Theater and Acting Course Syllabus at various Institutes

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Theater and Acting Course Syllabus at various Institutes

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I was looking around for what other Acting courses offer. Lets make a little list, which will help us fine tune our own syllabus:

UNDERGRADUATE COURSES:


Theater R1A (section 1) - Introduction to Dramatic Literature: Heroes and Saints: Images of the Sacred and Secular in Dramatic Literature: How do we write about the holy, the haunting, the horrible, the sacred, and the spectacular? How do we approach these topics analytically? Creatively? In this course we will address these questions by reading and writing about a range of plays that grapple with these themes, including Marisol by José Rivera, Luther by John Osborne, Saint Joan by Bernard Shaw, No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, and Heroes and Saints by Cherrie Moraga. Through writing exercises and assignments we will learn how to identify a research question, formulate an argument and craft a critical essay, and we will also explore the ways in which our critical work can enrich our creative work.

Prerequisite: UC Entry Level Writing Requirement or UC Analytical Writing Placement Exam. 

Theater R1A (section 2) - Introduction to Dramatic Literature: Writing on the Visible Body: This course's theme will center on contemporary performance and visual works that use representations of embodiment and corporeality to test the limits of "the body" as a place where social meaning and value is negotiated. In our current moment, this might mean asking after how a daily casualty count on television or the radio affects our sense of corporeality, or it might mean how increasing representations of the interior body as a vehicle to "truth" and "destiny" (from gene-mapping to forensic shows) inform our experience of sexuality, gender, race as social and physical constructs. How does the work of visual and theater artists, especially by people whose embodiment has been particularly circumscribed, respond to and participate in these and other "breaches" of the body's limits? This writing seminar satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement. It is designed to offer students structured and sustained practice in reading, critical analysis, and composing. Students will closely read five thematically related plays and rehearse a variety of response strategies for coming up with an argument. In addition, we will consider non-print sources (from gallery installations we'll view, to live and video performances we'll attend). In response to these materials, students will craft several short pieces leading up to three longer essays-works of exposition and/or argumentation. They will write a minimum of 32 pages of expository prose during the semester.

Prerequisite: UC Entry Level Writing Requirement or UC Analytical Writing Placement Exam.

Theater RIA (section 3) - Introduction to Dramatic Literature: Performing Childhood: From parental concerns about Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" to news coverage of the Olson twins' 18th birthday, the "child" is presented in contemporary media as an innocent, a victim, and a sexualized spectacle. In this course, we will examine the figure of the "child" in theater, film, television, and 20th-21st century art. Students will hone their skills as writers, readers, and thinkers through class discussions and short papers designed to develop creativity and critical argumentation. Provided with the tools of visual and textual analysis, students will explore the role of images in the performance of childhood. Topics to be discussed include: the Dept. of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies' production of Two Alters, Ten Funerals (All Souls) as well as Disney films, surrealism and childhood, fairy tales, and child horror films.

Prerequisite: UC Entry Level Writing Requirement or UC Analytical Writing Placement Exam. 


Theater 10 - Introduction to Acting: This course is a gateway class to the more advanced acting sequence. It is a theory and performance course which provides an overview of the actor's creative process. Fundamental acting techniques are presented in conjunction with exercises, improvisation, and text work designed to enhance concentration, imagination, vocal resonance and projection as well as self confidence and communication skills. 

Theater 11 - Scene Study and Characterization: In this course the emphasis of the students' studies shifts from the development of basic skills to the development of skills necessary to the character actor. Whereas Theater 10 students are required to develop and perform characters who are close to themselves in age and background, Theater 11 students are encouraged to stretch their abilities into the development of characterizations which lie outside their personal experience. Students continue to employ the basic acting and vocal techniques introduced in Theater 10. Audition required, CC# provided after audition. 3 units

Theater 24 (section 1) - Freshman Seminar - Documentary Playmaking: School Integration, Little Rock, 1957-58: On the fateful morning of September 4, 1957, a small group of African-American students walked up to the doors of Central High, Little Rock, to enroll in school -- and were turned away by the National Guard. Arkansas State Governor Faubus had called out the Guard to surround the building. "Blood will run in the streets," said Faubus, "if Negro pupils should attempt to enter Central High School." A racist mob seethed out front. Eventually the courageous group of children did enter. The first of them graduated in the spring of 1958. They came to be known as The Little Rock Nine; Central High as the first major integrated high school in the South. Nowadays many people regard their mentor, Daisy Bates, on a level with Martin Luther King, Jr. Each student in our Freshman Seminar will select a person who participated in the integration of Central High, study historical documents linked with that individual, and develop a monologue in the role of the person, perhaps as one of the Little Rock Nine or as the Governor or as the principal of Central High. We will encourage each student to experiment with a role different from his or her own gender and cultural background.

