SPRING SEMESTER 2016
COMM 5265—PERFORMANCE METHODS
Instructor: Dr. Justin Trudeau M 6:00-8:50 GAB 321
Office: 320B GAB
Office Hours: T, TH 10-11, and by appointment
Telephone: 565-3526
E-mail:
Throw an idea instead of potatoes, idiots!—Carlo Carrera, Futurist
The reason we work in the theater is to ask, 'What is it?' Not to say what it is.
--Robert Wilson—Theatre of Images
Criticism…depends for its validity on never being at ease with
a fixed method. It must constantly put its own grounds in question
-J. Hillis Miller, “The Critic as Host”
TEXTS:
Counsell, Colin. Signs of Performance: An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Theatre.
London: Routledge, 1996.
Teresa Brayshaw and Noel Witts, eds. The Twentieth-Century Performance Reader. 3rd ed.
London: Routledge, 2014.
(To Be Determined) Course Handouts and Readings
Course Description:
In this seminar, we will undertake a practical survey of C20 and C21 theatre/performance methods. Our aim is to understand and apply the methods as critical discourses that impact (or can impact) how we teach, perform, talk and write about performance. In a round-robin fashion, each student will teach a particular method; present a performance based on one of the methods taught by their classmates; and respond to one of the performances in writing. For a final cumulative project, students will have the option of doing a performance or taking an exam.
Course Evaluations:
Teaching a method and an assignment 30%
Performance based on an assignment 20%
Essay in response to a performance 30%
Final performance or exam 20%
GRADING SCALE AND RATIONALE
A- 90-100% Distinguished mastery, exceptionally well-prepared, creativity
B- 80-89% Good mastery, excellence in preparation, original application
C-70-79% Acceptable mastery, basic preparation, correct technique
D-60-69% Unsatisfactory grasp, incomplete assignments
F-0-59% Failure to complete the assignment during the scheduled time
Participation/Attendance
Your attendance is necessary for participation in classroom activities as well as functioning as audience members. Performances and Lectures will be given on the dates assigned. Missed lecture/performance days when you are scheduled to be an audience member will result in an automatic deduction of one full letter grade for that round of lecture/performances. Excused absences are those that are verifiable as well as documented.
Academic Integrity
All students are expected to conform to the University’s code of conduct. Students who cheat or plagiarize will fail the assignment concerned, will be turned in to the University’s Judicial Committee, and may receive a failing grade for the course.
Access Policy
We cooperate fully with the University’s Office of Disability Accommodation to provide reasonable accommodation to students who require it. Students who wish to self-identify should register with the ODA no later than the second day of class.
Policy on Incompletes
Per university policy, I will award grades of “Incomplete” only in cases where a student has completed 75% of the coursework AND the grade is warranted by a medical or military excuse. Inability to complete coursework in a timely fashion does not constitute an acceptable reason for requesting or receiving an incomplete.
Policy Regarding Written Work
All written work must be typed. I will evaluate your written work on style as well as content. The Publication Manual for the American Psychological Association is the style guide utilized by faculty and students in the Department of Communication Studies. The department web site includes an abbreviated guide to address the most common errors made by student writers. I also accept MLA style documentation. I also accept MLA style documentation.
Papers with 10 or more stylistic errors will be penalized 10 points, the equivalent of one letter grade.
Class Evaluation
SPOT
Fall 2016 SPOT Administration Dates: November 21 – December 8
The SPOT evaluation is a requirement for all organized classes at UNT. This short survey will be made available to you at the end of the semester, providing you a chance to comment on how this class is taught. I am very interested in the feedback I get Monom students, as I work to continually improve my teaching. I consider the SPOT evaluation to be an important part of your participation in this class.
Campus Carry
If you are registered to be able to carry a closed concealed handgun and intend to bring it into the class than that is your right. Under NO circumstances should this privilege be abused for brandishing the gun as a part of a performance or in class exercise.
Disclaimer
This syllabus should not be construed as a binding contract on the part of the instructor or teaching assistants. We reserve the right to change any aspect of the course without notice.
