1998-99 Expressive Arts Program OfferingsReturn to IndexContested Realities: Power and Representation
in Nations and Communities
Contested Realities: Power and Representation in Nations and Communities
This program will examine the contested terrain of "reality" - who defines it, which views are dominant and how we can redefine it by making alternative images. We will examine how narratives of collective identity are con-structed. While paying attention to mainstream media and alternative representations, we will explore the development of national and com-munity identity, the power relations underlying representations of these identities and the forms of conflict they create. Finally, we will learn skills in video production, oral history and political analysis with the goal of working with community groups struggling to represent their own sense of identity, history and reality. Our approach will be international, national and local, developing case studies of local communities and national movements. The study of nationalism exposes how narratives of identity construct and manipulate representations of gender, class and ethnicity. Analyzing international conflict helps us understand how power relations are used to construct con-tested realities. We will also look at contested realities in social movements. Finally, we will look at class, labor and ethnic struggles. We will examine media that support dominant versions of reality as well as films, literature, histories and analytical texts that resist "master narratives." We are interested in documentary and experimental forms of repre-sentation that are actively constructing alter-native histories and collective identities. Students will engage in collaborative projects that enable communities to participate in producing their own representations. Credit awarded in cultural studies*, community research*, video production, media studies, comparative literature, political economy and oral history.Total: 16 credits each quarter.Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in video production, community organization and graduate work in political economy, media studies, gender studies and cultural studies.This program is also listed with a lengthier description under Culture, Text and Language and Social Science.Envisioning Home: Finding Your Place Through Art and Music
This yearlong program will explore the ways artists and musicians develop a sense of place. It is about creating our own sense of home through the production of art and music, and is also about making art and music reflect our relationship to the land in which we live, the Pacific Northwest. We will draw from a range of local and international resources, reading literature in translation from several different cultures and consulting with local artists, scientists, tribal elders and musicians. While the linkages between ethnobotany and ethnomusicology, South American literature and Irish poetry, or printmaking and forestry might seem distant, they mesh elegantly when one focuses on human needs of self-expression. We expect students to have good ability in at least one art form, whether graphic or musical. We also expect they will exhibit bravery in exploring arts they have neglected; if you've never picked up a musical instrument, now is your chance. If you play the piano beautifully but can barely make a stick figure, it is time to let go of limitations. Our studies will focus on building skills fall quarter, with workshops on drawing, print-making, photography and music. In winter quarter students will continue enhancing their artistic and musical skills while starting to build their own musical instruments and create their own prints, drawings and photo-graphs. During spring quarter, students will pro-duce a joint gallery show and musical performance to showcase their work for the public. Weekly meetings will include lectures, hands-on workshops, presentations by visiting artists, films and seminars based on both texts and works of art or music. Full-time students will enroll in one of two workshops: Indonesian music with Sean Williams or visual arts with Joe Feddersen. Program goals include a richly-developed understanding of the variety of expressive arts and a sense of how we can examine our place in the world as artists and musicians. Credit awarded in writing, research, studio arts*, world music*, ethnobotany and literature.Total: 12 or 16 credits each quarter. Students who enroll for 12 credits may sign up for a part-time course, preferably in art or music.Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in art and music.Foundations of Visual Arts
Foundations of Visual Arts is a yearlong group contract that offers an introduction to the making of both two-dimensional and three-dimensional art forms in conjunction with a study of aesthetics and the history of art. Students will also be expected to take the four-credit Art History course. Fall quarter, students will learn what it means to do studio work. We will deal with various two-dimensional media that include (but aren't limited to) charcoal, pencil, conte crayon and photography. Students will learn to draw both by following a series of exercises and by working with live models. They will also learn the basics of the 35mm camera and black-and-white photography. Through weekly design assignments, we will explore design, composition and aesthetics. Critique sessions following the assignments, will allow students to share their work with the entire program and get constructive feedback. Along with the hands-on portion of the program, we will see films and read novels and nonfiction writings that complement the studio work and deal with both the lives and working methodologies of artists. This part of the program will also continue during winter and spring. Winter quarter, we will continue to build on what we learned in the fall with the study of drawing and some design assignments. In addition, we will add several new elements: the study of painting, more in-depth work in photography, the study of color and the notion of theme work. Students will be expected to produce a portfolio of their thematic work by the end of the quarter and present it to the program. Credit awarded in drawing, painting, photography, design and art history.Total: 16 credits each quarter.Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in art, art education and humanities.Foundations of Visual Arts: Sculpture