Theater 24 (section 2) - Freshman Seminar: Acting From The Outside In: Training Interculturally: American theatre during the twentieth century has over-emphasized the "Method" school of realistic acting, where the actor is taught how to empathize with her/his character and relate the character's experiences with the actors own personal emotions and experiences. While this has yielded tremendous results, thanks to teachers like Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, and Sandy Meisner and has been understandably celebrated for a century, it has also tacitly become the single most popular approach to acting. But in intercultural theatre scene of the new century, actors are being exposed to various kinds of acting styles and more plays demanding different kinds of performance skills where a training in the "Method" is more than often proving inadequate. This class, using tools from non-Western systems of actor training, will be an attempt to teach students how to approach a character from the outside and not necessarily by relating it with the actor's psyche from the inside, but rather trying to get the actor connected to the world of the character by more external means. Students will be allowed to pick monologues and scenes on which they will work through different styles of acting through the semester. No textbooks required.     

Theater 26 - Introduction to Performance Studies: This course introduces the critical terms and practices of the contemporary study of performance. Several key terms and important genres of artistic and social performance will be engaged; the course will draw critical and disciplinary methods from anthropology and ethnography, from the theory of dance and theater, from literary and cultural theory. Critical and theoretical concepts will be used to analyze a wide range of live and recorded performances, as well as performance texts.

Theater 52AC - Reflections of Gender, Culture and Ethnicity in American Dance: Working with the premise that the context, content and form of any dance event serve as a window on culture, we focus on dance associated with at least three of the following groups: African Americans, Asian Americans, Indigenous Peoples of the United States, Chicano/Latinos and European Americans. We will look at traditional dance events as well as transcultural currents in American Dance. 

Theater 60 - Stagecraft: This is an introductory course focusing on various technical aspects of theatrical production. Course ranges from theatrical conception to actual performance and includes emphasis on safety, collaborative process, shop tools, set construction, lighting, rigging, costumes, props and scenic treatments. Course involves a laboratory dimension: students will work on departmental productions in Zellerbach Playhouse, 7 Zellerbach or Durham Studio Theatre.

Theater C108 - Strindberg: Swedish writer August Strindberg is best known in this country for his groundbreaking Modernist plays: A Dream Play, The Dance of Death, The Ghost Sonata. And rightfully so, since such successors as Eugene O'Neill and Thomas Mann proclaimed him the father of Modernism, and the father of Expressionism. Yet the full body of his work extends far beyond the stage, in every direction: painting, scientific tracts, ethnography, botany, photography, poetry, travel writing, and experimental prose. Strindberg's artistry encompasses all of Modernism, always keeping his own life, his inner, tortuous journey, as its focus. Some critics have asked whether Strindberg was insane: sometimes he presented himself as mad, and he certainly indulged in the hallucinogenic absinthe. But his ideas were of a piece with his time, an age that confronted the volcanic changes in human thought and life that accompanied modernity and Modernism. This course will follow Strindberg on the path from early Naturalism into Expressionism. We will read, among other works, The Father, Miss Julie, A Madman's Defense, Dance of Death, To Damascus, A Dream Play, and Inferno.  On the way we will examine the diverse media and disciplines Strindberg employs, always interrogating the self-image he hopes to project through this work.

Theater 110A - Intermediate Acting: The first five weeks of the semester are a review of the material learned in the first year, culminating in a 5-7 minute modern realistic scene. This review provides all continuing and transfer students with a common base and vocabulary. The next ten weeks are devoted to plays from the turn of the century by Chekhov, Ibsen, Shaw, Strindberg, and Wilde. Students perform one 2-3 minute monologue and one 5-7 minute scene. 

Theater 111 - Advanced Acting: This is the final acting class in the progression which begins with Theater 10. The instructor works individually with students to stretch and strengthen basic acting, voice, movement, speech, and style techniques. Students also develop audition material and resumes and practice audition and rehearsal techniques. 
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Re: Theater and Acting Course Syllabus at various Institutes

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Theater 121 - Performance and Culture - Film in India: Reel Nation: This course is a survey of the history of Indian cinema, evaluating its importance in the global context as the world's largest film industry. In doing so, it will also look at the socio-political functions of popular media in a developing country with a population of a billion, where the cinema has functioned as the most participatory form of public discourse. How cinema has played the role of nation-builder - mediator, instigator, educator in myriad forms - working as a unifying factor for a nation with a population rich in cultures and languages, a form of public discourse where the nation is both imagined and produced. The course will also attempt to unravel the aesthetic bases of Indian film - how a "western" form of art is ingested into an indigenous Indian aesthetic sensibility and hybridized into an entity of its own kind. Consequently, the class will look at the various categories of Indian cinema, following both historical as well as thematic trajectories, like political films, art cinema, romances, Indian "westerns," gangster movies, mythological/devotional films, propaganda war movies, documentaries, musicals, etc. Students will see film excerpts in class, read essays, book chapters, and some screenplays, and will see films scheduled outside class meeting times.

