Performance Philosophy is an emerging interdisciplinary field of thought, creative practice and scholarship. The Performance Philosophy book series comprises monographs and essay collections addressing the relationship between performance and philosophy within a broad range of philosophical traditions and performance practices, including drama, theatre, performance arts, dance, art and music. The series also includes studies of the performative aspects of life and, indeed, philosophy itself. As such, the series addresses the philosophy of performance as well as performance-as-philosophy and philosophy-as-performance.

African-American theatre has a rich long history that is part of the heritage of this art form. This assignment gives students the opportunity to take a deeper dive into one topic personally, and benefit from other student's work in broadening their knowledge of this art form.Student will choose a topic from the choices provided, conduct research, and prepare & present their findings in a 5-minute presentation. The presentation may be done live in a face-to-face class, live in a synchronous virtual class, or recorded for an asynchronous class.

Long Description:
An American Playgoer at Home serves as a companion volume to An American Playgoer in London. It captures the author’s theatregoing on his home territory in Northampton and Amherst, Massachusetts, in Hartford, Connecticut, in New York City, and in other places in the USA and in Canada as well. As a companion volume it covers approximately the same period of roughly four decades, from the early 1970s into the second decade of the new century. Almost all of the reviews are of live theatre; a few are of films that have an important dramatic quality or are a film version of an existing play, as in the instance of O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh.

Word Count: 187703

ISBN: 978-1-945764-13-4

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically as part of a bulk import process by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided. As a result, there may be errors in formatting.)

This course surveys the development of popular music in the United States and in a cross-cultural milieu relative to the history and sociology of the last two hundred years. It examines the ethnic mixture that characterizes modern music, how it reflects many rich traditions and styles, and provides a background for understanding the musical vocabulary of current popular music styles.

Selected readings within an allegorical universe replacing American sovereignty with an Order of the Diaspora.  Intended as a play on the sovereignty of the people spoken of in the Preamble to the Constitution lesson work.

This class examines the ways humans experience the realm of sound and how perceptions and technologies of sound emerge from cultural, economic, and historical worlds. In addition to learning about how environmental, linguistic, and musical sounds are construed cross-culturally, students learn about the rise of telephony, architectural acoustics, and sound recording, as well as about the globalized travel of these technologies. Questions of ownership, property, authorship, and copyright in the age of digital file sharing are also addressed. A major concern will be with how the sound/noise boundary has been imagined, created, and modeled across diverse sociocultural and scientific contexts. Auditory examples — sound art, environmental recordings, music — will be provided and invited throughout the term.

This course examines traditional performances of the Arabic-speaking populations of the Middle East and North Africa. Starting with the history of the ways in which the West has discovered, translated and written about the Orient, we will consider how power and politics play roles in the production of culture, narrative and performance. This approach assumes that performance, verbal art, and oral literature lend themselves to spontaneous adaptation and to oblique expression of ideas and opinions whose utterance would otherwise be censorable or disruptive. In particular we will be concerned with the way traditional performance practices are affected by and respond to the consequences of modernization.
Topics include oral epic performance, sacred narrative, Koranic chant performance, the folktale, solo performance, cultural production and resistance.

This packet is a pre-fab creation I have used for multiple shows over the years. I have tweaked to fit the needs of the many companies I have worked with and for from elementary through high school. However, you could make changes to fit any level group. Break a leg on your next show and enjoy the resource!

This supplement was designed to help students build a strong foundation in aural training and sight singing by progressing through the core rhythmic and melodic patterns that are found in music. Through the progression of content, students will build skills in pattern recognition and an understanding of how music functions. Rhythms for each section include single and two-part examples as well as pitched examples for use in aural training. Melodies for each section include single line melodies, canons, duets, and chorales. Melodies were designed to be easily accessible for students with basic keyboard skills, and were written without articulation and dynamic markings to allow students and instructors the flexibility to personalize them.

A Metabiological Pentateuch

Short Description:
In this bold cycle of five plays, featuring an extensive introduction, George Bernard Shaw examines society’s ills and imagines a solution which takes his audience from the Garden of Eden to as far as thought can reach.

Long Description:
Can modern civilization honestly hope to have competent leaders, given that the complexities of society are too great for any one person to truly grasp? Even back in 1921, George Bernard Shaw thought such expectations were unrealistic. How then can contemporary societies hope to thrive?

For modern civilizations to prosper, Shaw argues that increased longevity is essential. In Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch, Shaw imagines a history in which extreme longevity can be reached through creative evolution, a process motivated by humanity’s creative impulse. Although Shaw rooted his theories in Lamarckian science, which has since fallen out of scientific favor, Shaw’s artistic achievements continue to demand our attention.

Back to Methuselah features an extensive introduction that details Shaw’s ideas and five plays which bring those ideas to life, imagining a new human history, stretching out one idea, one myth, from the Garden of Eden to as far as thought can reach. A metabiological pentateuch, indeed.

Word Count: 112336

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically as part of a bulk import process by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided. As a result, there may be errors in formatting.)

Long Description:
For several decades, Chicanx and Indigenous theatermakers have been repurposing Shakespeare’s plays to reflect the histories and lived realities of the US–Mexico Borderlands and to create space to tell stories of and for La Frontera. Celebrating this rich tradition, The Bard in the Borderlands: An Anthology of Shakespeare Appropriations en La Frontera brings a wide range of Borderlands Shakespeare plays together for the first time in a multi-volume open-access scholarly edition.

This anthology celebrates the dynamic, multilingual reworking of canon and place that defines Borderlands Shakespeare, and it situates these geographically and temporally diverse plays within the robust study of Shakespeare’s global afterlives. The editors offer a critical framework for understanding the artistic and political traditions that shape these plays and the place of Shakespeare within the multilayered colonial histories of the region. Borderlands Shakespeare plays, they contend, do not simply reproduce Shakespeare in new contexts but rather use his work in innovative ways to negotiate colonial power and to envision socially just futures.

Word Count: 105607

ISBN: 9780866988407

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically as part of a bulk import process by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided. As a result, there may be errors in formatting.)

This open book by Catherine Schmidt-Jones has units on time elements (rhythm and meter), pitch elements (timbre, melody, and harmony), and the combination of these elements. The textbook is being provided in both PDF and html formats for download.

This class surveys the music of the Beatles, from the band’s early years to the break-up of the group, mapping how the Beatle’s musical style changed from skiffle and rock to studio-based experimentation. Cultural influences that helped to shape them, as well as the group’s influence worldwide, will be a continuous theme.

This course will present students with an overview of Brazilian popular music, from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Considered an advanced course, it aims to build vocabulary competence and improve oral communication through the study and discussion of topics about cultural aspects and current issues in Brazil. It is designed to give students extensive experience in Portuguese and emphasizes skill development and refinement in the area of critical reading and writing in Portuguese.

This course surveys Romantic musical genres including song, choral music, opera, piano sonata, character cycle, concerto, symphony, and symphonic poem, including the composers Beethoven, Schubert, Berlioz, Chopin, Brahms, Wagner, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, and Mahler. Written essays and oral presentations are based on live performances as well as listening and reading assignments.

This is an intermediate workshop designed for students who have a basic understanding of the principles of theatrical design and who want a more intensive study of costume design and the psychology of clothing. Students develop designs that emerge through a process of character analysis, based on the script and directorial concept. Period research, design, and rendering skills are fostered through practical exercises. Instruction in basic costume construction, including drafting and draping, provide tools for students to produce final projects.