Honors College Sophomore Seminar: Aesthetics of Live Performance
HCOL 185
3 Credits
Natalie Neuert, Instructor, TA: Elizabeth Sacheli
Summer Session, 2015
June 16 – July 10 – 4 week session
Format: 5 days face to face at International Festival of Arts and Ideas (June 17 – 21). Asynchronous online June
23 – July 10
Course Description
What makes Live Performance such an important part of the human experience? Throughout history, live
performance has played a central role in the way we understand our world. This class focuses on contemporary
work in music, theater, and dance from both a historical and modern perspective. How are the performing arts
different from other forms of entertainment? In an age in which more and more of our entertainment can be
found on a screen, we will ask the question: why is the viewing of live arts still relevant, and how do we view,
interpret, talk and write about live performance? The class will also examine the question of venue and will look
at site specific work, traditional theaters and halls, festival/multi-stage events, flash mobs/pop up events and
how alternate venues affect performance.
Learning objectives:




To gain a historical perspective and understanding of the timeline of live performance and how the
Greeks, Romans, the Medieval Church, Elizabethans influenced our contemporary
theatrical/musical/dance format and how/what we watch today.
To examine the innovators: those who broke the mold and challenged their own contemporary
performance practice paradigms and how each generation of artistic innovation is driven by the past
and hurled into the future.
To understand how venue affects performance. Do we need a stage? Why do we elevate the players?
Why is chamber music called chamber music? Is the future of classical music going to be outside of the
concert hall? Were people always quiet and well-behaved during performances? What might it have
been like to sit for 8 hours under the hot sun on hard stone and watch 3 Greek Dramas unfold in one
day.
To enhance students abilities to critically interpret a performance through writing and discussion.
Students should be able to write a lively, interesting, and descriptive arts review by the end of the class.
Additionally, students should be able to argue, discuss, and debate the merits and disappointments of a
performance in context and with cogency.
Part 1: The course begins with a 5 day field trip to the International Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven,
Connecticut. At the Festival, we will attend multiple performances from all parts of the world, speak with artists,
curators, and critics about their work, and immerse ourselves in global music, dance, theater and more. We will
be housed in Yale Dorms and use classroom space at Yale.
Prior to the Festival students will prepare by
Pre-reading from the following required texts:
 Ross, Alex: The Rest is Noise, Listening to the 20th Century. (Specific chapters assigned.)
 Byrne, David: How Music Works (Specific chapters assigned.)
 MacCauley, Alistair: What Carthage Women Wanted, as Imagined (and Danced) by Men
(New York Times review of Mark Morris Dido and Aeneas
 Burke, Siobhan: Sacred Movement and Music, with an Infectious Beat
(New York Times review of Ragamala Dance & Rudresh Mahanthappa)
 At least 3 of the multiple reviews and articles on Angelique Kidjo to be found at
http://www.kidjo.com/in-the-press.html
Daily Schedule at the Festival
Total class contact hours at Festival: 11.5 hours (classroom); approx. 20 (shows/concerts/ideas sessions);
Wednesday, June 17, 2015 – Arrive and Check in to Dorms
1:00 pm to 4:00 pm: Class meeting, Yale Classroom, TBA
Review of expectations of class and what we will experience at the Festival. Discussion of history of
festival, review of mission statement of festival. We will have a visit by one of the festival’s curators and
a board member who will give us personal insight into the vision of this 2 week event, its scope, and
what it is trying to accomplish.
Discussion of readings with specific emphasis on the three reviews of work we will see. How do we
prepare to see a work of performance with unfamiliar artists? What are our expectations of the
experience? What does our prior experience bring to the table? Do we view an art form differently if we
are deeply involved in at as performer ourselves.
5:30 pm – “Ideas Session” (pre-event talk with Artists) with Mahanthappa: Cross Cultural Explorations.
8:00 pm – Performance: Ragamala Dance & Rudresh Mahanthappa – the Song of the Jasmine (Modern
and Traditional Indian Dance meets a live jazz saxophone ensemble in this new work.
Thursday, June 18, 2015
9:00 am to 11:45 am: Class meeting
9:00 to 10:30 am – Lecture/Discussion: site specific theater work, and theater as a political act and a
medium for change (in preparation for the afternoon’s event.)
10:30 to 11:45 am – Lecture/Discussion: Mark Morris Company – how an iconoclastic performing artist
breaks new ground in the world of Contemporary Dance while being influenced by earlier forms of
dance and performance.
12:00 pm – concert on New Haven Green (multiple musical artists to be announced)
4:00 pm –Performance - Mondo Bizarro/Artspot Productions in Cry You One – A site-specific theater
event with music, dances, and stories from South Louisiana’s vanishing coastal communities.