Theater 125 (section 1) - Performance and History - Staging the American City: A Cultural History of Broadway, 1800--present: This course explores the last two centuries of U.S. urban history through theater - specifically the kinds of performance that ordinary people have adopted in American cities and the influential staged performances that have stood for culture in those cities. Both explorations will focus on New York, and on the history and meaning of Broadway - as a place, an institution, and a cultural symbol.   Team-taught by a historian and theater scholar, the class will pay special attention to issues of racial identity, cultural consumption, public space, and urban growth. Requirements include two midterm examinations and a final.

Theater 125 (section 2) - Performance and History: Yiddish Theatre and Cinema: The folk culture of East European Jews became the source of an enormous twentieth-century enterprise, the Yiddish Theatre and Cinema. This course will examine the roots and development of the Yiddish-language performing arts in Europe and North America. Lecture topics will include popular entertainment forms in 19th-century Russian-Jewish communities; Avrom Goldfaden and beginnings of Yiddish theatre's Golden Age; the role of the 1900 Yiddish stage in American acculturation; Jewish portrayals in American silent film; the sound Yiddish feature film in Warsaw and New York; the ARTEF; the Moscow Yiddish State Theatre; and the revival of Yiddish performances in US and Israel since 1973.

Theater 126 - Performance Literature: Performing Arts in Russia in the 20 th Century (1900-1940): A survey of major trends, ideas, and practices which had defined the most fertile period in Russian artistic history. The course will consider the work of such influential 20 th century artists as Chekhov, Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Shostakovich, and others in its immediate cultural and political context, and address the particular tensions, ruptures, and continuity in the Russian/Soviet art. The achievement of Russian and Soviet directors, playwrights, stage designers will also be discussed from the point of view of its larger impact on modernist and modern art.

Texts: a selection of plays, theoretical writings, and critical essays (available in a reader).

Theater 139 - Playwriting: This is an intensive workshop in playwriting and screenwriting for beginning and more advanced students. The course explores the deep story-telling structures in plays and scripts as well as traditional craftsmanship. Students will present two short plays (or sections of a screenplay) during the semester. To be considered for the course, submit a sample of creative writing (up to five pages) to the instructor by May 5 (mailbox located in 101 Dwinelle Annex). Include your name, year, major, phone number, and email address. For those who miss the deadline, you are advised to attend the first class. Instructor will hold a few slots for special cases and transfer students.  

Theater 141A - Intermediate Modern Dance Technique: This is the second-year level of Modern Dance taught in a four-year sequence. The course is designed for students with some dance experience who are ready to refine their dance skills and accept new kinesthetic challenges. In this course students will: deepen their understanding of dance as an art form; address questions pertaining to their dance technique and proficiency; learn to take more physical risks; develop partnering skills and floor work; and develop a deeper kinesthetic understanding of how to dance expressively. The course incorporates principles from Laban Movement Analysis and Bartenieff Fundamentals. There is one written assignment in response to viewing a dance concert. There will be reading assignments related to topics covered in the course. The prerequisite for this course is Beginning Modern Dance Technique 40A - 40B, or by audition on the first day of class.  

Theater 142A - Modern Dance Technique Advanced I: This is the advanced or third-year technique class in the four-year sequence of training in the Dance Division. It is a daily 1 1/2 hour intensive study of modern dance technique built on the approach of Martha Graham. It is based on principles of breath, contraction, spiral, and tilt and fall. This level of the technique series provides an in depth exploration of the style of Graham, and develops the dancer's perception of the organic origins of movement impulses.



SPRING / SUMMER / Audition Information/

COURSE OFFERINGS FOR FALL 2006


UNDERGRADUATE COURSES:


Theater R1A (section 1) - Introduction to Dramatic Literature: Heroes and Saints: Images of the Sacred and Secular in Dramatic Literature: How do we write about the holy, the haunting, the horrible, the sacred, and the spectacular? How do we approach these topics analytically? Creatively? In this course we will address these questions by reading and writing about a range of plays that grapple with these themes, including Marisol by José Rivera, Luther by John Osborne, Saint Joan by Bernard Shaw, No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, and Heroes and Saints by Cherrie Moraga. Through writing exercises and assignments we will learn how to identify a research question, formulate an argument and craft a critical essay, and we will also explore the ways in which our critical work can enrich our creative work.

