Research for Devising Community-Based Performance
Professor Jan Cohen-Cruz
With Urban Bush Women members & Rosemary Quinn, ETW director/ acting teacher
New York University, New York, NY
Tisch School of the Arts
Drama Department (Fall 2005)
The regionalism that I adhere to could be defined simply as local life aware of itself. It would tend to substitute for myths and stereotypes of a region a particular knowledge of the life of the place one lives in. – Wendell Berry
Students try out different research methods for making performances and writing essays grounded in local concerns, finding out what is on the minds and hearts of people in a particular place and exploring the broad context of these issues. We do primary research in neighborhoods within an easy walk of NYU. Students investigate how artists enter communities, develop relationships with local people, identify local concerns, deepen research, gather material for the creation of writing and performances, and develop a plan to impact policy. Urban Bush Woman Christal Brown guides performance-based exercises as Cohen-Cruz guides reading discussions and writing assignments. UBW artistic director Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and ETW’s Rosemary Quinn lead master classes in translating research into performance. As the project develops, our research becomes more focused and integrates secondary sources. We also look at models of devised, community-based plays. The course is restricted to juniors and seniors likely to continue in a spring ensemble studio that will take our research through to performance with an associated policy component and which will be co-directed by Zollar, Quinn, and Cohen-Cruz.
Course readings are available at the NYU bookstore in a packet edited by JCC. Additional readings will be made available via Blackboard.
I. APPROACHING COMMUNITY
1. 9/6 INTRODUCTIONS /ENTERING COMMUNITY
…to each other, the community-based performance field, this course, and the entire project. Lay out broad theme of “place matters.” Today’s focus: Urban Bush Women’s “entering community” methodology. For next class: Try out UBW’s “entering community” methodology, where possible in teams, vis-a-vis people affiliated with nyu. Begin a research journal. Read UBW hand-outs, attached. Recommended: Janet Cardiff Audio walk in Central Park investigating “place, time, and physicality.” Last oppties: Thurs-Sun Sept 8-11, one hour between 10am-3:30pm, meet at 6th Ave/ Central Park South. Free; leave drivers license or credit card in exchange for audio equipment.
2. 9/13 UBW’s COMMUNITY MISSION AND VALUES
UBW Artistic Director Jawole Willa Jo Zollar works with results of students’ first community research experiment. JZ on assumptions and values informing UBW’s mission. Also JCC prepares class for this weekend intensive: Intro to Cornerstone Theater’s methodology. Discuss reading: Ch 3 from Kuftinec’s book on Cornerstone and Lewis on Cornerstone core values.
CORNERSTONE MODEL Panel Fri eve 9/16 @ 6pm; workshop Sat 9/17 10:30-5:30 and Sun 9/18 noon-5pm.
3. 9/20 ROADSIDE THEATER MODEL
Discuss Cornerstone workshop. Then guest Dudley Cocke presents Roadside Theater’s approach to community engagement. We do story circle. Discuss reading: The Matrix from From the Ground Up, “Story Circle Methodology,” and Red Fox/ 2nd Hangin’ by Cocke etal. For next class: in pairs, facilitate small story circles with people you know who have a relationship to this neighborhood, about this place.
4. 9/27 SCREENINGS OF DEVISED, COMMUNITY-BASED PERFORMANCES
Share experience of story circles. Screen video excerpts from UBW’s Are We Democracy? Cornerstone alum Sabrina Peck and JCC’s common green/ common ground; and Roadside’s Red Fox/ Second Hangin’.
First paper due: based on field work notes and secondary source research on an issue related to place that draws you (see suggested research topics at end of syllabus).
II. INVESTIGATING COMMUNITY
5. 10/ 4 COMMUNITY ORGANIZING AND COMMUNITY-BASED ART
Margaret Hughes, our project’s community organizer/ project consultant, provides an overview of community organizing. Discuss reading by Rubin and Rubin. Margaret hands out/ takes us through her list of neighborhood contacts, and how to approach them for upcoming interview assignments.
6. 10/ 11 UBW TOOL BOX
Christal Brown takes class through UBW’s “Tool Box” with emphasis on dialogic process. Then discussion of interviewing and scripting performance emerging from interviews. Read/ discuss AD Smith’s essay, “Not So Special Vehicles.” Practice interviewing each other. For next clas: conduct two interviews; transcribe summations into journal.
