Performance and Revolution

Spring 2021

This course examines the relationship between performance and revolution in a variety of contexts and geographical sites. Treated in pairs France-Haiti, Russia-Mexico, and Cuba-Venezuela, we seek to understand how these events of global significance emerged in tandem and often in dialogue with each other. We will identify and analyze major ideas and themes, characters, genres, and specific theater and performance works that arise from these major historical revolutions, and in particular, we will study the ways that different kinds of story-making and narration generate the meanings, symbols, and legacies of revolutions in the world.

We discuss the power of song and ceremonial dance, the changing aesthetics of biomechanics and agitprop, and the ways in which novelists and playwrights derive art from the world around them to take on themes of rebellion, radical reimagining, and awakening of new truths (and the uncovering of old lies). Throughout the course, we also consider media (plays, film, music) that commemorate or revisit revolutions (often from entirely different systems of production), and works that invoke commitments to the memory of radical change, as well as appropriations and distortions of actual protagonists and historical events. Students are welcome from all disciplinary backgrounds and experience in theater or performance studies. There will be five short essay response papers throughout the semester, active participation towards note taking and facilitation, and a final collective project towards a seminar and an e-zine journal publication.