Prerequisite: UC Entry Level Writing Requirement or UC Analytical Writing Placement Exam.  

Instructor: Shannon Jackson and Joy Crosby, TuTh 3:30-5, 279 Dwinelle, 4 units, CC# 88003.


Theater R1A (section 2) - Introduction to Dramatic Literature: Writing on the Visible Body: This course's theme will center on contemporary performance and visual works that use representations of embodiment and corporeality to test the limits of "the body" as a place where social meaning and value is negotiated. In our current moment, this might mean asking after how a daily casualty count on television or the radio affects our sense of corporeality, or it might mean how increasing representations of the interior body as a vehicle to "truth" and "destiny" (from gene-mapping to forensic shows) inform our experience of sexuality, gender, race as social and physical constructs. How does the work of visual and theater artists, especially by people whose embodiment has been particularly circumscribed, respond to and participate in these and other "breaches" of the body's limits? This writing seminar satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement. It is designed to offer students structured and sustained practice in reading, critical analysis, and composing. Students will closely read five thematically related plays and rehearse a variety of response strategies for coming up with an argument. In addition, we will consider non-print sources (from gallery installations we'll view, to live and video performances we'll attend). In response to these materials, students will craft several short pieces leading up to three longer essays-works of exposition and/or argumentation. They will write a minimum of 32 pages of expository prose during the semester.

Prerequisite: UC Entry Level Writing Requirement or UC Analytical Writing Placement Exam.

Instructor: Shannon Jackson and Renu Cappelli, MW 4-5:30, 20 Wheeler, 4 units, CC# 88005.


Theater RIA (section 3) - Introduction to Dramatic Literature: Performing Childhood: From parental concerns about Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" to news coverage of the Olson twins' 18th birthday, the "child" is presented in contemporary media as an innocent, a victim, and a sexualized spectacle. In this course, we will examine the figure of the "child" in theater, film, television, and 20th-21st century art. Students will hone their skills as writers, readers, and thinkers through class discussions and short papers designed to develop creativity and critical argumentation. Provided with the tools of visual and textual analysis, students will explore the role of images in the performance of childhood. Topics to be discussed include: the Dept. of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies' production of Two Alters, Ten Funerals (All Souls) as well as Disney films, surrealism and childhood, fairy tales, and child horror films.

Prerequisite: UC Entry Level Writing Requirement or UC Analytical Writing Placement Exam.  

Instructor: Shannon Jackson and Heather Crow, TuTh 9:30-11, 2 Evans, 4 units, CC# 88306.


Theater 10 - Introduction to Acting: This course is a gateway class to the more advanced acting sequence. It is a theory and performance course which provides an overview of the actor's creative process. Fundamental acting techniques are presented in conjunction with exercises, improvisation, and text work designed to enhance concentration, imagination, vocal resonance and projection as well as self confidence and communication skills.  

3 units, audition required, CC# provided after audition.  

For audition information, look under Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies in the Schedule of Classes for Fall 2006.  

GSIs: Charlotte McIvor, Emine Fisek, Nina Billone
GSI Supervisor: Martin Berman
Section 1: MWF 9-11, 7 Zellerbach
Section 2: MWF 10-12, 317 Zellerbach
Section 3: MWF 1-3, 413 Zellerbach

Theater 11 - Scene Study and Characterization: In this course the emphasis of the students' studies shifts from the development of basic skills to the development of skills necessary to the character actor. Whereas Theater 10 students are required to develop and perform characters who are close to themselves in age and background, Theater 11 students are encouraged to stretch their abilities into the development of characterizations which lie outside their personal experience. Students continue to employ the basic acting and vocal techniques introduced in Theater 10. Audition required, CC# provided after audition. 3 units

For audition information, look under Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies in the Schedule of Classes for Fall 2006.  

