Overview of selected theater/dance performance genres of India, Indonesia, China, Korea, and Japan with attention to how cultural, political, and social flows have impacted contemporary performance in Asia and beyond. Lectures supplemented by workshops.
Spanning slavery, emancipation, reconstruction, the great depression, civil rights, and the black power/black arts movements, course explores African American drama from literary, historical, and biographical perspectives in lecture/discussions, film excerpts, dramatizations, and visits from award-winning guests.
Asian court and popular performance are traced. Sanskrit drama is contrasted with Indian epic recitation, medium, and courtesan dance. Gender specialization is noted in Indonesian courts using Indian and local legends in dance, mask/puppetry, and clowning. Buddhist and Confucian impulses in Chinese theater and early Korean and Japanese mask and puppetry are introduced. Students are evaluated on participation, tests, writing, and a performance project.
Examines major black African diasporic playwrights and theater. Focuses on the historical, cultural, and literary contexts that gave rise to the works of dramatists such as Ama Ata Aidoo, Derek Walcott, Wole Soyinke, Aime Cesaire, Debbie Green Tucker, and Paul Boakye.
Students develop an advanced design project related to theatrical production, apparel or housewares, marketing collateral, packaging or product development, or any related fields. Students address research and development, materials sourcing, budgeting, fabrication, and portfolio-quality presentation materials. Prerequisite(s):
THEA 10; or two courses from
ART 10D,
ART 10E, and
ART 10F. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor.
THEA 106 is recommended as preparation.
Cross Listed Courses
ART 143T
Introduces students to basic tools for the creation of multimedia digital projects. Special attention is given to the integration of video, sound, graphics, text and virtual reality and to the creation and execution of strategies for interaction between users and the projects themselves. With this in mind, students design and create computer puzzles and games.
Introduces digital rendering techniques using the Adobe Creative Suite. Using Adobe Creative Suite, students solve design problems. Enrollment by permission of the instructor.
Cross Listed Courses
ART 146T
Investigates interactive media including computer games, virtual reality, and participatory theater to inform design practice. Examines Aristotle's Poetics with some modernist excursions. Also examines the various values embedded in works--artistic, civic, spiritual, and political.
General Education Code
IM
The development of scenic design from the Greek period to the present. Concentration is on the changing styles of set design in relation to the changing attitudes toward dramatic literature, art, and theater architecture.
General Education Code
IM
Mixing theory with practice, this course covers everything from script analysis and sound-design paperwork to how to use the software and hardware needed to bring a sound design to reality.
General Education Code
PR-C
Advanced work in principles and theory of scenic design.
General Education Code
PR-C
Advanced theory and practice of theatrical set design.
General Education Code
PR-C
Survey of clothing and theatrical costumes; emphasis on dress of the audience and actor in historical periods of theatrical activity. Students are billed a materials fee.
General Education Code
IM
Students learn advanced principles and theory of costume design, and apply these toward a large project for theatrical/film production or for character design for animation and gaming.
Cross Listed Courses
ART 147T
General Education Code
IM
Advanced principles in costume construction, including tailoring, advanced pattern drafting, and draping techniques. Focuses on translating modern techniques into historical garment construction. Teaches how to study artifacts and do primary research to unlock the past.
Emphasis on techniques used in painting scenery for the theater.
The theory and practice of lighting design with emphasis on practical application. Light plots, electricity, optics, design, and manipulation of lighting for the theater and related performance events are investigated. The student explores mechanics and aesthetics with hands-on experience.
General Education Code
PR-C
Intensive work on the voice and body involving breathing, relaxation, and an understanding of anatomy as it pertains to voice and movement. Awareness and extension of personal vocal and movement repertoire through observation, experience, and exploration. Active preparation for performance (emphasizing Shakespeare) with work on phonetics and scansion and integration of physical technique.
This acting studio centers around Shakespeare and specific techniques used in performing his plays. Continues concentrated work on basic acting skills and textual analysis through scene study. Courses 21 and 23 are recommended as preparation. Admission is by audition at the first class meeting (see the department office or theater.ucsc.edu for more information). (Formerly Acting Studio II.)
