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African
Arts: Through the Middle Passage to the New World
Fall, Winter/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Kabby Mitchell, Terry A. Setter
Enrollment: 50
Prerequisites: Sophomore standing or above.
Faculty Signature: no
Special Expenses: $75 for the program retreat and instructional
expenses
Internship Possibilities: No
The music, dance, and culture of West
Africa have had powerful effects in the New World. Students
in this program will study those effects by gaining
experience in African and African-derived forms of music
and dance, and by coming to understand the cultures
which produced them. After foundation-level skills have
been developed, the program will study the transfer
of African arts and culture to the New World, via the
Middle Passage. The Middle Passage refers to the Atlantic
slave trading routes that were used from the 15th to
the 19th Centuries. The artists, and other specialists
who were forced to undergo this extraordinary journey,
had skills, knowledge, and deep-level connections to
both worlds, as do their descendents. As such, they
straddle the border between homeland and destination;
intellectually, spiritually, and artistically. Our study
of their lives and skills will investigate the legacy
of slavery, the diversity of tribal identities, and
the relationship between West African cultures and New
World cultures, with an emphasis on how this relationship
constitutes the crucible of African-American history,
culture, and identity. African influences in Haiti,
Cuba, and Brazil will also factor prominently in the
work.
Weekly activities will include seminars, films, lectures,
guest presentations, music and dance workshops. Master
practitioners of African music and dance will work with
the students during the program retreat, early in the
Fall quarter. Writing components, beyond the usual assignments
will include the development of a slave or tribal narrative,
and the presentation of that narrative on stage.
Credits awarded in African studies, ethnomusicology,
music, dance, ethnography of dance, and cultural studies.
Total: 12 Credits per quarter.
The program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in the expressive arts, dance, music, cultural studies
and anthropology.
China:
The Waking Lion 
Fall, Winter/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Rose Jang, Andrew Buchman
Enrollment: 48
Prerequisites: None. This all-level program will offer
appropriate support for sophomores or above ready to
do advanced work.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: Approximately $75 for event tickets
and art supplies.
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None
The old proverb, "China is a sleeping
lion," no longer applies. An apt metaphor for our
work will be to study a waking lion. The goal of this
program is to become familiar with dominant and divergent
cultural traditions of the peoples of China with an
emphasis on the present, but also a serious appreciation
of the past two thousand-plus years of unbroken Chinese
cultural lineage. Our themes will include: the effects
of geography on Chinese societies; the continuity and
persistency of China's traditional philosophical, political
and esthetic systems; historical perspectives on relations
between China, its Asian neighbors, European countries
and the United States; and, in expansion, the Chinese
Diaspora, especially to Taiwan and the United States.
Our subject matter and area of study
will include Chinese, Chinese-American, relevant American
and European authors of histories, travelogues, biographies,
essays, poetry, drama, fiction, movies and films. Workshops,
some led by visiting artists and scholars, will introduce
students to spoken and written Chinese language, calligraphy
and brush-painting, movement, music and such everyday
tools as the abacus. All students will develop their
own approved research topics and share their findings
in several presentations, in addition to completing
weekly papers. Authors and composers studied may include:
Wang Wei, Li Po, Du Fu, Tang Xianzu, Lu Xun, Lao She,
Pearl S. Buck, Gustav Mahler, Giacomo Puccini, Su Tong,
Li Ang, C.Y. Lee, Richard Rogers, Maxine Hong Kingston,
David Henry Hwang, Gretel Ehrlich and Tan Dun.
- Credit awarded in Chinese history, philosophy,
literature and performing arts, Asian studies and
comparative cultural studies.
- Total: 16 credits each quarter.
- Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in Asian studies, cultural studies and the performing
arts.
- This program is also listed in First-Year Programs.
Christian
Roots: Medieval and Renaissance Art and Science
Fall, Winter/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Frederica Bowcutt, Lisa Sweet
Enrollment: 48
Prerequisites: None. This all-level program will offer
appropriate support for sophomores or above ready to
do advanced work.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: $200 for art supplies and $150 for
field trips.
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None
Students in this two-quarter program will
explore Medieval and Renaissance (1100-1750) European
culture through studies in art and science. We will
examine trends that emerged in religion, medicine and
visual arts with interest in how these values have changed
and/or remained the same through the centuries. In fall
we will develop a foundation in the precipitating factors,
cultural and scientific, that led to the Middle Ages.
We will study Greek botanists such as Dioscorides and
explore the impact they had on the study of plants during
the Middle Ages. Additionally, we will learn about life
during the Middle Ages through readings about individuals-from
poets to mystics to witches. In winter we will address
the emerging Humanism that accompanies the Renaissance.