GSIs: Monica Stufft, Kelly Rafferty
GSI Supervisor: Martin Berman
Section 1: MWF 1-3, 7 Zellerbach
Section 2: MWF 9-11, Durham Studio Theater

Theater 24 (section 1) - Freshman Seminar - Documentary Playmaking: School Integration, Little Rock, 1957-58: On the fateful morning of September 4, 1957, a small group of African-American students walked up to the doors of Central High, Little Rock, to enroll in school -- and were turned away by the National Guard. Arkansas State Governor Faubus had called out the Guard to surround the building. "Blood will run in the streets," said Faubus, "if Negro pupils should attempt to enter Central High School." A racist mob seethed out front. Eventually the courageous group of children did enter. The first of them graduated in the spring of 1958. They came to be known as The Little Rock Nine; Central High as the first major integrated high school in the South. Nowadays many people regard their mentor, Daisy Bates, on a level with Martin Luther King, Jr. Each student in our Freshman Seminar will select a person who participated in the integration of Central High, study historical documents linked with that individual, and develop a monologue in the role of the person, perhaps as one of the Little Rock Nine or as the Governor or as the principal of Central High. We will encourage each student to experiment with a role different from his or her own gender and cultural background.

Course runs from September 11 through October 30.

Professor Ogden is writing a book about the integration crisis at Central High School, Little Rock. During his previous research work -- he is the author of books on actors, set design, and theatrical space -- he has recorded live interviews in order to focus on the individual in an historic event.

Instructor: Dunbar H. Ogden, Mon 2-4, 8 Zellerbach, 1 unit, P/NP, CC# 88027.

Theater 24 (section 2) - Freshman Seminar: Acting From The Outside In: Training Interculturally: American theatre during the twentieth century has over-emphasized the "Method" school of realistic acting, where the actor is taught how to empathize with her/his character and relate the character's experiences with the actors own personal emotions and experiences. While this has yielded tremendous results, thanks to teachers like Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, and Sandy Meisner and has been understandably celebrated for a century, it has also tacitly become the single most popular approach to acting. But in intercultural theatre scene of the new century, actors are being exposed to various kinds of acting styles and more plays demanding different kinds of performance skills where a training in the "Method" is more than often proving inadequate. This class, using tools from non-Western systems of actor training, will be an attempt to teach students how to approach a character from the outside and not necessarily by relating it with the actor's psyche from the inside, but rather trying to get the actor connected to the world of the character by more external means. Students will be allowed to pick monologues and scenes on which they will work through different styles of acting through the semester. No textbooks required.        

Instructor: Sudipto Chatterjee, Mon 5-7, 242 Dwinelle, 1 unit,   P/NP, CC# 88030.

Theater 26 - Introduction to Performance Studies: This course introduces the critical terms and practices of the contemporary study of performance. Several key terms and important genres of artistic and social performance will be engaged; the course will draw critical and disciplinary methods from anthropology and ethnography, from the theory of dance and theater, from literary and cultural theory. Critical and theoretical concepts will be used to analyze a wide range of live and recorded performances, as well as performance texts.

Instructor: Shannon Jackson and Lara Shalson, TuTh 9:30-11, 156 Dwinelle, 4 units, CC# 88033.

Theater 40A - Beginning Modern Dance Technique: Basic explorations in movement emphasizing increased flexibility, strength, alignment, coordination, and muscular endurance. Class meets for 1 1/2 hours daily, 1 unit.

Instructor: Lisa Wymore, M-F 9:30-11, 2401 Bancroft, CC# 88036.

Audition held at first class meeting.

Theater 52AC - Reflections of Gender, Culture and Ethnicity in American Dance: Working with the premise that the context, content and form of any dance event serve as a window on culture, we focus on dance associated with at least three of the following groups: African Americans, Asian Americans, Indigenous Peoples of the United States, Chicano/Latinos and European Americans. We will look at traditional dance events as well as transcultural currents in American Dance.  

Instructor: Jenefer Johnson, TuTh 12:30-2, 150 GSPP, 3 units, CC# 88039.

Theater 60 - Stagecraft: This is an introductory course focusing on various technical aspects of theatrical production. Course ranges from theatrical conception to actual performance and includes emphasis on safety, collaborative process, shop tools, set construction, lighting, rigging, costumes, props and scenic treatments. Course involves a laboratory dimension: students will work on departmental productions in Zellerbach Playhouse, 7 Zellerbach or Durham Studio Theatre.

Instructor: Chris Killion, MW 12-1, Zellerbach Playhouse, 3 units, CC# 88042.