Study of the classical theater and dance of India, with attention to performance practice, aesthetic theory, relationship to religious practice devoted to Rama, Siva, and Krishna, political implications and intercultural experimentation.
General Education Code
CC
Challenges of performing Shakespearean and Renaissance plays are explored through confronting the acting problems they pose. Attention to verse scansion, character analysis, and textual meaning. Strategies for enacting scenes and monologues are tested in class presentations.
Awareness and extension of personal movement repertoire, through observation, movement experience, and exploration.
Individual work on acting skills and problems, with emphasis on individual interpretation and scene work with other students. THEA 21 and
THEA 124 are recommended as preparation. Admission is by audition at the first class meeting (see the department office or theater.ucsc.edu for more information).
An intensive immersion into the teaching techniques and actor-training originated by Sanford Meisner. Presents exercises and projects utilizing improvisation, physical activities, and, finally, memorized text. THEA 21 and
THEA 124 are recommended as preparation. Admission is by audition at the first class meeting (see the department office or theater.ucsc.edu for more information).
Intensive upper-division choreographic workshop that begins from the key motifs of historical dance to develop original work. Dancers made available to the student choreographers. Concurrent enrollment in THEA 139 is required.
General Education Code
PR-C
Continues the study of an Asian or Asian diasporic dance theory and practice. Focuses on intermediate dance technique, refinement of performance expression, and creative ownership of material, alongside critical engagement with aesthetic, cultural, and/or historical context.
General Education Code
ER
Continued study of classical ballet theory and practice with progressions in barre, center, and across the floor exercises. Focus on contemporary ballet and critical dance studies. Emphasis on musicality, strength and coordination, and refinement in epaulement in adagio and allegro sequences. Attention to body alignment and maintaining the kinetic integrity of the body while moving through space.
General Education Code
ER
Continued study of contemporary dance theory and practice. Focus on intermediate dance technique, individual and group movement invention, choreographic voice, and theatrical applications.
Students explore sources for movement; gain expressivity in a wide range of movement elements; work in ensemble and solos; and explore the use of scores to develop collaborative skills.
Advanced study, exploration, and analysis of choreographic form and content. Solo, duet, and group work are created with a focus on developing the creative process, interpreting styles and trends, and knowledge of compositional devices and generative movement practices. Enrollment by permission of instructor.
General Education Code
PR-C
Studies in dance, taken in connection with performance in a major dance concert. Students are required to work on all aspects of the production. Students work with guest and faculty choreographers. May be repeated for credit with consent of instructor. Admission by audition held late winter quarter; see department office for more information.
Studies in Asian or Asian diasporic dance theory and practice, taken in connection with performance in a major dance concert. Students are required to work on all aspects of the production. Students work with guest and faculty choreographers.
Participation in a student-choreographed and directed dance concert under faculty supervision. Rehearsals culminate in public performances. Auditions to be held on the first day of class.
General Education Code
PR-E
Basic studio exploration through scene problems and exercises of the development of directing principles. Intensive work on the director's pre-rehearsal work from text selection, analysis, and casting. Audition at first class. (Formerly Future Stages.)
Intensive studio exploration of the art and craft of directing. Primary focus on text analysis, collaboration with designers, developing a point of view and visual/auditory language for the play, staging techniques, and communication techniques with actors.
Studies in theater, taken in connection with participation in a Theater Arts Department sponsored production. Enrollment is limited to those persons chosen to take part in a particular production. Admission by audition; audition schedule to be announced at first class meeting.
Studies in drama; emphasis on African American theater taken in connection with participation in a theater arts sponsored production. Enrollment by audition only, and limited to those persons chosen to take part in a particular production.
General Education Code
ER
Studies in drama; emphasis on Indonesian theater taken in connection with participation in a theater arts sponsored production. Enrollment by audition only, and limited to those persons chosen to take part in a particular production.
General Education Code
CC
Exploration of stage technology from the scene shop's perspective. Conversion of scenic designs to construction drawings. Pursuit of scenic-engineering and construction techniques using steel, wood, and other materials. Training on use of stage machinery: rigging, flying, wagons, tracking, and propulsion.