Spring quarter of FOVA will introduce students to the technical, design, historical and aesthetic considerations of contemporary sculpture. Emphasis will be on experimentation with form and materials, imaginative applications of ideas and development of personal imagery. All students will also be expected to take the four-credit Art History course. Credit awarded in introduction to sculpture, three dimensional design and art history.Total: 16 credits.Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in the arts and humanities.Horizon: Where Land Meets Sky
This is a two-quarter study of sky, land and the place where the two meet. The study is anthropological, historical and artistic. Together we will read texts that describe the way in which people of many cultures have used the horizon line to create place, time, season and a romance between the celestial and the terrestrial in art, poetry and the imagination. We will understand how the horizon line creates points along which constellations, planets, the sun and the moon appear to rise and set and how buildings and stones have marked these points and now image-makers have celebrated them. During spring quarter we hope to study on site in northern New Mexico where we will give attention to Anasazi cultures as a part of our group research. Faculty will provide workshops in cultural anthropology, research methodology, drawing and journal writing. Credit awarded in cultural anthropology, anthropology of pre-historic Southwest United States, drawing, art history and research methods.Total: 12 or 16 credits winter quarter and 16 credits spring quarter. Students may enroll in a four-credit course winter quarter.Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in arts and humanities.This program is also listed under Culture, Text and Language.Images in Context
Images in Context, a three-quarter program, examines artistic images in painting, litera-ture, photography and film within their social and historical contexts. It emphasizes the ways a historical moment impacts the images produced and the stories told within it. Fall quarter we will look at a period during which these media interacted most dynamically: Western European modernism from the 1880s to the 1920s. During this era, painting and photography were freed from the dictates of representation while literature and film reconceptualized space and time. Then we will examine modernism outside Europe, assessing the impact of history, politics and social change on representation. Texts may include Mexican murals, Afro-Cuban poetry and Japanese Western-style painting. Winter and spring quarters will consider the postwar "cinema of new possibilities." In Japan, film was the best medium for simul-taneously expressing the existential anxiety and sense of liberation following the war. In Cuba, film captured exciting possibilities and burning social issues of a post-revolutionary society. In the United States, filmmakers faced McCarthy-era repression while challenging the studio system and its production code. In the spring, we will ask what follows modernism. Are we experiencing a paradigm shift as post-industrial societies evolve into information societies? What happens to art in the age of information technology and digital reproduction? In the era of global dissemination of U.S. popular culture? Spring projects will explore these questions. An important aspect of our work will be developing critical reading and writing skills. We will also acquire or improve our visual literacy skills by examining the ways "seeing" is culturally conditioned. We will hone our skills as readers, writers and seers through workshops, group and individual exercises. Students will also make class presentations. Credit awarded in film history and interpretation, literature history and interpretation, visual art history and interpretation and expository writing.Total: 16 credits each quarter.Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in the humanities and expressive arts, cultural studies, art history, media studies and literature.This program is also listed under Culture, Text and Language and Expressive Arts.Imagining Movement: Art in a Social Context
In this program, students will study movement as an element in the creation of visual and media and performing arts with particular attention to the way time functions as an element in the design of dance performance, animated film and mixed media or installation work. Students will study interrelationships between these areas and also pick an area of concentration in which to build skills. There will be an emphasis on new genres and the blending of different art forms to create complex multifaceted works that break the boundaries of traditional disciplines. We are particularly interested in students who wish to engage in designing work that combines moving image, moving object and the human body in motion. Students will also be expected to explore ways they can use movement to create a visual language that will deepen viewer's understanding of the human condition. Students will explore the role of culture and intercultural collaboration as a framework for creative work. In addition, a group of students in the program who choose to focus on making mixed media and installation work will also have the option of going to Mexico during the last half of winter quarter to do installation and mixed media work with artists there. The cost of the trip will be around $2,000-2,400. Students who wish to participate will be required to pay a deposit early in fall quarter, and at least 15 students will have sign up. Although it is not required, students wishing to travel to Mexico are encouraged to enroll in a Spanish module during fall quarter. During fall quarter, students will work on campus to learn how to build installation and mixed media art that incorporates elements of movement and sound into the built environment as part of object design. Students will also explore information about the theory and practice of animation and dance with an eye to creating complex collaborative work in subsequent quarters. We will discuss art practice in Latin America with a particular focus on contemporary art history and theory in Mexico. People interested in traveling to Mexico will be asked to explore their own values about art production in relation