Lit 6-489 Theatre Workshop is a small-group
course, structured in the logics of a practice-based approach, and featuring
experiential learning and hands-on group work on the themes explored in class.
This year, the course will focus on theatre beyond theatres; we will critically and practically engage with
contemporary performance practices that renegotiate theatre space in quest of
new, mobile, non-material or outdoor spatialities, thus re-imagining
spectatorship, access, audience community and interactivity. Such
experimentation with spatial dynamics in performance reveals itself not purely
as an aesthetic choice, but more as a political gesture of (re)action and
socio-cultural intervention; theatre extends and re-creates the walls of the
auditorium to intervene in and re-articulate the space of the polis to which it belongs; it (re)claims
urban space, it problematizes lived space, it contests received spatial boundaries
and identities, it engages with ideas of new citizenship through the new
spectatorship forms that it activates.
We
will explore recent performance trends such as site-specific and site-generic performances, walking performances,
audio-guided events, mobile theatre(s) and performance interventions. Our
class will combine case studies
(we’ll look at the work of key practitioners – mainly from the Anglophone
world) and practical fieldwork
(we’ll design, participate in and experience space-inventive performance
events).
Class attendance in the workshop is mandatory and students cannot miss more
than two classes.
This will be a highly participatory workshop,
drawing on students’ active engagement and commitment.
The course will be assessed as follows:
As a practical workshop course, Lit6-489
accommodates only a limited number of students.
