Performance as Protest

Course Description

Performance as Protest examines the art and act of performance as an influential model for social activism, civil disobedience, and community mobilization. Students will delve into the works of historical and contemporary artists who radicalized their choreographic practices to promote social advocacy and revolution. Ranging from participatory mass actions to intimate personal storytelling, how can a performance disrupt a space, a consciousness, a culture? Lectures will explore the performing body as a site of healing, empowerment, and resistance to systemic injustices and erasures. Correlating exercises will introduce students to the fundamentals of strategic planning and permissions for public, site-specific performance, alongside a deep consideration for the politics and ethics of inhabiting ‘place’. Students will have the unique opportunity to work with a roster of local and internationally-acclaimed artists whose bodies of work intersect with urgent social causes and have catalyzed community and critical change. Sections will be led in collaboration with Tiffany Rea-Fisher of the Juneteenth March (NYC) and Black Lives Matter; Yara Travieso of the Women’s March; Sydnie Mosley of “The Window Sex Project”; Emily Johnson of “Being Future Being” and organizer of the Decolonization Rider for Indigenous Land Rights and Acknowledgements; Ishmael Houston-Jones and Keith Hennessy of “Unsafe/Unsuited” and its recent revival, “Try”, in response to the HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 pandemics; Eiko Otake of “Offering” and “A Body in Places” in part with her research of “ground zeros” from 9/11 to Fukushima; and lead faculty, Danielle Russo, organizer of “Final Notice” in response to climate change on the Brooklyn waterfront and community artivist with organizations, such as El Puente. Course materials range from artist manifestos to documentary films, oral histories, essays and scholarly articles, and work samples of the actual performances explored in the curriculum. As an ongoing critical thinking and writing practice, students will participate in group discussion boards that pose reflexive questions about each section, tracing its historical lineage and impact to the present moment. As an accumulative project, students will work in groups to write their own manifesto in response to a social cause, politic, or movement that resonates with them. Next, they will prepare a strategic plan for a performance event or experience that builds awareness and/or community around said cause. Centered on peer collaboration, each planning process will delegate roles for researching the historical and ongoing contextual significance of their chosen cause, community, and/or site; landscape mapping and virtual scouting; safety and risk management; public response and engagement; production entities and materials; and movement modalities. Students will present their work at the conclusion of the course for constructive peer feedback.

Code

OART-UT 815

Credits

2

Subject

Open Arts Curriculum