to those expressed in other cultures. During winter quarter, students will do collaborative creative work based on skills and ideas developed fall quarter in preparation for travel and the creation of collaborative art with established and emerging artists in Mexico City and the state of Veracruz. During travel, students will not only build installations with artists in galleries in Mexico, they will also visit museums, archeological sites and architectural sites and learn about the history of Mexican art and culture in a social and political context. In spring, students will return to campus to work with students in the program, and hopefully with visiting artists from Mexico on a collaborative installation in our galleries and on a collaborative piece with students in Orissi Dance and Animation. While exploring a discourse of history, theory and critical analysis of the experimental animation art form, students will acquire the technology, language and skills of this fine arts practice. Mechanization and the technological process resulted in several new visual and social movements. Analysis of emerging animation works from these movements reveal changes in our experience of technology and in our understanding of space, time, speed, direction and form. Through focused explorations we will deconstruct how these stories were told, who they were told to, what they say about race, gender, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, labor, imperialism and censorship, along with their social functions and political significance. Instruction will be provided in techniques of experimental animation from cut-out or 3-D stop motion animation to digital imagemaking. Design, technology and production labs will provide exposure to the aesthetics, theory, history, literature, graphics, technology and craft of the animated art form. Students will also study the history of dance as a means for social change in a global context. Those who opt for the dance workshops will immerse themselves in the study of the science and art of Orissi classical dance from India in the fall. An ancient science/art, Orissi incorporates pure rhythm and storytelling in its repertoire. Students will learn the elaborate dance language developed for communication in South Asia, a land of many languages. In the winter, students will document the scientific aspects of the dance language by working collaboratively with animation students. Then, in the spring, they will use the dance language to create a statement art piece that will be produced as a multimedia project. The Orissi workshop will also cover the language, philosophy and mythology of South Asia. Credit awarded in mixed media and installation art, art history, film history, film theory and practice, studio design project, 2-D or 3-D, dance history, South Asian studies, Eastern philosophy and Orissi dance.Total: 12 or 16 credits each quarter. Students may enroll in Orissi Dance or another four-credit course each quarter.Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in visual arts, performing arts and media.Light
This program is a two-quarter interdisciplinary study of light. We will explore light in art, art history, science and mythology. All students will do studio work in drawing and/or painting and study how artists have thought about and expressed light in their work. All students will also explore the interaction of light with matter in the classroom as well as in the laboratory. This integrated program is designed for students who are willing to explore both art and science. Our weekly schedule will include studio and science labs, specific skill workshops, lectures and seminars. During fall quarter, we will focus on skill building in art and lab science and on library research methods. During winter quarter, each student will have the opportunity to design an interdisciplinary individual or group project exploring a topic related to the theme of light. Credit awarded in introductory science with laboratory, drawing and/or painting and art history.Total: 16 credits each quarter.Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in science, art, art history and humanities.This program is also listed under Scientific Inquiry.May I Have This Dance?
Our title has two meanings. It could mean the standard social invitation, but it could also mean: Can I take and own a particular behavior as an expression of my own emotions, feelings, needs? We will inquire about these multiple meanings through the disciplines of psychology and dance. We will use the metaphors of the stage - onstage, offstage - and of the dance - movement through time and space between people - as a way of looking at life and art. We will look at human development as it involves the "dance" of self and society. We will do dance and movement in a studio space regularly. No previous experience in dance is necessary. Students who want more concentrated work in human development/psychology can obtain it in a workshop component of this program. Others may take a course outside the program with faculty approval. Credit awarded in performance theory*, dance aesthetics*, dance/movement, human development*, psychology and cultural studies.Total: 16 credits each quarter. Students may enroll in a four-credit course each quarter with faculty signature.Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in dance, human development, psychology and performing arts.This program is also listed under Culture, Text and Language.Mediaworks: Experiments With Light and Sound
