Extra Credit: Production Analysis (due 5/6)

Choose a production that you saw this semester and chose one aspect of it's design, performance or production. Describe that aspect and how it was used in the show, citing specific details and examples. Discuss its significance for that particular show, and how you believe it contributed to the artistic concerns of the show.

One page minimum. Assignment is due May 6 (or anytime before) by email to theaterconversations@gmail.com. 

Final Assigment: PINA - Dance, dance, otherwise we are lost (due 5/6)

Your final assignment for this class is a 3-4 page critical response to the film Pina, by the German filmmaker (and playwright) Wim Wenders.  Pina is a posthumous look at the work of Pina Bausch, one of the most influential artists in dance, movement theater, and contemporary performance in the latter half of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first.  She died in 2009 while the documentary was still in a conceptual phase, and subsequently her company Tanztheater Wuppertal convinced Wenders to follow through with the making of the film.

The result is an imaginative, visually rich 3D film full of excerpts from the company's body of work performed in various spaces around Wuppertal, mixed with interviews with the company and some archival footage.  It was released very recently in 2011.

Pina's work, her theories as an artist, and the style of the filmmaking converge to form a unique mirror for many of the concepts we've investigated in class this semester.

For the assignment, please choose two to three of the following concepts and use them as a lens to analyze the company's work presented in the film - and, if you choose, you can also use the concepts to analyze the way the film itself works - as a collaborator in an act of presentation or documentation, as a means of commemoration, as a viewing experience in its own right different from live performance.

The concepts to choose from are:

GROUP
COLLECTIVE
STRUCTURE
ORGANIZATION
PARAMETERS
LIMITATION
INSTRUCTIONS
RULES
PARTICIPATION
WRITING
DEVISING
SITE/LOCATION
CONTEXT
MEDIUM
PRESENTATION
DIALOGUE
AUDIENCE

There are several ways you can view the film: There are multiple copies in the CalArts library. The film should be available at most video rental stores. It is also available for online streaming and rental on Netflix, Google Play, YouTube, Amazon, and iTunes.

If you have already seen the film, you are still required to watch it again. This will enable you to approach it with a with a fresh and possibly changed perspective.

Please be specific about the conditions under which you choose to view the film. In a public space, a private space, alone, in a group, on a computer, on a television, with/without headphones, time of day, 2D, 3D, etc. All of these factors will influence your experience of the film. In any situation, please make all efforts to view it with high quality audio and video.

Due May 6 (or anytime before) by email to theaterconversations@gmail.com.

Transfer Edit Assignment (Due 4/3)

Your assignment is to "transfer edit" the play you wrote in class with Alice Tuan. As she discussed in class, so much of writing is re-writing. In the process of transferring it from handwritten text into the computer, further refine and edit the script. Due in class after Spring Break.

Note: Since this assignment wasn't posted on the blog before the break, we will accept it as on time if you turn your printed out edit to Shannon's mailbox before class next week.