting point is clear, our central question is not about recognizing or delineating the issues, but rather, it is a debate about how to identify the target of our criticism in order to counter oppression effectively and dismantle long-standing structures.n nNot all BIPOC communities are represented in this syllabus, as such claim of inclusion in a single quarter would be tokenistic and disingenuous. Instead, we will aspire to understand and negotiate some of the complexities related to race in several communities locally in the U.S. and beyond.

This workshop class guides students through the directing process from investigating the big ideas of a play and analysing the action to organizing and running rehearsals to building up the world of the play through character work and visual composition. Over the quarter we will look at the use of creative visualization and improvisation alongside working with actors on ideas, emotions, relationships, textual analysis and blocking. This course also attends to the process of communicating with designers and production teams as well as structuring rehearsals, run-throughs and technical and dress rehearsals. Each student will select a theatrical text to work from across the quarter. In many cases the student's text will be a play that they are planning to direct in future, such as productions for student groups like Ram's Head or Stanford Shakespeare Company, TAPS capstone projects, TAPS 2nd year grad shows and/or TAPS Second Stage productions. No previous directing experience in necessary.nnTAPS PhD students and declared TAPS majors/minors will be permitted enrollment automatically. Please email instructor Michael Rau (mjrau@stanford.edu) to receive a permission number.nnStudents who are not currently TAPS PhDs, majors, or minors: To enroll in this course, please email instructor Michael Rau (mjrau@stanford.edu) with: your name, your major (or prospective major), any relevant experience in theater or classes that you¿ve taken, and a short (2-3 sentences) statement of why you are interested in taking this course.

A creative workshop offering a range of techniques and technologies in order to create original works of theater that are performed over the internet. Students will be invited to explore different artistic strategies combined with demonstrations of emerging technologies. Students will have an opportunity to practice and develop these skills with weekly short digital theater composition assignments. Students will be given readings and short videos about the artistic practices of certain artists along with guest speakers. The course will culminate in a final group performance.

Instructor Young Jean Lee is the first Asian-American female to have had her play produced in Broadway. This workshop will guide you through the process of of creating a script for a full-length piece of theater (musicals are welcome, and screenplays are allowed for winter quarter only), and will focus on helping you to make significant progress on and/or complete a draft. You'll be required to write every week and give feedback on each others' work. You can be anywhere in your process from having no idea what you want to do to being close to a final draft. This class is open to a wide range of approaches and styles, including adaptations and devised work. Both students who have never written for theater and students who have worked on a script with Young Jean in a previous class are welcome. Students must email the instructor at yjl@stanford.edu for permission to enroll. This class will be taught at both 8:30am and 2:30pm, so please indicate your time preference.

Preference to sophomores. Chomsky's ideas and work which challenge the political and economic paradigms governing the U.S. Topics include his model for linguistics; cold war U.S. involvements in S.E. Asia, the Middle East, Central and S. America, the Caribbean, and Indonesia and E. Timor; the media, terrorism, ideology, and culture; student and popular movements; and the role of resistance.

Individual project on the work of a playwright, period, or genre. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

Credit given for undergraduate student board members of the Experimental Nitery Studio.

All TAPS Majors must complete a Senior Project that represents significant work in any area of theater and/or performance. The project must be an original contribution and can consist of any of the following: devising a performance, choreographing a dance, stage managing a production, designing a large theater work, performing a major role, writing a play, directing a show, or researching and writing a senior essay. Work for this project normally begins in Spring Quarter of the junior year and must be completed by the end of the senior year. Students receive credit for senior projects through TAPS 200. A minimum of 4 units is required, but additional units are available for larger projects. Students pursuing senior projects must submit a two-page proposal to a faculty advisor of their choice, which must be approved by the Undergraduate Advisor and the department faculty no later than the end of Spring Quarter of the junior year.

An advanced written project to fulfill the requirements for the Honors degree in TAPS. There are two ways to undertake an honors thesis. The first is to write a 40-50 page essay, which presents research on an important issue or subject of the student's choice. The second option is a 30-page essay that takes the student's capstone project as a case study and critically analyzes the creative work. Students are expected to work consistently throughout the year with their advisor, whom they identify at the time of application. Advisors can be selected from Academic Council faculty or artists-in-residence. Students should enroll in TAPS 202 each quarter during the senior year (1 unit in Autumn; 1 unit in Winter; 2 units in Spring).

Individually structured class in lighting mechanics and design through experimentation, discussions, and written reports. Prerequisite: 131 or consent of instructor.

