Interpretive Strategies for Performance

Open to School of Theater students only.

Interpretive Strategies for Performance offers
students multiple ways for understanding,
describing, and suggesting how subjects behave
when their behavior is meant to be viewed - and,
as such, understood as a way of signifying
something between the observed and the observer.
While we'll focus on contexts in which these
exchanges take place in mediated performance
spaces (the "stage", the gallery, the screen),
we will also consider how performance can
détourne spaces of unconscious performance into
theaters. Our subjects will range from actors,
athletes, vocalists, and strippers to Cary
Grant's suits in North by Northwest and George
Tsypin's elemental stage designs. The course
includes readings, viewings, guests, group
discussions, and written responses that engage
strategies suggested by Suzan Lori-Parks, comic
book artist Scott McCloud, and more.