The Body as Stage: Experiments in Performance Art

Undergraduate

Your (Body + Space + Time + Labor + Inquiry + Experience) = Performance Art? Working through experiences of oppression, isolation, illness, and individual/collective trauma, how do artists use their immediate material conditions to investigate and document their own survival as well as to imagine new forms of resistance and collective flourishing? Alternating between seminar discussions (remote) and performance-based experiments (in-person) this course explores the theory and practice of performance art. Beginning with an examination of the ground-breaking bodies of work created by Antonin Artaud and Marina Abramovic, we go on to consider works by more than a dozen twentieth- and twenty-first century artists including Carolee Schneeman, Dread Scott, Rirkit Tiravanija, Ana Mendieta, Stelarc, Yoko Ono, Aliza Shvarts, and others. We investigate topics including ritual, gesture, duration, suffering, dwelling, prosthesis, citation, relationality, protest, intermediality, and interactivity, and we interrogate performance art's accessibility, efficacy, and marketing. Students create several small studies over the course of the semester, sharing them in safe, informal settings and are guided in the development of a culminating work of performance-based research. All physical capabilities are welcome, no prior experience in theater, visual art, or performance is required, and all assignments will be adaptable to the remote environment. HU RP T 1:30pm-4:30pm