Uses writing to respond to Shakespeare Santa Cruz's summer productions. Requires frequent assignments, such as reviews, interviews, performance notes, comparisons of productions, background pieces, and reflective essays. Students regularly revise work in response to instructor and peer feedback.
A process-oriented investigation of Shakespeare consisting of work which may culminate in a final production. Requires a two-quarter committment (winter and spring) with credit given in winter and touring in spring. Contact theater@ucsc.edu for details. Admission by audition at first class meeting (see department office or theater.ucsc.edu for more information). (Formerly Workshop Experiments in Performance.)
Students are given the opportunity to write their own scripts and refine them as the result of class discussion and scenework with actors. Work is on specific problems involving such elements as the structuring of a plot or the development of character.
Advanced course that provides directors, writers, and performers with an opportunity to develop new works in performance. Students enrolling in this course as playwrights are selected on basis of submissions turned in the previous quarter. Students taking the course as directors are required to obtain consent of the instructor. Other students may enroll as usual.
A study, through practice, of the constituent elements in the construction of a drama. Students concentrate, in particular, on the organization of complex plots, the expression of character through conflict, and maximizing the emotional impact of dramatic situations.
An examination of the theories of acting and directing from the 19th century to our own time, starting with the classic theater and concentrating on the 20th-century debate centered in Stanislavski and Brecht, Grotowski, and Robert Wilson. This course must be taken prior to student's senior year; required for course 185.
Examines the idea of a National Theater in Ireland from its beginnings in the founding of the National Literary Society in 1892 to the current vitality of the contemporary Irish Theater.
Examines selected plays from the Renaissance (1580-1680, Italy, Spain, England, and France) from a theatrical viewpoint. Covers Renaissance theater buildings and related critical materials. (Formerly The Theater and Drama of Renaissance Europe.)
Art serves simultaneously to educate its audience to the group's traditional values and to test new ideas. Indian, Indonesian, and Japanese forms are studied in relation to their cultural context. Through videotapes, lecture demonstrations, performances, and scenework, students explore the forms.
General Education Code
CC
Explores the phenomenon of mass performance--when thousand of people perform the same thing at the same time. From political festivals, such as those of the French Revolution, to flash mobs, and covering the 19th century craze of mass gymnastics as well as Olympic opening ceremonies, the course analyzes the ideas and techniques behind mass performance. Students sharpen their critical skills in analyzing performance by working with texts, videos, live performance, and archives.
General Education Code
IM
Shakespeare takes life in Asian reinterpretations that revivify languishing genres, duck political censorship, and explore new theatrical worlds. Indian, Japanese, Chinese, and Southeast Asian Shakespeares (1868 to the present) are introduced via lecture, critical reading, videos, and scene work.
General Education Code
CC
Exploration and analysis of the interrelationships between gender, sexuality, and performance on stage and on the page. Topics include gender and homosexuality in the history of performance and dramatic literature, drag, queer Shakespeare, closet drama, same-sex performance conditions (e.g., Greece) vs. dual-gendered (e.g., Restoration England). Combines study of theoretical texts and script with analysis and practice.
Covers the rise of Teatro Chicano as a cultural-political force within the 1960's Chicano Power Movement starting with founding playwriter Luis Valdez and El Teatro Campesino and covering Chicana/o playwrights inspired by the movement, e.g. Cherrie Moraga, Luis Alfaro, and Josefina Lopez.
Cross Listed Courses
LALS 161P
General Education Code
ER
An examination of the idea, form, and significance of queer/gay sensibility and representation in the English-speaking theater from the Renaissance to the present.
Interrelationship of ethnicity and the rise of significant American theater groups including the black theater movement, Chicano Teatro, and Asian American theater will be shared via lecture, viewing, and discussion.
The dream of group theater, a long-term partnership of actors, directors, and playwrights, has fueled extraordinary and exciting change in the 20th-century American theater theory and practice. We examine ten exemplary manifestations of this dream.
