Does this course require a heavy time commitment?
There is no use hiding it. Creating collaborative art work is time-consuming. The course is scheduled to meet twice a week, once on Friday afternoon at 2:30 and once earlier in the week (but not in the evening). Each meeting will be three hours long. One of the weekly three hour periods will be for workshops, regular classroom discussions, and presentations. The other time slot will be set aside for students to work collectively on their group assignments. Be aware that you will need to set aside additional time on some weekends and evenings over the term to do extra work on assignments and attend rehearsals. The performances will probably take place on a weekend.
Who are the professors?
It is the same group of professors as last year: Kathleen Sellars teaches in the Studio Art Program, Kim Renders comes from the Drama Department, Clarke Mackey is in Film and Media, and Matt Rogalsky teachers in the School of Music.
Will I be required to work outside my concentration?
The goal of IDIS 410 is to encourage you to learn about innovative art and performance practices by actually trying them out. Every student will have opportunities to perform, make things, produce moving images and projections and create music. It doesn’t matter if you “can’t sing,” ‘can’t draw,” “have two left feet,” or “don’t know which end of the camera to look through.” This course is structured to make it possible for you to do things you’ve never done before and feel confident about them, while also contributing skills you’ve already acquired and have fun with. There are four assignments in the course. Each assignment privileges a particular art form. Every student in the course must select two assignments out of four to work on. At least one of of these must be outside your area of concentration. The final public performance will be built around these assignments.
How is the theme and narrative chosen?
One term is not enough time for a diverse group of people from different disciplines to come up with a common focus and story line. The point of the course is to try out a lot of different performance and media ideas, not to sit around talking about what to do. Therefore, the four professors will provide the class with a broad theme that will be specifically designed to encourage the widest possible range of creative responses from the class.
Is the performance going to be similar to THREAD, the show you did in February?
Probably not. The performance dates have moved to November this fall, and we are thinking of doing the show in one or more unconventional venues (including maybe doing some of it outside and/or on the internet). It will likely be quite different than THREAD, although it will still retain that show’s experimental flavour.