Individually structured tutorial for costume designers. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: 132 or consent of instructor.

Individually structured workshop. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: 133 or consent of instructor.

For students stage managing a Department of Theater and Performance Studies production. May be repeat for credit. Prerequisite: 134.

Independent Study for Graduate Students completing dramaturgy projects.

Instructor Young Jean Lee is the first Asian-American female to have had her play produced in Broadway. This workshop will guide you through the process of of creating a script for a full-length piece of theater (musicals are welcome, and screenplays are allowed for winter quarter only), and will focus on helping you to make significant progress on and/or complete a draft. You'll be required to write every week and give feedback on each others' work. You can be anywhere in your process from having no idea what you want to do to being close to a final draft. This class is open to a wide range of approaches and styles, including adaptations and devised work. Both students who have never written for theater and students who have worked on a script with Young Jean in a previous class are welcome. Students must email the instructor at yjl@stanford.edu for permission to enroll. This class will be taught at both 8:30am and 2:30pm, so please indicate your time preference.

Individual project on the work of a playwright, period, or genre.

This seminar offers a global survey of theater and performance from antiquity to 1945. Students will read plays and historical texts to broaden and enrich their knowledge of theater history and research. The course takes place during the Fall and Winter quarters, with students attending class every other week. This extended course structure is designed to allow more time for students to work through the course material. The final two sessions in each quarter will be reserved for students to present material of their own interest.nnPlease note: TAPS 301 is a required course for TAPS first-year PhD students. It is designed to prepare them for the comprehensive exam, which takes place at the end of the Winter quarter. Other students are welcome to take the course as a regular theater history seminar. Regardless, students should treat the course as one integrated sequence and enroll in both quarters (not just one or the other). nnnThe course will be graded Pass/Fail for first-year TAPS PhD students taking the exam; any other students may take the course as Pass/Fail or for a letter grade at the discretion of the instructor.

This graduate seminar focuses on questions of historiography and the archive as they relate to studies of theater, dance, and performance. It blends rigorous discussion and theoretical exploration with practical experience in libraries, museums, and other local archival repositories. Throughout the course, we will explore representation, memory, repertoire, and narrative through examples in theatre and performance history. We will examine how events have been historicized, how absence has been represented, and how individuals are remembered and refigured. Important principles and practices of documentation will also be addressed throughout our discussions and activities. Our discussions and field trips will examine the status of data and various forms of evidence in constructing critical performance history (including prompt scripts, set designs, costumes, publicity material and other ephemera, actorly life-writing, video and digital documents, artifacts, visual material, and embodied traces). TAPS 311 also functions as a gateway course for TAPS PhD students in your first quarter of study at Stanford, familiarizing you with resources at the university and in the broader Bay Area.

Prepares PhD students for the academic profession by honing skills in presenting and publishing research, navigating the job market, and managing a career.

This workshop class guides students through the directing process from investigating the big ideas of a play and analysing the action to organizing and running rehearsals to building up the world of the play through character work and visual composition. Over the quarter we will look at the use of creative visualization and improvisation alongside working with actors on ideas, emotions, relationships, textual analysis and blocking. This course also attends to the process of communicating with designers and production teams as well as structuring rehearsals, run-throughs and technical and dress rehearsals. Each student will select a theatrical text to work from across the quarter. In many cases the student's text will be a play that they are planning to direct in future, such as productions for student groups like Ram's Head or Stanford Shakespeare Company, TAPS capstone projects, TAPS 2nd year grad shows and/or TAPS Second Stage productions. No previous directing experience in necessary.nnTAPS PhD students and declared TAPS majors/minors will be permitted enrollment automatically. Please email instructor Michael Rau (mjrau@stanford.edu) to receive a permission number.nnStudents who are not currently TAPS PhDs, majors, or minors: To enroll in this course, please email instructor Michael Rau (mjrau@stanford.edu) with: your name, your major (or prospective major), any relevant experience in theater or classes that you¿ve taken, and a short (2-3 sentences) statement of why you are interested in taking this course.

A creative workshop offering a range of techniques and technologies in order to create original works of theater that are performed over the internet. Students will be invited to explore different artistic strategies combined with demonstrations of emerging technologies. Students will have an opportunity to practice and develop these skills with weekly short digital theater composition assignments. Students will be given readings and short videos about the artistic practices of certain artists along with guest speakers. The course will culminate in a final group performance.

Students may take directing reading only with the permission of their dissertation advisor. Might be repeatable for credit twice for 6 units total.

(Staff)