Explores female playwrights from textual, historical, and multicultural perspectives. Progresses from Trifles (1916) through the Harlem Renaissance, Broadway's Lillian Hellman, and today's post-feminist theatrical explosion in lectures, films, dramatizations, and award-winning playwrights' visits.
Examination of theory and practice of theater and film comparing and contrasting works having been adapted from one genre to another. Lecture, film, and video viewing. Discussions of materialist, psychoanalytic, and feminist approaches shared. Students cannot receive credit for this course and
THEA 80X.
Investigates the world of experimental performance, sharpening critical skills in reading texts, videos, live performance, and archives. The focus will be on modes of performance that broke with their contemporary norms, including dance, theater, puppetry, and other gatherings.
General Education Code
IM
Studies 20th- and 21st-century productions and adaptations of ancient Greek and Roman drama in theater, dance, music, and film, including Stravinsky, Graham, Pasolini, and Taymor. Discusses artists' goals, the sociopolitical context, ideas of authenticity and audience response.
Cross Listed Courses
COWL 161Y
Focuses on selected plays of Shakespeare. Explores the range and variety of interpretations of the plays, both in critical writings and in performance. Also studies other writings and graphic art created on the subjects and themes of the plays.
Delves into the work of Chekhov and the Moscow Art Theater. Stanislavski's acting techniques are related to the scripts through scene work. The impact on later Russian innovators, especially Meyerhold, and on the American theater is considered.
Antonin Artaud through three critical lenses: influence on modern and contemporary theater, subject and site of psychoanalytic and social criticism, and theater practitioner. Exercises cultural, historical, and analytic approaches to his work. Prerequisite: THEA 160 recommended.
Examines representative texts of Ibsen's work: early plays, realistic middle plays, and late plays. The cultural/historical context of Ibsen's oeuvre is considered as well as its impact, through contemporary translations and productions, on subsequent theater theory and practice.
General Education Code
TA
Examines the works of the classical Athenian tragedian Euripides. The class undertakes a thorough consideration of the playwright's plays in cultural, historical, theatrical, and literary context.
General Education Code
TA
A research seminar. Topics range from critical dance cultures, cognitive dance studies, problems in dance aesthetics, criticism, or theory to particular movements, periods, or the work of a choreographer. Discussions may be supplemented by a movement practice component.
An overview of 20th-century dance within the perspective of modernism. Topics may include romanticism, natural dance, Orientalism, Ausdruckstanz, U.S. modern dance and neo-classicism, chance procedure, postmodernism, the avant-garde commodity marketplace, and critical dance cultures. Discussions may be supplemented by a movement practice component.
General Education Code
IM
Chronological critical and historical overview of ballet as a form of ethnic dance from its European origins to the present. Focus is on development of form in Americas and Asia as it crossed with other socio-culturally constructed categories such as race, gender, class, and sexual orientation. Discussions may be supplemented by a movement practice component.
General Education Code
ER
Examines the transnational currents in expressive culture and the performing arts among the peoples of Africa and Latin America, and Latinos and African Americans in the United States.
General Education Code
CC
A required seminar for majors involving readings and discussions of important texts in dance, design, and drama.
Prerequisite(s): petition required, approved by instructor and department.
Teaching a lower-division seminar under faculty supervision. (See THEA 42 and THEA 45). Petition required, approved by instructor and department.
Exposes students to an aspect of the theory or practice of theater arts. Visiting scholars share their area of expertise in lectures to a small group of students.
Exposes students to an aspect of the theory or practice of theater arts. Visiting lecturers share their area of expertise in lectures to a small group of students.
Provides for department-sponsored individual study programs off campus for which faculty supervision is not in person (e.g., supervision is by correspondence). Students engaging in field study must complete application procedures for such study by the fifth week of the previous quarter. Petition required, approved by instructor and department.
Provides for department-sponsored individual study programs off campus for which faculty supervision is not in person (e.g., supervision is by correspondence). Students engaging in field study must complete application procedures for such study by the fifth week of the previous quarter. Petition required, approved by instructor and department.
Individual study in areas approved by sponsoring instructors. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.
Individual study in areas approved by sponsoring instructors. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.