7. 10/ 18 WORKING WITH INTERVIEWS
Christal takes class through methods of moving with interview texts. Jan takes class through analysis of AD Smith’s translation of interviews to dramatic text in Fires in the Mirror which must be read for today. We’ll also screen excerpt of Fires.
8. 10/ 25 FOCUSING RESEARCH
Identify areas of major interest vis-à-vis the Lower East Side, something you’ve come to care about where something is needed. Make groups accordingly, first handing over relevant research you’ve done to corresponding group. Make an inventory of research gathered to date. What voices/data seem most important that you already have, and which are missing, to express what you think needs expressing around this subject? Identify, in this way, each person in the group’s next research assignment (for next week). Each group must state mission of their sub-group to the whole class.
III. PERSONALIZING COMMUNITY
9. 11/1 THEATER SESSION WITH ROSEMARY
Rosemary leads workshop incorporating the personal, the student participants, into our work.
10. 11/8 COMMUNITY ORGANIZING/ POLICY COMPONENT
How can performance be devised to impact policy? Discuss reading: Ngugi wa Thiongo, “The Language of African Theater,” as case study. Margaret talk with students about ways their specific sub-groups might serve the community. JCC explain next paper; students bring proposal next class: thesis plus one paragraph description of a performance that was efficacious for a specific population, with particular emphasis on one phase of the process, not necessarily the show itself, that you see as possible model for your sub-group. Bring “Performance as Process,” from Blackboard. JCC bring list of some projects to consider.
11.11/15 ANTI-RACISM WORKSHOP
David Billings sensitizes class about working with multi-racial groups. Read bell hooks.
12. 11/22 DANCE/ THEATER SESSION WITH JAWOLE
Reflect on anti-racism workshop and hooks’ essay with Jawole and Jan. Jawole leads session in translating sub-group work to theatre/ movement. Efficacy paper due.
13. 11/29 ADAPTED TEXTS
Discuss Steelbound and excerpt from Prometheus Bound, today’s readings. Analyze points of adaptation (structure, character, pervasive metaphors, arc, spectacle, etc.) by cross-reading Scene i of Steelbound and Prometheus Bound side-by-side. Show video clip also pointing out site specific nature of performance. What are advantages and disadvantages of adapting great classical texts for comm-based performance?
* Students each tell class what dramatic text they’ve brought to adapt. Form groups of three and four and each group adapt one 5 minute scene, drawing as fully as possible upon research gathered and being mindful of your focus. Continue work on this scene for next week. The final presentation will include: 1) where and 2) for whom they would perform this as a final play; 3) how they would use the production toward some concrete and useful response to a need they have perceived among those constituents (e.g., along lines of last paper).
14. 12/6 STUDENT PRESENTATION OF SCENES AND SEMESTER CLOSURE
Each group will do a reading of their 5 minute-long adapted text, first telling class their choice of site and audience. Then, like in last paper, they will explain their strategy for this production to address a communal need. Evaluate where we are in the process and what needs to be done before next semester. Jawole work with students integrating selected elements of the semester’s work.
Final Paper, which doubles as final exam, is due Thursday December 15th at noon in Jan’s office (721 B’way, Room 203). Could be adaptation of a scene from a dramatic text using class research material. Or could be a plan of a “policy component,” e.g. something to do alongside the play, for which the play is a spring board, in response to a community need. Either way, must be accompanied by a 2-3 page analysis of how you made your choices, where you imagine it performed, by whom, and for whom.
REQUIREMENTS
1. Attendance and informed participation.
2. Research journal: tracking process and research assignments.
3. Three Five Page Papers
9/27: Large Topic Research from Fieldwork and Library. Relationship between the East Village as place and, for example, public education, green space, changing demographics, capitalism, etc. Might come out of attendance at a neighborhood block association, e.g., 5th street residents are most concerned about erosion of quality of life due to ever growing number of bars.
11/22: Efficacy Paper. See attached.
12/15: Final Paper: either dramatic text incorporating primary and secondary research OR a plan for policy link or otherwise useful document for the ONGOING work.
4. Performance from Research: Each student performs assigned work at least once for either Christal, Rosemary, or Jawole.