Mediaworks is the entry-level moving-image program designed to provide students with skills in film/video history and theory, critical analysis and film, video and audio production. All moving-image programs emphasize the linkage of media theory and practice, focusing on the development of a critical perspective for imagemaking and examining the politics of representation. In the 1998-99 version of Mediaworks, we will conduct a series of experiments with light and sound. Documentary filmmaker Laurie Meeker will collaborate with an experimental video artist to explore a variety of filmic modes and communication strategies, including autobiography, documentary and experimental film/video. Installation and performance with a moving image component may also be explored. A focus on experimentation will emphasize film and/or video as material, drawing attention to the specific artistic properties of each medium. An exploration of autobiography and documentary theory and practice will demonstrate the necessity of understanding the politics of representation. Students should expect major periods of study devoted to reading film theory and learning to analyze visual material. This growing body of knowledge will be applied to student work, both individual and collaborative. Students will be instructed in pre-production design, cinematography, video production, sound recording for film and video and post-production techniques. Although the development of competent technical skills will be emphasized, the overall focus of the program will be on experimentation and the development of a critical and political viewpoint with regard to one's own imagemaking. Students will spend fall and winter quarters acquiring specific critical and technical skills, exploring the design process as it applies to the moving image, executing experiments in visual imagemaking and screening and evaluating films and video tapes. Seminars will focus on both visual and written texts that explore the history and theory of documentary, experimental and animated forms of imagemaking. Students are expected to have competent research skills and will be writing research papers as well as critical essays analyzing visual material. Students should expect to work collaboratively as well as individually and to design projects consistent with the stated themes of the program. During spring quarter, students will work on a complete film or videotape, or may pursue an internship in media production. Considerable attention will be given to the process - as well as the product - of media production, with frequent screenings of work in progress and emphasis on group discussion and critique. Application Procedure: Junior or senior standing required. Students may pick up an application (available in April 1998) from the Communication Building program secretary or from Academic Planning and Experiential Learning. Application deadline: 5 p.m. on the day following the Academic Fair May 15, 1998. Because this has been a popular program, we ask that you respect faculty commitments to current academic programs; faculty will not be available for interviews prior to the Academic Fair. The final list of students accepted into Mediaworks will be posted on Laurie Meeker's office door on Monday, May 18. Signature Code numbers or PINs will be assigned on the basis of that list and available in the program office. Transfer students will be expected to complete at least one quarter of coordinated studies (at Ever-green or elsewhere) before applying to this program. Credit awarded in film/video production, film theory, audio production, documentary history and theory, experimental film/video history and theory, feminist film theory and independent projects in film and video.Total: 16 credits each quarter.Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in media, visual arts and communications.Multimedia: History, Aesthetics, Techniques
This program is designed to introduce students to the history, aesthetics and practice of multimedia arts. The program will be a survey of the genre with instruction in various media skills. Lectures will focus on recent trends and historic developments. Class meetings will be divided into lectures and seminars on the various program materials and a workshops on techniques. Readings on related materials will be assigned, as will multimedia design projects. Members of the program will be create original works each quarter and publicly present them at the end of winter quarter. Students will be required to take a related module (Audio Recording, Photography, Animation, Electronic Music, etc.) to complete their 16-credit course of study. Regional media events will be attended by program members during both quarters. Critical response to the works we study and create will be an integral part of the program. Work with computers will be done by all students but you do not need previous computer experience to take the class. Credit awarded in electronic music, media history, computer-based multimedia technology and multimedia production techniques.Total: 12 credits each quarter. Students may enroll in a four-credit course each quarter.Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in media and arts.People of the Triangle
This intermediate-level coordinated studies program will look at the artistic expression of communities targeted for extermination and made to wear triangular badges by the Nazis. We will study the performing arts of the Rom (Gypsies), European Jews, gay, lesbian and transgendered people, political activists and others. We will also study the cultural, ethnic and sociopolitical millieu in which these communities existed before World War II. As part of the work for the quarter, students will create innovative responses to program materials that will be presented in a performative mode at the end of the program. Participants will also be responsible for weekly research presentations. Credit awarded in theater history, music history and cultural studies.Total: 16 credits.Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in music, theater and cultural studies.Rites of Spring: Dance Critique and Performance
All dancers interested in exploring 20th century dance styles and developing pieces to perform, come join us to do our Rites of Spring. This group contract will focus on dance performance, with extensive analysis of works of past performances viewed on video and developing choreography with performances at the end of the quarter. Students will meet twice weekly to seminar, critique and analyze "The Rites of Spring" and other works of The Ballet Russe Diaghelev Company and works by George Balanchine, Martha Graham and other 20th century choreographers. Dancers and choreographers will work in groups to create dances that will be jointly critiqued in a weekly meeting. Everyone in the group will also be responsible for various areas of the production, such as costumes, publicity and promotion, stage work and other related areas, so experience in dance technique will be augmented with skills in technical theater. The performance will focus on choreography and dance, so students will use limited technical resources. Students can expect to gain knowledge and skills will be developed in dance history, criticism, choreography, performance and technical theater. Credit awarded in dance critique, dance performance and dance history.Total: 12 or 16 credits. Students may enroll for a four-credit course.Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in performing arts and dance.Take a Look!: A Study in Perception