Theater C108 - Strindberg: Swedish writer August Strindberg is best known in this country for his groundbreaking Modernist plays: A Dream Play, The Dance of Death, The Ghost Sonata. And rightfully so, since such successors as Eugene O'Neill and Thomas Mann proclaimed him the father of Modernism, and the father of Expressionism. Yet the full body of his work extends far beyond the stage, in every direction: painting, scientific tracts, ethnography, botany, photography, poetry, travel writing, and experimental prose. Strindberg's artistry encompasses all of Modernism, always keeping his own life, his inner, tortuous journey, as its focus. Some critics have asked whether Strindberg was insane: sometimes he presented himself as mad, and he certainly indulged in the hallucinogenic absinthe. But his ideas were of a piece with his time, an age that confronted the volcanic changes in human thought and life that accompanied modernity and Modernism. This course will follow Strindberg on the path from early Naturalism into Expressionism. We will read, among other works, The Father, Miss Julie, A Madman's Defense, Dance of Death, To Damascus, A Dream Play, and Inferno.  On the way we will examine the diverse media and disciplines Strindberg employs, always interrogating the self-image he hopes to project through this work.

Instructor: L H Rugg, TuTh 11-12:30, 258 Dwinelle, 4 units, CC# 88066. Also listed as Scandinavian C108.

Theater 110A - Intermediate Acting: The first five weeks of the semester are a review of the material learned in the first year, culminating in a 5-7 minute modern realistic scene. This review provides all continuing and transfer students with a common base and vocabulary. The next ten weeks are devoted to plays from the turn of the century by Chekhov, Ibsen, Shaw, Strindberg, and Wilde. Students perform one 2-3 minute monologue and one 5-7 minute scene.  

Instructors: Marty Berman and Deborah Sussel, MWF 11-1, 413 and 7 Zellerbach, 3 units. Audition required, CC# provided after audition.

For audition information, look under Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies in the Schedule of Classes for Fall 2006.


Theater 111 - Advanced Acting: This is the final acting class in the progression which begins with Theater 10. The instructor works individually with students to stretch and strengthen basic acting, voice, movement, speech, and style techniques. Students also develop audition material and resumes and practice audition and rehearsal techniques.  

Instructor: Lura Dolas, TuTh 9:30-12:30, Durham Studio, 3 units.   Audition required, CC# provided after audition.

For audition information, look under Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies in the Schedule of Classes for Fall 2006.

Theater 114 - Performance Workshop: Developing Materials for Interdisciplinary Performance: In this class we will be developing materials for cross disciplinary performance (ie, movement, language, visual materials) and developing short studies that include these collided materials. This is a movement class so please be prepared to move- sweat clothes or dance clothes- no jeans!  

Grades will be assessed as follows:
*Attendance and participation in class- 40%
*In-class performance projects- 40%
*Written assignments (both reviews of work seen and personal assessments of your own class work)- 20%
*There will be no final exam.

You do not have to be a TDPS major to enroll in this course. However, it is a studio class so your full participation as a creator and a performer will be mandatory.

Class size will be limited so I will select a group on the first day of class.

Instructor: Joe Goode, MWF 10-12, 170 Zellerbach, 3 units.


Theater 121 - Performance and Culture - Film in India: Reel Nation: This course is a survey of the history of Indian cinema, evaluating its importance in the global context as the world's largest film industry. In doing so, it will also look at the socio-political functions of popular media in a developing country with a population of a billion, where the cinema has functioned as the most participatory form of public discourse. How cinema has played the role of nation-builder - mediator, instigator, educator in myriad forms - working as a unifying factor for a nation with a population rich in cultures and languages, a form of public discourse where the nation is both imagined and produced. The course will also attempt to unravel the aesthetic bases of Indian film - how a "western" form of art is ingested into an indigenous Indian aesthetic sensibility and hybridized into an entity of its own kind. Consequently, the class will look at the various categories of Indian cinema, following both historical as well as thematic trajectories, like political films, art cinema, romances, Indian "westerns," gangster movies, mythological/devotional films, propaganda war movies, documentaries, musicals, etc. Students will see film excerpts in class, read essays, book chapters, and some screenplays, and will see films scheduled outside class meeting times.

Lecture: TuTh 12:30-2, 142 Dwinelle
Film Viewing: Fri 12-3, 142 Dwinelle

Instructor: Sudipto Chatterjee, 4 units, CC# 88081. Also listed as Film 160.

Theater 125 (section 1) - Performance and History - Staging the American City: A Cultural History of Broadway, 1800--present: This course explores the last two centuries of U.S. urban history through theater - specifically the kinds of performance that ordinary people have adopted in American cities and the influential staged performances that have stood for culture in those cities. Both explorations will focus on New York, and on the history and meaning of Broadway - as a place, an institution, and a cultural symbol.   Team-taught by a historian and theater scholar, the class will pay special attention to issues of racial identity, cultural consumption, public space, and urban growth. Requirements include two midterm examinations and a final.

