ART 310 Performance and Ritual

This course introduces students to the performative as a field for visual artists-Performance and theatre practice. The course is a practice based interdisciplinary approach toward following topics: performance as collective space, embodied speech, words as deeds, verbal performance, oral traditions vs contemporary performance, ensemble work, physicality of performer, role of training, auditory spatial awareness, site specific projects, analogies between performance and ritual, ritual in today society.
Students will participate in a semester-long program, dedicated to a diverse topics of performativity in the arts. This series of training sessions, based on physical theatre and voice work, is aimed to broaden students' sense of presence and awareness, to enhance sensitivity to one another and with the public, and guide us through these living traditions. The training is based on partner and group exercises, which emphasize mutuality in a group and build mutual awareness of each other. Students will be introduced to the techniques practiced by the heirs of Jerzy Grotowski?s methods?in Poland and abroad (mostly the Academy of Theatre Practices Gardzienice). The students will learn to combine diverse approaches and tools in interdisciplinary work process and use different media in creating the final presentation. Classes will contain theoretical introductions to selected topics related to performance and ritual.