CLASS: DRAMATURGY OF DISRUPTION
Professor: Rubén Polendo
Engaging Theater as an inherently interdisciplinary art form, the course disrupts traditional modes of storytelling and art making. Framing dramaturgy as the consideration of structural aesthetics and their impact, we’ll investigate a range of dramaturgical approaches for collaboration, process, space, and performance. We will look at dramaturgies across art forms and geographies and land them in theater practice. Source material includes The Upanishads; works by Hijikata and Artaud as juxtaposed with innovative performances by Pina Bausch and Kazuo Ohno; the work of Björk, FKA Twigs, Sevdaliza, Diamanda Galás, and Arca; the works of Frida Kahlo; the films of David Lynch, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Matthew Barney. We will also consider cultural innovators such as Theaster Gates, Ai Weiwei, Marina Abramovic and Yoko Ono. Ultimately the class centers disruption as a means towards innovation and a richer understanding of what it is to be an artist and a human.
CLASS: MAKER’S LAB
Professor: Tomi Tsunoda
This course anchors the Innovation Studio curriculum with a laboratory space where students can synthesize what they're learning in other courses through the development of their own creative research practice. Students will generate and workshop performance material that experiments with the technological, dramaturgical, and physical strategies to which they’ve been introduced, sharing work in class periodically throughout the semester. Students will further archive their own investigations of each new tool introduced in the Integrated Technologies class. They will develop a reflective, personalized bibliography and learn how to work with it as an active and catalytic tool for their creative research practice.
CLASS: INTEGRATED TECHNOLOGY
Professor: Attilio Rigotti
Embracing analog and digital tools as vehicles for innovation and experimentation, this course challenges students to understand, explore, and develop generative and performative technology systems. Technology, in all its forms and possibilities, is engaged as a collaborator, not a facilitator, with students investigating its potential both conceptually and philosophically, but also in practice through system architecture and execution in a performance setting. Inspired by the work of Nam June Paik, Nick Cave, Anna Anthropy, The Builders Association, Zimoun, Chunky Move, and more, the course positions technology as an extension of our body, imagination, and senses—and empowers students with the tools, methods, and processes by which to engage with technology as a dynamic and responsive collaborator with unexpected and unexplored capabilities.
CLASS: WHOLE THEATER LAB
Professor: Michael Littig
This course engages students in Theater Mitu’s physical training methodology of Whole Theater. Grounded in a holistic approach, the class emphasizes the integration of body, mind, and spirit through rigorous practice. We will explore disciplines such as Kalaripayattu, an ancient martial art and spiritual practice from India’s southern state of Kerala, alongside other centering somatic practices, laying the mind-body foundation for innovative and explorative dramaturgies. Through this demanding work, students will push beyond traditional boundaries to discover new forms of expression. Ultimately, the course seeks to cultivate virtuosity in transdisciplinary performance, opening pathways to disciplined and transformative artistic work.
CURRICULUM WILL ALSO INCLUDE:
+ Studio Practice
+ End of Semester Open Studio
+ Guest Artists
+ Studio Visits