Instructor: Shannon Steen, TuTh 12:30-2,101 Morgan, 4 units, CC# 88084. Also listed as Amer Std 102, section 2 and History 100, section 2.

Theater 125 (section 2) - Performance and History: Yiddish Theatre and Cinema: The folk culture of East European Jews became the source of an enormous twentieth-century enterprise, the Yiddish Theatre and Cinema. This course will examine the roots and development of the Yiddish-language performing arts in Europe and North America. Lecture topics will include popular entertainment forms in 19th-century Russian-Jewish communities; Avrom Goldfaden and beginnings of Yiddish theatre's Golden Age; the role of the 1900 Yiddish stage in American acculturation; Jewish portrayals in American silent film; the sound Yiddish feature film in Warsaw and New York; the ARTEF; the Moscow Yiddish State Theatre; and the revival of Yiddish performances in US and Israel since 1973.

Grade will be determined by a final examination and research paper. No knowledge of Yiddish is required.

Instructor: Mel Gordon, TuTh 3:30-5, 182 Dwinelle, 4 units, CC# 88087.

Theater 126 - Performance Literature: Performing Arts in Russia in the 20 th Century (1900-1940): A survey of major trends, ideas, and practices which had defined the most fertile period in Russian artistic history. The course will consider the work of such influential 20 th century artists as Chekhov, Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Shostakovich, and others in its immediate cultural and political context, and address the particular tensions, ruptures, and continuity in the Russian/Soviet art. The achievement of Russian and Soviet directors, playwrights, stage designers will also be discussed from the point of view of its larger impact on modernist and modern art.

Texts: a selection of plays, theoretical writings, and critical essays (available in a reader).

No prerequisites. Course and readings in English.

Instructor: A Muza, MW 4-5:30, 258 Dwinelle, 4 units, CC# 88090. Also listed as Slavic 140.

Theater 139 - Playwriting: This is an intensive workshop in playwriting and screenwriting for beginning and more advanced students. The course explores the deep story-telling structures in plays and scripts as well as traditional craftsmanship. Students will present two short plays (or sections of a screenplay) during the semester. To be considered for the course, submit a sample of creative writing (up to five pages) to the instructor by May 5 (mailbox located in 101 Dwinelle Annex). Include your name, year, major, phone number, and email address. For those who miss the deadline, you are advised to attend the first class. Instructor will hold a few slots for special cases and transfer students.  

Instructor: Mel Gordon, Wed 4-7, 235 Dwinelle, 3 units, CC# released upon admission into the course.

Theater 141A - Intermediate Modern Dance Technique: This is the second-year level of Modern Dance taught in a four-year sequence. The course is designed for students with some dance experience who are ready to refine their dance skills and accept new kinesthetic challenges. In this course students will: deepen their understanding of dance as an art form; address questions pertaining to their dance technique and proficiency; learn to take more physical risks; develop partnering skills and floor work; and develop a deeper kinesthetic understanding of how to dance expressively. The course incorporates principles from Laban Movement Analysis and Bartenieff Fundamentals. There is one written assignment in response to viewing a dance concert. There will be reading assignments related to topics covered in the course. The prerequisite for this course is Beginning Modern Dance Technique 40A - 40B, or by audition on the first day of class.  

Instructor: Marit Brook-Kothlow, M-F 2-3:30, 2401 Bancroft, 1 unit, CC# 88096.

Audition held at first class meeting.    

Theater 142A - Modern Dance Technique Advanced I: This is the advanced or third-year technique class in the four-year sequence of training in the Dance Division. It is a daily 1 1/2 hour intensive study of modern dance technique built on the approach of Martha Graham. It is based on principles of breath, contraction, spiral, and tilt and fall. This level of the technique series provides an in depth exploration of the style of Graham, and develops the dancer's perception of the organic origins of movement impulses.

Instructor: Lizz Roman, M-F 12:30-2, 2401 Bancroft, 1 unit, CC# 88099.  

Audition held at first class meeting.

Theater 143A - Modern Dance Technique Advanced II: A continuation of the advanced level technique class with greater emphasis on the development of technical ability through in depth explorations of dynamics, rhythm, and spatial awareness.  

Theater 145 - Music Resources for Performance: This course is an introduction to the sonic poetry of gesture. Studying historical Eurocentric precedents and current trends in theatrical/dance music, we will examine the work of composers for early royal theater like Rameau; move to the program of music of composers like Tchaikovsky; look at pre-electronic composers like Varese, Berio, and Stockhausen; shift into the avant-garde with Cage; and study contemporary composers like Anderson. Discussions will be based on lectures and readings. An important aspect of this course is the practical experience and analysis of sonic experimentation in performance.

