Issues in Performance Studies

This graduate seminar will address the various issues and methodological questions elicited by different performance genres by turning to certain historical moments, schools of thought, and disciplinary models. We will discuss fundamental texts in the field of performance studies and analyze both live and documented social, cultural, theatrical, choreographic, ritual, and musical events. In doing so, we will pay close attention to the ways in which theory and practice work in tandem. Lastly, we will also consider how categorical divisions of artistic practices, within the field, inevitably and importantly blend. --Prof. S. Ruiz

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Antonin Artaud, "To Have Done With the Judgement of God" 

http://www.surrealism-plays.com/Artaud.html

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BBC Four, Live telecast John Cage 4'33" (uploaded Oct. 1, 2010)

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John Cage performing "Water Walk" (1959), as excerpted from "I've Got a Secret" (2/24/1960).

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John Cage on silence

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John Cage, Printed score for 4'33", tacet tacet tacet version, 1960. © 1960 Henmar Press Inc.

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John Cage "4'33" (1952) performed by David Tudor

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Adrian Piper

Untitled Performance at Max's Kansas City, NYC, 1970

Documentation of the performance 4 black-and-white photographs, silver gelatin on baryta paper (prints approx. 1998) 41 x 41 cm each, framed 50 x 51.7 cm each

Max’s was an Art Environment, replete with Art Consciousness and Self-Consciousness about Art Consciousness. To even walk into Max’s was to be absorbed into the collective Art Self-Conscious Consciousness, either as object or as collaborator. I didn’t want to be absorbed as a collaborator, because that would mean having my own consciousness co-opted and modified by that of others: It would mean allowing my consciousness to be influenced by their perceptions of art, and exposing my perceptions of art to their consciousness, and I didn’t want that. I have always had a very strong individualistic streak. My solution was to privatize my own consciousness as much as possible, by depriving it of sensory input from that environment; to isolate it from all tactile, aural, and visual feedback. In doing so I presented myself as a silent, secret, passive object, seemingly ready to be absorbed into their consciousness as an object. But I learned that complete absorption was impossible, because my ”voluntary” object like passivity implied aggressive activity and choice, an independent presence confronting the Art-Conscious environment with its autonomy. My objecthood became my subjecthood. (Adrian Piper)

http://foundation.generali.at/en/collection/artist/piper-adrian.html#work=3952&artist=328

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Adrian Piper "My Calling(Card) #1" (1986) Offset lithograph on brown paper Image/sheet: h. 2 x w. 3 1/2” (5.1 x 8.9 cm) Gift of John P. Bowles, IU Art Museum 2006.558

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Adrian Piper, Funk Lessons (1983; 00:15:17) "A videotape piece based on an audience-interactive performance of Funk Lessons at the University of California, Berkeley that goes considerably beyond the performance. Both performance and tape address the ambiguous status of African-American working class music and dance as serious contributors to American art and culture. In the performance I teach my audience how to listen to this music and how to dance to it. There's a lot of audience response in this tape, which is humorous and also moving. Edited and directed by Sam Samore, produced by Tom Oden." - Adrian Piper

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Adrian Piper, "Cornered" (1988).

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David Wojnarowicz, "A Fire in My Belly, a Work in Progress" (1986-87). TRT: 13:00, Super 8mm, Silent.

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Jacob Lawrence The Migration Series (1940-41). Panel no. 15 "There were lynchings." Casein tempera on hardboard 18 x 12 inches. The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C., acquired 1942.

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The Black Factory, artist William Pope.L’s art performance action installation on wheels, sails off on its final voyage, traveling from Maine to the Rocky Mountains sowing provocation and discussion on race, difference and community across the heartland. It visits Newark at Washington Park on July 20, co-sponsored by Aljira, City Without Walls, and The Newark Museum. The Black Factory, a mobile social service experiment, requires the participation of an audience to do its work. Typically the Factory caravan arrives at a town or roadside and sets up shop right then and there. The three person crew canvasses the neighborhood to stir up interest. Over the eight hour performance, they stop people on the street, feed them, cajole them and provoke them all in the name of forging a new dialogue about race and community in America. People respond variously. Some argue. Some sing and dance. Some walk away. Some donate their favorite black object to the factory’s archive, and some visit the factory’s gift shop and obtain a trinket whose profits support a local charity. William Pope.L is a multi-disciplinary installation performance artist and educator. He participated in the Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial 2002, and has garnered recent acclaim because of his three year traveling retrospective ‘eRacism’ and the accompanying monograph ‘The Friendliest Black Artist in America’. Pope.L is a 2005 Guggenheim fellow and is currently the featured American artist at the Dakar Biennial 2006. 

http://www.theblackfactory.com/

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In May 2005, three fresh new Black Factory employees - David, Pasqualina, and Nathaniel - are run through a galloping two-week rehearsal in preparation for the upcoming Black Factory national tour. The CEO of the Factory, William Pope.L, invites a young filmmaker into the intriguing yet elusive process of training performance artists to change the world. Soon serious questions arise concerning the CEO's ethics and how his medical problems are affecting the rehearsal. The result is a rare, funny, sweet, and quirky perspective on the process and sacrifices necessary to the making of socially conscious performance art.

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Excerpt of a William Pope.L interview with the University of Colorado. (The Black Factory)

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William Pope.L The Great White Way, 22 miles, 9 years, 1 street (Whitney version) 2001 Video, 6:35 minutes.

In the late '70s, the performance artist William Pope.L famously crawled along 22 miles of sidewalk, from the beginning to the end of Broadway, Manhattan's longest street, wearing a cape-less Superman outfit with a skateboard strapped to his back. In varying fits and starts, the performance (titled, The Great White Way) took 5 years to complete, with each installment lasting as long as Pope L. could endure the knee and elbow pain (usually around 6 blocks). It is among forty-plus "crawl" pieces he has performed in his 33 years of work as an artist.

http://www.miandn.com/artists/william-popel/works/1/#2

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Ryan Rivera, "bang"