Cursos

Spring 2012: Embodiment

This course will consider a number of topics related to embodiment and performance. Has the rise of digital technologies changed the ways in which we think of the body and presence? Has embodiment come to complicate or disrupt paradigms of race, class, gender and sexuality?  Focusing on embodiment in virtual and actual spaces, we will explore such issues as simulation, affect, trauma, memory, re-performance, activism, and resistance.

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Spring 2012: Memory, Trauma, and Performance

This course explores the interconnections between trauma, memory, and performance in Latin America. Starting in the 1960s, we focus on events throughout the Americas—Mexico 1968, Argentina’s ‘Dirty War,’ Chile under Pinochet, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Peru, and other sites in which criminal politics have disappeared citizens and traumatized populations. Does each context have its own unique structure and idiom, or can we think about individual and collective trauma through a translocal, cosmopolitan lens? Topics include: the performance of state power and state sponsored terror; the individual and collective nature of trauma; the study of embodied practices such as testimony and witnessing; the construction of archives of testimony; testimony, its use in literature, museums, and pedagogy, its dramatizations by others, its archivization; the social role of sites of memory (ESMA, Villa Grimaldi etc.); performances of protest and resistance.

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Spring 2012: Performance and Revolution

The purpose of this class is to explore a number of topics in Performance and Revolution. It won't be exhaustive by any means, but we'll touch on a number of questions via articles, theoretical and historical texts, and lectures, with the goal of understanding revolution and the role of performance within it, with a special focus on what's going on right now in New York City.

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Spring 2012: Beautiful Trouble

Course description is forthcoming.

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Summer 2011: Art and Resistance

This course explores the many ways in which artists and activists use art (performance, mural paintings, grati, writing, music) to make a social intervention in the Americas. We begin the course by examining several theories about art and activism (from Plato and Aristotle to Brecht, Boal, Buenaventura, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Foucault among others) and then focus on issues of agency, space, event, and audience in relation to major political movements (revolution, dictatorship, democracy, globalization, and human rights) as seen in the work of major practitioners. Jesusa Rodriguez will lead an intensive one-week performance workshop as part of the course. Performances, video screenings, guest lectures, and visits to FOMMA, Chiapas Media Project, a Zapatista community and other activist projects will provide an additional dimension to the questions raised by the theoretical readings and discussions. Students are encouraged to develop their own sites of investigation and present their work as a final presentation and paper.

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Spring 2011: Theatre and Performance in Latin America from 1960's to the present

This course examines the use of theatre and performance - by the State, by oppositional groups, and by theatre and performance practitioners - to solidify or challenge structures of power. The course looks at specific examples of how theatre and public spectacles have been used since the 1960s to control or contest the political stage. Starting with the climactic moment of the Cuban revolution, we examine how Latin American playwrights (Enrique Buenaventura, José Triana, Augusto Boal) and collective theatre groups (Yuyachkani, T.E.C.) struggled to transform theatre from an instrument of colonial oppression into an oppositional, at times revolutionary, "theatre of the oppressed." We then look at the military dictatorships of the 1970s-80s, during which Latin American playwrights, performers, and political actors responded to political violence (Griselda Gambaro, Eduardo Pavlovsky). In the 1980s and 90s the convergence of performance and politics takes many forms - from issues of gender, sexuality and race, to neo-colonialism and globalism - as visible in the practices of playwrights and solo performance artists (Maris Bustamante, Diana Raznovich, Jesusa Rodriguez, Denise Stoklos, Astrid Hadad, Petrona de la Cruz Cruz).

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Spring 2011: Theories of Spectatorship

This course explores the many ways in which theorists and theatre practitioners have thought about the ways in which staged action (whether in film, theatre, or politics) pacifies, activates, interpolates, and manipulates viewers. We will explore concepts such as identification, voyeurism, narcissism, bearing witness, percepticide, spect-actor, and others.

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Summer 2010: Art and Resistance

This course explores the many ways in which artists and activists use art (performance, mural paintings, grati, writing, music) to make a social intervention in the Americas. We begin the course by examining several theories about art and activism (from Plato and Aristotle to Brecht, Boal, Buenaventura, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Foucault among others) and then focus on issues of agency, space, event, and audience in relation to major political movements (revolution, dictatorship, democracy, globalization, and human rights) as seen in the work of major practitioners. Jesusa Rodriguez will lead an intensive one-week performance workshop as part of the course. Performances, video screenings, guest lectures, and visits to FOMMA, Chiapas Media Project, a Zapatista community and other activist projects will provide an additional dimension to the questions raised by the theoretical readings and discussions. Students are encouraged to develop their own sites of investigation and present their work as a final presentation and paper.