Theater 146A - Choreography: This semester is devoted to creating solos and duets. The beginning of the semester includes in-class exercises in form, structure, space, and rhythm. Prerequisite is Sources of Movement (Theater 144). Student must be concurrently enrolled in dance technique class (intermediate or above).

Theater 149 - Repertory and Production: This class is designed for the student with an interest in dance performance. Students are rehearsed in repertory dance roles which are then performed in various theatrical venues. (.5-3 variable units)  

Theater 153A - History of Western Dance: A survey of European dance traditions through the nineteenth century. Topics include: dance in Greek comedy and tragedy; the pantomime of the Roman Empire; the medieval Dance of Death; ballet as a political tool of the Renaissance and Baroque courts; the development of ballet d'action; and the nineteenth century ballet canon, including La Sylphide, Giselle, Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty .  

Theater 162 - Fundamentals of Stage Directing: This upper division course introduces students to the fundamental principles, practices, and problems of directing for the stage. The class will examine script analysis and research, the director's vocabulary, working with actors, effective rehearsal techniques, use of space, and the role of the director throughout the process of production. These topics will be investigated through a combination of scene work, class discussions, readings, and viewing of performances. Requirements will include directing and acting in scenes for the class, reading plays and essays, maintaining a journal, and two short papers. Some classroom training as an actor is desirable for Theater 162. Admission is by permission of instructor. Interviews will be held on the first day of class. Course control number released by instructor upon admission.

Theater 170 - Theater Laboratory: Non-performing participation in the University Theatre to include: crew assistance in lighting, sound, properties, costumes, make-up, backstage; technical assistance in scene or costume shop.

Instructor: Kate Mattson, 1-3 variable units, P/NP. Course control number will be released to students by instructor once the two have met and discussed laboratory assignment. Visit instructor during office hours.

Theater 171 - Theater Performance - Practice in acting and/or dance in departmental productions (directed or choreographed by   an undergraduate) in Durham Studio or 7 Zellerbach (Black Box).   See director or stage manager of production you are cast in for more information. One unit, P/NP.

Theater 172 - Advanced Production Study - Stage Management: This course is a practical introduction to the theory and execution of stage management for the theater. One major production assignment on a departmental production is required. There will be special emphasis on production organization and problem solving in connection with the production assignment dimension of the course.  

Theater 173A - Scenography: Scenic Design for the Theater: The fundamentals of theatrical set design are explored through projects involving sketches, drafting, and models. Strong visual design begins with textual analysis, research, and collaboration, and culminates in the creation of a lively, and visually engaging, scenic environment. This course combines lectures, discussion and studio work. Although previous studio art training is helpful, all students are welcome. The student provides his/her own materials.

Theater 174A - Scenography: Costume Design for the Theater: This introductory course teaches the fundamentals of costume design for the stage. Through lecture and exercises, students will be given the basic tools needed to design and render costumes. Emphasis is on creating an organic design which comes from the script. Individual aesthetic development is encouraged.   Previous art training is helpful, but not a prerequisite--all students are welcome. Students are required to furnish basic art supplies and to attend several evening performances.

Theater 175A - Scenography: Lighting Design for the Theater: This course will introduce you to the tools, terms, and techniques of stage lighting. Lectures cover explanations of lighting concepts and equipment. Working as part of a production crew will demonstrate those tools, terms, and techniques in their applications on stage. The goal of the course is to equip you with the skills needed to be an active participant in the production process while providing you with a background in the methods and materials of stage lighting as a foundation for the study of stage lighting design.

Theater 176 - Applied Theatrical Design: Students of lighting design are provided experience, structure, and support in the practical application of design to the stage in departmental productions. Contact instructor for information about participation and course control numbers.

Theater 179 - Supervised Theatrical Design: Students are trained in the working methods of set or costume design; supervised preparation and implementation of designs in the department's production season, from initial discussions through opening night. Contact instructor for information about participation and course control numbers.

Theater 180 - Theatrical Realization of Dance: This course relates choreography to theatrical presentation. Laboratory hours are spent in attendance at rehearsal, coaching sessions, and the performance of the dance concert. The course is taught by faculty choreographing the major dance production in the departmental season.

Theater 181 - Theatrical Realization of Dramatic Texts: This course relates dramatic texts to theatrical presentation. The lectures are based on the analysis of the work being presented. Laboratory hours are spent in attendance at rehearsal, coaching sessions, and the performance of the play or concert. The course will be taught by faculty involved in the major productions.
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