Contemporary performance is an interdisciplinary genre that crosses theatre, dance, music, and the visual arts. This course introduces artists working in this boundary-breaking field while exploring how performance catalyzes our individual creativity by engaging with play, including tricks, jokes, and improvisation. The course in turn examines how such artistic play intersects with ritual performances, which help participants to slow down and reorient their perceptions to new rhythms, trajectories, and affects. In doing so, we will also study how play in contemporary performance resists social imperatives on productivity, achievement, and competition. Students can expect to keep a detailed research journal and participate in creative experiments involving play and ritual. These experiments with performance require no skill, previous experience, or specific knowledge—only a willingness to take risks and try out new ideas. Students will delve into their personal inspirations and be asked to reimagine themselves as creative agents in their own lives, regardless of whether they are in the arts or not. May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures or Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement.

Degree requirement — Critical Learning: CP

1 unit — Platt

Offerings

Term	Block	Title	Instructor	Location	Student Limit/Available	Updated
Fall 2023	Block 3	Contemporary Performance 1950-Present	Ryan Platt	Cornerstone Art Center 308	25 / 21	04/17/2024
Spring 2025	Block 5	Contemporary Performance	Ryan Platt	TBA	25 / 25	04/17/2024