DESCRIPTION OF THE ASSIGNMENTS
Teaching a method
This assignment asks you to assume the role of a teacher and, in class, present a lesson that articulates the method you have selected or been assigned to teach and, based on that method, the performance assignment you have designed for one or more of your classmates to do.
To teach the method, you may proceed from the assumption that your classmates will have read the required materials. Your aims then are to summarize the key theoretical and methodological tenets offered in the readings; enhance our understanding by covering aspects the readings do not; and challenge our understanding by specifying (critical-theoretical or methodological) connections, applications, and ramifications that intrigue you.
The performance assignment you design and teach should highlight key aspects of the method and, if you would like, it also may integrate the specific connections you have made. It should be geared toward graduate students, require a performance of 15-20 minutes, and, if feasible, emphasize solo work. Given the method and assignment, you also may require meetings with the performer outside of class to “workshop” the assignment with him or her.
I will ask that a handout accompany your lessons. It should outline your explication of the method and, in a separate section, offer the student/performer a clear description of the assignment; what it entails; how they should process it; and why it is worth doing. Evaluative criteria should be stated or, as is sometimes beneficial, advanced in question form. A bibliography should conclude the handout. In addition to the handout, you should offer a supplementary reading packet made up of essays and/or articles that address the method that you are teaching.
Lastly, I strongly urge that you include in your lesson an exercise, game, or improvisation that you feel benefits our understanding or experience of the practice and what you are asking the performer to do.
Given the current size of the class, you will teach a method for approximate hour (50 minutes each). In addition, we will have a day devoted to work shopping your method where everyone will have 30-40 minutes to lead an activity or set of activities that help illuminate your method.
Performance based on an assignment
For this requirement, you are asked to develop and present a performance that meets the aims of one of the “performance assignments” taught by your classmates. Ideally, you will have some choice as regards to the method on which your performance is based and weeks to prepare it. In light of the standardized guidelines for the assignments (see above), your performance will run between 15-20 minutes and likely be a solo piece.
Allow me to assure any “non-performers” that, in my experience, a student’s relative lack of experience rarely plays out in any discernable way. You will do fine on the assignment given your interest (or at least the pretense thereof), thoughtful application, and consistent rehearsal or “homework.”
Essay in response to a performance
For this requirement, you are to write a critical essay and offer an oral critique that responds to one of the performances we see in class. Again, it is my hope that you will have some choice as regards to the performance (and method) you address.
The subject(s) of the essay will be the performance… as informed by the method… as taught in class… as filtered through you and your take on it. The main challenge here, as I see it, is how do we write about a performance while also acknowledging the multiple perspectives (the inter-subjects) through which we view it?
To start, I am going to suggest that (in drafts and quite deliberately) you address the four main components of criticism common to and, for the most part, expected in qualitative scholarship; i.e., an informed critical pursuit involves description, interpretation, evaluation, and theorization. Once you have drafted a thorough address of each component, you will want to determine how to sequence and to what extent feature each component in the paper. And, of course, the options here are many. They range from handling each component separately and with fairly equal stress, to placing explicit weight on one component and embedding the others within. E.g., by means of multiple and varied descriptions of “what happened” in a performance, a writer might imply her interpretation, evaluation, and theorization of a piece while also interrogating the fallacy of objective description. Thereby too she might highlight a key tenet of the performance method. In other words, while I expect you to address the four components in some way and show your comprehension of the practice, you may opt to emphasize certain components over others and draw on discourses that are not explicit to the practice itself.
The written critique will run between 8-12 double-spaced, typed pages, included a “works cited” page and, as pertinent, a bibliography.
In your oral critique, you will summarize your paper and, then, move to engage the class in discussing a point (or points) you found particularly intriguing and/or problematic. The oral critique and discussion should run about 50 minutes.
Final performance or exam
The final project encourages you to take a comprehensive or cumulative approach to the material we cover in the course.
