THINKERS/MAKERS/DRAMATURGS

THINKERS/MAKERS/DRAMATURGS
THEA-UT 801-002~4 credits
Tuesdays 11:00-1:45
Professor Lauren Whitehead
lauren.whitehead@nyu.edu

In Thinkers/Makers/Dramaturgs, students investigate the links between thinking and making in theater, dance, and performance art. Key questions include: How do artists make meaning? What methods do artists use to make their thought processes visible in their works? And finally, how do artists understand the meaning they have made in the context of the larger conversations in which their work is situated? We will study the work of Bill T. Jones, Bertolt Brecht, Peter Brook, and Adrian Piper, as well as more contemporary makers such as Suzan Lori Parks, Branden Jacobs Jenkins, Raja Feather Kelly, and Belarus Free Theater, among others. The goal of the course is for students to interrogate the relationship between thought and artistic output and the value of having that thought seen and/or recognized in aesthetic renderings. In addition to examining the philosophical underpinnings of the makers themselves, students will engage the notion of praxis, and the blurring of theory and practice. Especially important are the theoretical writings of Augusto Boal and Eugenio Barba and other theories that drive artists’ creative practices and contribute to expansive ideas about dramaturgy. Students will write original research papers on the work of a thinker/maker of their choice.