8:00 pm – Performance - Mark Morris Dance Group in Acis & Galatea – Opera by George Frederic
Handel featuring dancers, full live orchestra, vocal soloists, and the Yale Choral Artists
Friday, June 19, 2015
9:00 to 11:45 am Class meeting:
9:00 to 10:30 am – Deconstruction/Discussion of prior day’s performances. Looking at Acis & Galatea.
How does Mark Morris create new context: Can Opera, Dance, and live music combine into a cohesive
work of art with impact and meaning. Class visit from member of company to be scheduled.
10:30 am to 11:45 am – Preparation for evening performance. Continuation of discussion of theater as a
political act with discussion of Cry You One. Lecture topic: Production and venues influence on
performance aesthetic. We are shifting from seeing very complex theatrical events (Mondo Bizarro and
Mark Morris) to theater in its most simple form: one man on stage, no sets or costumes, minimal
lighting: how does the removal of “theatricality” drive the performer/playwright’s agenda.
12:00 pm – concert on New Haven Green (multiple musical artists to be announced)
6:00 pm – concert on New Haven Green (multiple musical artists to be announced)
8:00 pm – Performance: Rodney King - History, poetry and tragedy collide when Roger Guenveur Smith
tackles the thorny odyssey of Rodney King—deemed “the first reality TV star”—from the harsh initial
glare of the national spotlight as the victim of police brutality to his involuntary martyrdom that ignited
the L.A. riots to his lonely death at the bottom of a swimming pool.
Saturday, June 20, 2015
10:30 pm to 12:45 pm – Class Session – Recap of Rodney King: How does Smith hold our attention
through language, movement, and playing of multiple characters. How politically charged was this
performance? Did it call for a behavioral change or action on the part of the audience?
Our performance genre now shifts to music for the final two days at the festival. Discussion: Alex Ross
and David Byrne on music, venue, and genre.
Lecture: The History of Popular Music Performance in the United States.
1:00 pm – Weekend Showcase Musical Performances (outside, artists TBA)
7:00 pm – Performance: Kurt Elling with the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra. Grammy winning
jazz vocalist heavily influenced by Frank Sinatra.
Sunday, June 21, 2015
10:30 to 12:00 pm – Class Session.
3:00 pm – Ideas Session: Sinatra 100 with Kurt Elling
5:30 pm – Class Dinner: Pizza and discussion – what we’ve seen and heard
7:00: pm – Final Performance: One of the world’s most renowned and respected performers, multi
Grammy winner and ambassador for women’s and children’s rights Angelique Kidjo.
Part 2: June 22nd – July 10 – Online.
The online portion of the class will be organized into 3 Learning Modules. Each module will contain
lectures, readings, assignments, discussions, papers, and one large-scale project which will be
researched and executed in teams of 2 students.
Module 1: A Cultural History of Live Performance: Music
From June 22nd to June 27th
Readings during this module:
Additional Chapters: Alex Ross The Rest is Noise, listening to the 20th Century
Additional Chapters: David Byrne How Music Works
Assigned selections from Michael Graziano Why is Music a Religious Experience?
Online Lecture (Video Format): In a Western context, live performance of music began as a way to gather people
together for worship, celebration, and story-telling. How did music move into dedicated spaces and what were
those spaces? When did people start paying money to listen?
Online Lecture (Video Format): We now live in an era where live music is available from big cities to small towns.
This was not always the case. This lecture explores how touring music spread across the United States in the
post-war period.
Online Lecture (Video Format): Venues – where did people go to hear live music? From the big-city concert hall,
to the road-house: how does venue affect the way we listen? How has the advent of recorded music and
streaming affected the way we hear music?
Online Lecture (Power point format with links): Musical innovations happens for many reasons, we will look at
some major innovators and discuss how they influenced subsequent performers. We will look at and listen to
various pairs of cross-cultural and/or cross-historical performers. Lecture and discussion will include examples
from work we heard at festival such as influences on Kurt Elling and Angelique Kidjo.
Discussion (Online, asynchronous – using Blackboard’s Discussion function): Following each lecture, students will
respond to a discussion prompt and reply to at least 3 classmate’s postings. Discussion will also work in tandem
with assigned readings to deepen student’s understanding of topics. Sample prompt: We saw work at the
festival in a variety of venues: was the work performed enhanced by the venue choice? Could those events
have taken place anywhere? Give concrete examples of how your response and involvement was influenced
by the venue or lack of venue.
Assignment: Timeline
Moving from the Medieval Period to Contemporary Musical performance, students will create a timeline
indicating major periods of genre-shift historically. Timeline should indicate both shifts in genre (from Gregorian
Chant to Renaissance Band for example) AND shifts in venue or performance viewing practice (from Church to
Village Square for example). At least 10 significant historical shifts have been noted on the time line, students
will also place specific musical artists along the timeline (composers and performers can both be included).
Discussion/Peer Review: Each student will review another student’s timeline and post a discussion string around
the artists they have placed along the time line.
Preparation for final Project (described below): students will be working in teams of two and will choose their
team mate at this time.