The exam is designed to prepare you for the kinds of questions you would address on your comprehensive or general exams. Generally, the questions ask you to demonstrate your comprehension of a theory of method by summarizing its key aspects as conceived/practiced by a particulate theorists/practitioner(s). Sometimes, you are asked to compare and contrast theories or methods. Usually an application section follows where you show your understanding of the theory/method by using it—e.g., to discuss specific examples or case studies. To conclude, many questions ask you to broaden the scope of your address by discussing the significance of the theory/method to the discipline or field, or to theorize connective links of your own. The factors of evaluation then tend toward substantive accuracy, comprehension through specific application, theoretical insight, and a concise manner of address. It will be a closed book exam and last for two hours and will be scheduled during finals week.
My expectations for the final performance run along the same general lines as the exams. Although you will have maximum leeway as regards to the methods or methodological components you draw on, your performance should demonstrate a fairly sophisticated understanding and applications of them. The performance should also imply the conceptual-theoretical question, problem, or issue that motivates the experiment—i.e., your selection and use of misuse of the methods or parts. You may also include an “oral report” component that sets up these charges as well. The performance should run about 15-20 minutes and be well-rehearsed and executed.
TENTATIVE COURSE CALENDAR
*Much of the readings for this course will be determined by which practices the class chooses over the course of the semester. Therefore, the reading schedule will be determined, for the most part, at a later date.
Mon, 8/29 Introduction of the Course. Introduction of Self.
Mon, 9/5 Labor Day: No Class
Mon, 9/12 DIET, Realism/ Anti-Realism
READ: Counsell, Introduction. PERUSE: The rest of Counsell, and Brayshaw/Witts for Performance Methods.
Mon, 9/19 Deconstructive Practices/Ritual
IN CLASS: Select Practices
Mon, 9/26 Presentation of Assignments
Mon, 10/3 Presentation of Assignments
Mon, 10/10 Hold Workshops
Mon, 10//17 Hold Workshops
Mon, 10/24 Performances
Mon, 10/31 Performances
Mon, 11/7 Oral Critiques
DUE: YOUR WRITTEN CRITQUES ARE DUE AT THIS TIME
Mon, 11/14 Oral Critiques
DUE: YOUR WRITTEN CRITQUES ARE DUE AT THIS TIME
Mon, 11/21 Talking Theory
Mon, 11/28 Alternatives for writing and performing theory
Mon, 12/5 Performances
FINAL EXAMINATION WEEK
Monday, 12/12
Exams/Final Performances Talk Back
GAB 321
6-8:50
Methods and Materials
Below is a list of methods and practices, categorized and defined briefly. Needless to say, the listing is incomplete and offers a fairly canonical view of western theatre/performance practices. Of course, my categories are arbitrary in so far as different classifications and groupings would result in just as accurate (or inaccurate) a picture of western theatre/performance practice. I selected these categories because I believe most western practices can find a home, however temporary, in one or more of them. For those of you who are new to such practices and theorists, I’ve included an *asterisk* to those theorists and practitioners who are directly represented in your assigned readings.
1. Methods variously related in terms of mimesis (naturalism, expressive/psychological realism); inter-subjective processes; and/or (literary) text-centered aims
*Stanislavski’s actor training system
Modernist grounding in the text; emphasis on the internal truth of the character-performer-individual over and often in conflict with external systems and transactions although external training is important to the “system.” Extensions/connections: *Strasberg’s “method,” a U.S. version of Stanislavski’s system (see Strasberg, A Dream of Passion: The Development of the Method). For variations, see Hagen, Krause, and Meisner. For practices that aim to represent the sub- and unconscious in material form, see the *Surrealists, particularly Breton, Tzara, and Picabia (in Goldberg) who in turn influenced Artaud.
Oral Interpretation
Modernist orientation with a new critical slant; also, as with its elocutionary cousin, influenced by U.S. pragmatism – “it’s good for you.” For oral interpretation textbooks, see Bacon, Breen, Gray and VanOosting, Lee and Gura, Long and Hopkins, to start. Also see, “traditional” histories of OI where diverse practices are embedded—e.g., Bahn and Bahn, Haas and Williams, Taft-Kaufman, and Thompson. For an excellent critical study of the elocution-OI-performance studied trajectory, see Paul Edwards, Unstoried: Teaching Literature in the Age of Performance Studies.