Autumn

This course explores the intersection of religion and performance/theatre through the lenses of performance studies that highlight religious practices, investigate worship practices that incorporate theatrical modes, and examine representations of religion and faith practices in and through secular performances. We will study disparate performances of religion (such as prayer, dances, stage plays, music, and art) that involve major religions of the world and some minor ones. Performance activities allow the experimentation and embodied expressions that can authorize normativity as well as enable transgressions. What this homology of religion and performance ultimately shows is a recognition of their mutual expressive force, infinite creative potential, and the power of human imagination. Students will learn practices of meaning that play on all the chords of the sensorium from where cognition and experience emerge or co-arise.

This course examines the ways histories of US intervention in Latin America have been engaged in cultural practice. We assess the history of US intervention by reading primary documents alongside cultural artifacts including film, performance and visual art, song, music, and poetry. The course begins with the Cuban revolution and ends with the ongoing crisis in Puerto Rico.

This course takes students on a journey into the dazzling world of divas, queers, and drag performers who reshaped Latin America's cultural, social, and political repertoires. From Eva Perón's iconic political mythology and María Félix's femme fatale allure to the radical defiance of Pedro Lemebel and the cosmic magnetism of Walter Mercado, we will explore how these larger-than-life figures resisted and undermined heteronormative and misogynistic regimes. Engaging critical theory, queer studies, and aesthetic analysis, the course invites students to engage with the commodification of celebrity in the culture industry, the performative dynamics of identity, and queer culture's fascination with camp, glamour, and abjection. Revisiting concepts like the society of the spectacle and hyperreal personas, students will uncover how these icons transformed the public sphere and disrupted hegemonic power structures. The course also examines celebrity labor as affective production and the participatory cultures that turn fandom into a consumer community, and into a nostalgic and repetitive ritual in the context of digital neoliberalism. Through discussions, close readings of critical texts, and multimedia explorations of films and performances, students will learn how divas, queers, and drag performers redefined aesthetic innovation and became fearless agents of political subversion in the region and beyond. The course will be taught in Spanish and English.

This two-quarter sequence is open only to fourth-year students who are majoring and/or minoring in theater and performance studies.

Stage Design: Worldbuilding explores various forms and processes of designing scenery for live performance. Emphasizing a cohesive reading of text, contextual and historical research, and visual and thematic analysis, the course also covers the documentation required to realize a production. Students will learn how to create and present key deliverables including storyboards, models, drafting, and paint elevations. The course examines diverse approaches and aesthetics in theater, dance, opera, and devised work. Conversations with guest artists will illuminate personal and cultural aesthetics and assigned readings will introduce major trends in modern stage design.

In this course, students will learn the basics of designing costumes for theatrical productions, encompassing the skills of theatrical rendering and sketching, as well as the implementation of the design and basic sewing techniques. Students will learn to adopt a vocabulary using the elements and principles of design, understand and experience the process intrinsic to producing costumes for the theater, analyze the production needs related to costumes, and prepare a finalized costume design for a theatrical production.

This studio course introduces students to a wide range of methods for creating choreography while considering the complex relationship between bodies, form, aesthetics, cultural contexts, technology platforms, and performance objectives. Grounded by interdisciplinary inquiry and ethical collaboration practices, the course will provide students with a robust toolkit for experimentation and play within dance and movement-based work, including compositional structures, improvised scoring, and choreographic prompts that are inspired by students’ unique thematic interests. The course also invites students to consider how choreographic methods can be activated as problem-solving tools across disciplines. Supplementary readings and viewings will drive discussion and analysis while giving students a broad understanding of how choreography engages current social and political issues.

This course spans three quarters of attendance and is open to all students from all areas of the University. Dance technique classes meet weekly for 90 minutes. For each quarter you may choose one of three technique tracks: classical dance (primarily ballet), modern/contemporary, or Afro-diasporic forms (hip-hop, jazz, West African). Classes are taught by some of Chicago’s most recognized dance professionals and are open to all levels of experience.

To earn 100 units for your engagement in dance technique classes, you must earn a grade of ‘P’ in each of three courses. Ordinarily, dance technique courses are taken in consecutive quarters and you must attend eight of the ten class sessions offered during any given quarter to earn the subsequent grade of ‘P.’ Any interruptions to enrolling in consecutive quarters (e.g., summer session and/or travel abroad) would need to be approved by the Director of Undergraduate Studies and Director of Dance in Theater and Performance Studies. There is no option to enroll for a quality grade. For more information and for consent to enroll, please contact Julia Rhoads, Director of Dance: jrhoads1@uchicago.edu.

This course is designed to help the emerging writer focus their creativity into a viable feature film project and screenplay. This includes structure, format, exposition, characterization, dialogue, voice-over, and other aspects of visual storytelling for the screen. Weekly meetings include a brief lecture period, screenings of scenes from selected films, extended discussion, assorted readings and writing assignments. Because this is primarily a writing class, students should expect to deliver four to five pages of written material—including story development materials or screenplay pages—each week.

Students who are participating in the TAPS autumn quarter Pro Show as either performers or design/production assistants may opt in for course credit after securing approval from the Director of Performance and completing additional assignments.