Module 2: Theater as a means for social change in both an historical and modern context
Dates: June 29 – July 5
Readings
Dugdale, Eric: Greek Theatre in Context (selected readings)
Mamet, David: Three Uses of the Knife – On the Nature and Purpose of Drama (selected readings)
Online Lecture (Video Format): Theater is one way in which humans strive to make sense their past, their lives,
and to create change in social norms. Unlike music and dance, theater uses language as a primary means of
communicating emotion and experience. In this lecture we will discuss the first great era of classical theater:
Ancient Greek 700 BC.
Online Lecture (Video Format): the Greeks created a Festival structure as a medium for bringing drama to the
public. Though we now use this format as a medium for live music, how did the Ancient Greeks integrate the
Festival into daily life, and what was its purpose? How did theater serve as a cohesive cultural event in the lives
of Greek Citizens? Is there any equivalent in our contemporary performance milieu? Would the International
Festival we just attended seem familiar to citizens of ancient Greece?
Online Lecture (Video Format): When did theater move indoors and why? We will look at important and iconic
theater structures (Theater of Dionysius, Shakespeare’s Globe, Theater am Schiffbauerdamm – home of Brecht’s
Berliner Ensemble, etc.) to understand how these structures supported and changed the drama presented
within.
Online Lecture (Video Format): How and why has theater been used successfully as an agent of social change?
Sample Discussion Prompt: Using the two theatrical events we saw at the Festival (Rodney King and Cry You
One) discuss how theater can be a “call to action.” Did the ancient Greeks use theater this way? Give concrete
examples of ways in which this might have happened in the ancient world, or our own culture.
Assignment: Students will research a production that occurred at one of the venues mentioned above (Theater
of Dionysius, Shakespeare’s Globe, Theater am Schiffbauerdamm – home of Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble). The
production chosen should be one in which there was an emphasis on history, politics, social justice, or a call for
change (radical or subtle). Students will write a paper in which they discuss their research.
Module 2: Dance – Movement as Narrative: Three Groundbreaking Contemporary Choreographers (Mark
Morris, Pina Bausch, Elizabeth Streb)
Dates: July 6 – July 10
Readings during this module:
Banes, Sally: Terpsichore in Sneakers, Post-Modern Dance (selected readings)
Acocella, Joan: Mark Morris (selected readings)
MacCauley, Alistair: Glimpses of India, Eruptions of Chaos, Flashes of Choreography (on Pina Bausch’s Bamboo
Blues)
Sulcas, Rosalyn: Two Immortal Lovers Have a Rematch in Paris (on Pina Bausch’s Orpheus and Eurydice)
Film/Video during this module:
Pina: A Film for Pina Bausch by Wim Wenders
Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity
Online Interview: Video Format –– a timeline of contemporary dance.
In this module, discussion prompts will become a major teaching tool as we look in depth at our three
choreographers (two whose work we will see captured live on film, one whose work we’ve seen live at the
Festival). Questions we will tackle with detailed writing and answers:
Joan Acocella writes how Mark Morris’s approach to his life influences his work. Yet his last two projects,
including the one we have seen live, incorporate formal historic forms (such as opera and symphonic music) and
classical mythology as story line. So which is it? Can work reflect the artist’s own personal experience while using
historical format and construct? How does a modern audience relate to this juxtaposition?
Elizabeth Streb’s choreography defies gravity and thus takes movement to a whole new level. Can we move
beyond the shock element of her work and find meaning in her search for the ultimate potential of the human
body? How is her work different then extreme sports? What makes it art?
Pina Bausch’s choreography has been called both epic and intimate, but it is always on the edge of extreme
human emotion. In the two written reviews of her work that we will read, and in Wim Wender’s extraordinary
film, we see that it also incorporates historical and cross-cultural elements. How does the work of this
distinctive artist tie together many of the themes we have discussed in our class, and work we have seen live?
Final Project: Due July 17, 2015
Topic approved by Professor: July 1, 2015
Students will work in pairs. The research portion of the project can easily be divided evenly, and students can
meet/discuss progress in any media they choose (Skype, I.M., Google Meet-up or other Google sharing media, or
face to face if feasible).
Students are advised to begin work on the project as soon as possible and not to wait until class is over.
Students will research an historical period of artistic work (Baroque Music, Greek Comedy, Elizabethean Theater,
etc. and find a contemporary artist whose work is influenced from this historical format/medium. Examples we
have seen throughout class include Mark Morris/Ancient Greek Drama, or Pina Bausch/Classical Indian Dance.
Students will create a multi-media (music/video/textual description, etc.) presentation documenting their
research and discoveries. The earlier time-line project may be a useful starting point for this project.
An assessment rubric will be supplied for this project.
Grade Assessment:




Discussion Board online and face to face discussion participation (at Festival) – 20% of grade
Timeline Project – 20% of grade
Attendance at all required Festival events – 20% of grade
Final project – 40 % of grade