Theater Arts - Winter 1998

M-W-F: 12:30-2:00
Performing Arts 105 Spring 1997

This course is designed to introduce students to the fundamentals of movement technique for theatrical dance. Movement elements to be studied are modern with a classical base. Students are encouraged to develop their abilities to learn and remember combinations quickly, to move through space in groups as well as individually, and to project their movement into space.

Students will develop an individual understanding of balance and transfer of weight through the progressive development of exercises for placement, articulation in ankles, kness, and hips, and fluidity and control of arms and back. Each student is required to present a one-minute movement study in the second half of the quarter. This study should be performed by the student for the class without music, and should derive from the exploration of certain movement ideas of the student's, and the extension of these ideas into time and space. Students should be prepared to talk about the process of their work, and to receive suggestions, comments, and constructive criticism.

Evaluations are based on good attendance (more than 3 absences is considered excessive), concentration, receptivity to correction, and energetic focus during class time. On entering the studio, students are expected to begin breathing warm-ups on their own, and to keep talking and socializing to a minimum in order to establish the concentration necessary for dance.

Oakes 106; Tues & Thurs. 4-5:45

We will focus on theories of drama by looking at the actor as a complex of emotional, physical, and psychic components in different historical and aesthetic moments. This course is designed principally around the major theatrical innovations of the twentieth-century, and its purpose is both historical and theoretical. Each student will present a ten-minute "exposé" on a subject of his or her choice, which should be drawn from the syllabus or, in exceptional instances, from adjacent materials. Other course requirements are active participation in a lecture/seminar framework, and one final paper (5-7 pages).

Antonin Artaud, The Theater and its Double

Walter Benjamin, Understanding Brecht

Euripedes, The Bacchae

Wole Soyinka, The Bacchae of Euripedes. A Communion Rite

Class Reader (available for purchase at Copy Center)

Week one:

Jan 7 Introduction

Jan 9 Diderot, The Paradox of Acting

Week two:

Jan 14 Kleist, "On the Marionette Theater" [clips of Isadora Duncan, Max Reinhardt, A Midsummer Nights Dream]

Jan 16 Schlemmer, "Man and Art Figure" [Schlemmer, "Bauhaus dances"]

Week three:

Jan 21 Artaud, "The Theater and the Plague," "Metaphysics and the Mise en Scène," in The Theater and its Double (15-47)

Jan 23 Artaud, "The Alchemical Theater," and "On the Balinese Theater," and "Oriental and Occidental Theater," in The Theater and it Double (48-73)

Week four:

Jan 28 Artaud, "No More Masterpieces," "The Theater and Cruelty," "The Theater of Cruelty: First Manifesto," in The Theater and its Double (73-100)

Jan 30 Brecht, Baden Lehrstück Benjamin, "What is Epic Theatre?" and "Studies for a Theory of Epic Theatre" (in Understanding Brecht, 1-25)

Week five:

Feb. 4 Brecht, "Alienation Effects in Chinese Acting," "A Short Organum for the Theater"

Feb. 6 Grotowski, "Towards a Poor Theatre," "The Theatre's New Testament," and "He Wasn't Entirely Himself" [Ryszard Cieslak, the "plastiques" & the "corporels"]

Week six:

Feb. 11 Euripedes, The Bacchae Soyinka, The Bacchae of Euripedes

Feb. 13 Schechner, "Restoration of Behavior" in Between Theater and Anthropology (35-65).

Week seven:

Feb 18 Schechner, "Restoration of Behavior"

Feb 20 [The Performance Group, Dionysus in '69]

Week eight:

Feb. 25 exchange day

Feb. 27 Schechner, "In Warm Blood: the Bacchae" "The Politics of Ecstasy," Auslander, "From the Politics of Ecstasy to the Ecstasy of Communication"

Week nine:

Mar. 4 [A Primer for Pina]

Mar. 6 [Bausch, BlueBeard]

Week ten:

Mar. 11 Blau, The Audience (excerpt)

Mar. 13 Conclusions

final papers due today

Artaud, Antonin. The Theater and its Double. New York: Grove Press, 1958.

Auslander, Philip. Presence and Resistance. Postmodernism and Cultural Politics in Contemporary American Performance. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994.

Benjamin, Walter. Understanding Brecht. London: Verso, 1983.

Blau, Herbert. The Audience. (or last chapter of Theatre at the Vanishing Point?)

Brecht, Bertolt. "Baden Lehrstück," in Tulane Drama Review 4/4 (May 1960): 118-133.

Brecht on Theatre. The Development of an Aesthetic. Ed. and trans. John Willett. New York: Hill & Wang, 1964.

Diderot, Denis. The Paradox of Acting. New York: Hill & Wang, 1957.

Euripedes. The Bacchae of Euripedes. Trans. C. K. Williams. New York: Noonday, 1990.

Grotowski, Jerzy. Towards a Poor Theatre. Denmark: Odin Thearets Forlag, 1968.

Kleist, Heinrich von. "On the Marionette Theater," in German Romantic Criticism. Ed. Leslie Willson. New York: Continuum, 1982: 175-218.

Kleberg, Lars. Theatre as Action. Soviet Russian Avant-Garde Aesthetics. Trans.Charles Rougle. London: Macmillan, 1993. PN2193E86K591993

Pasolini, Rudnitsky, Konstantin. Meyerhold. The Director. Trans. George Petrov. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1981. PN2728M4R813

The Performance Group. Dionysus in 69. New York: Farar, Straus & Giroux, 1970.

Schechner, Richard. "In Warm Blood: The Bacchae (1967)" and "The Politics of Ecstasy (1968)." Public Domain. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969: 93-107; 209-228.

"Restoration of Behavior," in Between Theater and Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985: 35-116.

Schlemmer, Oskar. "Man and Art Figure." The Theater of the Bauhaus.

Soyinka, Wole. The Bacchae of Euripedes. A Communion Rite. London: Methuen, 1973.

Revised 7/13/04.