The radical transformation of botany
from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance will be an important
part of this program. During the Middle Ages, botany
was a branch of medicine, heavily shaped by Christian
values and beliefs. Exploration and colonization of
the "New World" resulted in a dramatic increase
in the number of plants known to the botanist. This
inspired a different approach to plant naming. New technology,
such as the light microscope, also allowed for a deeper
understanding of the internal form and function of plants.
Christian values also determined the
look and function of art created during the Middle Ages.
The church developed a code of representation that involved
a complex iconography for Christian images; it also
was the primary patron of artists until the High Renaissance.
During the Renaissance the Humanist obsession with science
seeped into the arts as well. Science influences the
visual arts in the form of study and portrayal of human
anatomy; studies of nature through illustration; and
the development of complex systems of optics and perspective.
The sciences have a pervasive impact on what had been
a strictly spiritual content in art. In the process,
the roles of artists change from that of artisans to
intellectuals.
Finally, we will explore the lives
and works of various individuals (with special emphasis
on medieval women) who contributed to shaping the Middle
Ages-scientists and artists, scholars and mystics. We
will consider the rational studies of botanists and
the intuitive expressions of artists and those called
to a life of faith. By examining their lives and works,
students will gain a unique perspective on the culture
of the European Middle Ages.
- Credit awarded in printmaking, art history, history
of science and European ethnobotany.
- Total: 16 credits each quarter.
- Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in art, healing arts and ethnobotany.
- This program is also listed in First-Year Programs
and Environmental Studies.
Dance
and Culture in the Middle Passage: Transatlantic
Slavery
Fall, Winter, Spring/Group Contract
Faculty: Kabby Mitchell
Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Junior or senior standing; transfer students
welcome.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: No
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None
The Middle Passage refers to the Atlantic
slave trading routes from the 15th to the 19th centuries.
For the artists, musicians and other specialists who
were forced to undergo this extraordinary journey, they
and their descendants have access to the skills, knowledge
and deep-level connections to both places. As such,
they simultaneously straddle the border between homeland
and destination intellectually, spiritually and artistically.
This program will provide an orientation to sub-Saharan
Africa with special reference to French West Africa,
and the African Diaspora in North America. Students
will participate in a broad-based exploration of crucial
issues facing inhabitants of the region: West Africa
as a primary source of slaves; the legacy of slavery;
the diversity of tribal identities; and the relationship
of West African cultures to African-American cultures
in North America. We will focus on the history and expressive
arts in both West Africa and North America, studying
these features specifically in order to examine the
ways that people react, adapt and create. The exploitation
and development of raw natural resources-human and intellectual
or artistic-constitutes the crucible of African-American
history and culture.
Each week will include seminars, films,
lectures, guest presentations, intensive dance workshops
and possible local fieldwork. We plan to spend several
weeks with a master drummer/dancer from West Africa.
Writing components, beyond the usual assignments, will
include the development of a slave narrative and the
presentation of that narrative on stage.
- Credit awarded in African studies, African-American
studies, history, dance and expressive arts.
- Total: 16 credits each quarter.
- Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in expressive arts, dance, cultural studies and anthropology.
Decadence
and New Blood: The Outsiders
Fall, Winter/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Marianne Bailey, Hiro Kawasaki, Judith Gabriele
Enrollment: 50
Prerequisites: Junior or senior standing; transfer students
welcome with two quarters
of study in literature, art history and philosophy.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: No
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None
In this program, we will study literature, art history
and aesthetic theory, music, drama and philosophy. We
will examine avant garde, outsider thinkers and artists
of 19th and early 20th-century Europe and their tenuous
but fruitful dialogues with the inside, the aesthetic
and intellectual mainstream of their times.
The study of French language will be an important component
of this program. Students will participate in beginning
or intermediate classes depending on their previous
training and ability.
We will begin our study with works of Romantic writers,
artists and thinkers during the late 18th and early
19th century, examining how they laid the foundation
for the development of modern movements. We will then
focus our attention on how the arts and writings of
the "fin de siècle" reflect the slow
and anemic decline of Western culture. But the cherry
blossom's beauty is most throat-catching at the moment
it falls. Decadent artists and writers were drifters
and pariahs, or recluses in gilded towers or closed
chambers. Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Wilde, Nietzsche,
Moreau, Redon, Gauguin, Hofmannsthal and Strauss were
some of the artists who announced and prepared the rites
of spring of the dawning 20th century, the arising vanguard
of modernist movements. We will look at aesthetics of
abstraction, atonality and anti-narration; at Jugendstil
or art nouveau, expressionism, primitivism, cubism and
dada. We will consider how non-European cultural traditions
infused new vigor into 20th-century Europe.