Take A Look! is a one-quarter group contract for intermediate and advanced students interested in perception in general and visual perception in particular. We proceed from the premise that most people are taught at an early age to curb their perceptual abilities; that is, they learn to look without learning to see. Our goal is to restructure that concept. Students in the program will undertake exercises in systematic observation that will teach them to become more fully cognizant of their environment. They will document these exercises in their field journal, paying particular attention to how their perception of, and relationship to, their environment changes as they move through the process. To achieve these goals we will undertake a number of activities. Through a series of readings, workshops, lectures, films and field trips, students will be exposed to topics ranging from figure drawing and sociolinguistics, birdwatching and geology. Students will be required to keep a journal chronicling activities and observations about the program and about personal progress with perceptual skills. Over the course of the program, students will work in teams and conduct field observations that they will document in their journals. At the end of the quarter, teams of students will give a presentation, to the entire program based on their field work Credit awarded in drawing, journal writing, field research and studies in visual perception.Total: 16 credits.Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in journalism and humanities.This program is also listed under Culture, Text and Language.The Empty Stage: A Theater Intensive
This theater intensive program will prepare participants to undertake more-advanced, interdisciplinary and experimental studies of theater. Students will explore practical and theoretical aspects of contemporary professional theater in this country, focusing on the Euro-American theatrical tradition. Theater will be studied as a laboratory of the human experience, a mirror of society and an art that reflects social and political contexts. The program will address the poetics of the stage and the politics of representation. Expect to spend a minimum of 40 hours per week in class, in rehearsal or backstage. Studies will cover dramatic literature whose origins ranging from Ancient Greece to con-temporary America and Europe. We will read and research plays written by playwrights of different national, cultural and ethnic origins; focusing on American and European theater. We will include dramaturgical research and readings on the history and theory of theater to place the plays in cultural and political context. When possible, we establish connections between the theater, different currents of thought and art movements. Spring quarter, we will explore 20th century dramatic theory and the politics of representation. Students will develop collaborative skills, a theatrical vocabulary, critical skills and writing skills. Participants will attend skill-building workshops that include acting, dramaturgy, movement, stage-combat, design (scenic, costume and lighting), scenic crafts, writing, collaboration and technical theater. Guest artist workshops will provide different outlooks on particular topics. Video or film documenting theater work will be shown and discussed. To familiarize participants with all aspects of the theatrical collaboration, all will be required to gain experience on stage, backstage and in scenic and costume shops. On-stage work will include an informal reading in the fall, a staged reading in winter and a faculty-directed public production at the end of the program. We will travel to produc-tions at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and in Seattle and Portland. Students wishing to pursue intermediate, experimental and contract work in theater, are strongly encouraged to take this program. Credit awarded in theater, theater history, theater theory, acting and design for the stage.Total: 16 credits each quarter.Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in theater, performing arts, liberal arts.Weird and Wondrous
Some things are weird. Some fill us with wonder. In our world, it sometimes seems that it's much rarer to be filled with wonder than to call things weird. In this program we will be both creating and thinking together about some special situations in which experiences are simultaneously weird and wonderful. The program's activities will include studying, discussing and writing about literature, art and theory from psychology, philosophy and other social sciences. We'll also spend a considerable amount of our time creating collaborative projects about the program's themes, sharing them with one another and reflecting on them. Activities will include lectures, seminars, case studies, studio work, experiential exercises and a film series. Throughout, we'll be using the issue of the weird and wondrous as a way to explore some enduring questions about convention and creativity in the arts, the interactions between language and experience, crosscultural illuminations and misunderstandings, normal and extraordinary experience, pity, disgust, the uncanny and the sublime. We'll be reading books like Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonders, Weschler; Alice in Wonderland, Carroll; Slowness, Kundera; and Black Sun, Kristeva. We'll see films like City of Lost Children, Smoke, 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould and Trobriand Cricket. We plan to work slowly and thoughtfully. We hope to increase our own capacities for wonder as well as develop, together, some categories for understanding this special kind of experience and its relations to other aspects of our lives and our historical situation. Credit awarded in art theory, cultural anthropology, literature and studio art.Total: 12 or 16 credits each quarter. Students may enroll in a four-credit course each quarter.Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in arts, humanities and social sciences.This program is also listed under Culture, Text and Language. |