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Spring 2010: Stages of Conflict: Latin American Theatre 16th-21th Centuries

Latin American theatre and performance, this course suggests, have always been caught up with the region’s turbulent political history. Although the plays and performance practices we will explore make strong claims at aesthetic distinction, this is not their primary reason for being. These works are in constant dialogue with the events shaping them. We will trace the ‘stages of conflict’ reflected in this theatre by moving from the 16th to the 21st century.  Readings will include plays by many of Latin America’s major playwrights. Online resources include “Stages of Conflict” website and Holy Terrors.

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Spring 2010: Trauma, Terror and Performance

This course explores the interconnections between trauma, terror, memory, and performance through three major 20^th and 21^st c. events – the Holocaust, Argentina’s ‘Dirty War,’ and the United States’s post 9/11 “war on terror ” – and the theoretical questions they raise. Do they each have their own unique structure and idiom, or can we think about individual and collective trauma through a trans-local, cosmopolitan lens?  Topics include: the performance of state power and state sponsored terror; the individual and collective nature of trauma; the effects of gender, race and power on trauma and memory; embodied practices such as testimony and witnessing, their use in literature, museums, pedagogy, and performance, and their archivization; the relation of torture and truth; the social role of sites of memory and memorialization (Auschwitz, Club Atlético, Ground Zero, Guantanamo, etc.); theaters of justice such as trials, tribunals and truth commissions; performances of protest and resistance.

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Verão 2009: Cidadanias e Direitos em cena no Bogotá, Colombia

Oferecido em conjunto com o Instituto Hemisférico de Performance e Política, este curso explora a relação entre a cultura e os direitos nas Américas, com ênfase posta na cidade de Bogotá, hoje. O curso é organizado em três segmentos: uma semana em Nova York, onde são introduzidas as principais leituras e questões em torno da performance, da cidadania e dos direitos culturais, especialmente em relação à Colômbia; um mini-curso de 4 dias focado em direitos culturais e performance na cidade de Bogotá, Colômbia, enfatizando as lutas em torno do espaço público; e o Encontro de 10 dias do Instituto Hemisférico em Bogotá, que se foca em cidadania e direitos culturais pelo continente americano. Por favor, ver http://www.hemisphericinstitute.org/eng/encuentro/colombia_overview.html para maiores informações sobre o Encontro.

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Primavera 2009: Memória, Trauma, e Performance

Este curso explora as inter-relações entre trauma, memória e performance na América Latina. Partindo da década de 60, o foco será em eventos ocorridos nas Américas — México 1968, A "Guerra Suja" da Argentina, Chile sob Pinochet, Nicarágua e outros lugares onde sistemas políticos criminosos geraram seus cidadãos "desaparecidos" e traumatizaram populações inteiras. Cada contexto apresenta uma estrutura e idioma necessariamente único ou podemos analisar trauma individual e coletivo através de uma lente translocal e cosmopolita? Tópicos de investigação incluem: a performance do poder e o terror patrocinado pelo estado; a natureza individual e coletiva do trauma; o estudo de práticas corporais como o testemunho e o depoimento; a construção de arquivos de testemunho; o depoimento, seu uso na literatura, no museu, na pedagogia, sua dramatização, seu arquivamento; a função social dos lugares de memória (ESMA, Villa Grimaldi etc.); performances de protesto e resistência.

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Verão 2008: Teatro/Política/Memória: 
Performance & Política Cultural no Peru

O Peru tem testemunhado uma mudança sem precedentes em sua última geração, começando com o período brutal de violência civil sofrida pelo país entre 1980 e 2000. Juntamente com o Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani, focaremos as divisões sociais que por tanto tempo têm definido a cultura peruana e consideraremos a política de "cura" através de um entendimento cuidadoso e do cruzamento de tais fronteiras. Tomamos a noção de "fronteiras" como uma moldura para organizarmos nossas leituras, visitas e outras atividades: como o social e o discurso no Peru entendem as fronteiras que dividem o seu país por gênero, raça ou classe? Como o discurso nacional e estatal peruano reproduz estas divisões e/ou sua integração em potencial? Exploraremos estes problemas através de uma gama de atividades relacionadas: uma oficina intensiva com o Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani, palestras com convidados acadêmicos e artistas líderes em seus campos, visitas a museus e outros locais e uma série de leitura e exibições de filmes; tudo isso descrito no programa.

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Primavera 2008: Teorias do Ato de Ser Espectador

Este curso explora as muitas maneiras pelas quais os teóricos e profissionais de teatro pensam sobre a maneira pela qual a ação cênica (seja ela em filme, teatro ou política) pacifica, ativa, insere, e manipula os espectadores. Exploraremos os conceitos como identificação, voyeurismo, narcisismo, prestação de testemunho, "percepticídio", o espectador-ator entre outros.

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