In addition to all program activities (reading, writing,
lectures, seminars and workshops), a collaborative group
project will constitute an important part of students'
work each quarter. The faculty will guide the formation
of the groups, and will offer suggestions on topics
and approaches to the projects.
Students are expected to commit themselves to both fall
and winter quarters. They should have a background and
strong interest in literature, philosophy, art history
and French language, and considerable discipline and
self-motivation.
Credit awarded in European literature, art history and
aesthetic theory, philosophy and beginning or intermediate
French.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in the humanities and arts.
This program is also listed in Expressive Arts.
Drawing
From the Sea: The Aesthetics, Form and Function
of Marine Life
Fall/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Gerardo Chin-Leo, Lucia Harrison
Enrollment: 48
Prerequisites: None. This all-level program will offer
appropriate support for sophomores or above ready to
do advanced work.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: Approximately $100 for art supplies.
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None
The marine environment is a complex habitat
which harbors a beautiful, abundant and diverse array
of life forms. This program combines the study of the
marine environment as a habitat and source of inspiration
for the visual imagination. We will examine how to use
this information to pursue creative work in the visual
arts and sciences. Students will study the form and
function of marine organisms, develop a basic visual
vocabulary and learn to draw from observation. Students
will travel to local beaches and explore Budd Inlet
in the college's sailing vessels. They will keep field
journals, conduct field surveys, collect organisms and
learn microscopy. They will attend a weekly seminar
to discuss the various ways the marine environment is
represented in scientific articles, mythology, literature,
poetry and visual images. Students will explore their
personal interests in the marine environment as a source
for scientific exploration and making visual images.
Individually, students will complete a research project
on a marine organism and develop a small body of visual
images related to their scientific and/or aesthetic
interests.
- Credit awarded in marine biology and visual arts.
- Total: 16 credits.
- Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in science and visual arts.
- This program is also listed in First-Year Programs
and Environmental Studies.
Eco-Design
in the Real World
Fall, Winter, Spring/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Rob Knapp, Robert Leverich, Carol Minugh
Enrollment: 72
Prerequisites: None. This all-level program will offer
appropriate support for sophomores or above ready to
do advanced work. Students must be willing to tackle
open-ended problems, respond with insight to real-world
needs and obstacles and produce carefully finished work.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: Art supplies; field trips (in-state
overnight field trips fall and spring quarters, approximately
$25 payable on the first class day; out-of-state field
trip winter quarter, approximately $45 payable during
first week of class); basic scientific calculator required.
Internship Possibilities: Spring quarter, consult with
faculty.
Travel Component: Three- to six-day out-of-state field
trip winter quarter.
How can human settlement coexist with
the rest of Earth's web of life? What patterns of living,
working and moving about could be ethical, beautiful
and sustainable indefinitely-and how can we Americans
move toward those ways of life? These are the animating
questions of the emerging field of ecological design,
and the focus of this yearlong program.
Ecological design grows from many
roots-architecture, appropriate technology, indigenous
cultures, restoration ecology, community development
and activism, environmental art and others-and is at
a stage of searching for symbiotic patterns and practices
among these fields. The faculty believe the emerging
shape of eco-design includes close designer-community
collaboration, designing for recycling or rejuvenation
as much as for permanence, biology as a source of form,
attention to justice and engineering based on renewable
materials and energies. Students should be ready to
join experiments and explorations of these ideas, and
should expect it to take two or more quarters for connections
among them to become clear.
The subtitle of this program is "Fitting
into Place." We have the hypothesis that designs
can be ethical, beautiful and sustainable only if they
are closely fitted into the specifics of a physical
place-its forms, its habitats and its inhabitants. Through
lectures, studio, fieldwork, library and Internet research,
writing, drawing and calculating, we will investigate
what gives places their character, and how designing
can express, preserve and enhance it. There may be some
chances for hands-on building, but the program will
emphasize careful analysis and design, not actual construction.
The core activity is a yearlong design
studio (balanced between physical design and three-dimensional
art), backed by studies of community dynamics, ecological
engineering and history of environmental design, and
aiming at significant involvement with current local
building projects. The latter may include cabins for
a creative writing institute, assistance to a local
affordable housing group, progress toward the "zero-runoff"
goal for campus storm water, and finding proper uses
for trees cut down in the current expansion of college
facilities. These projects will involve students in
real-world processes, constraints and trade-offs-essential
experience for those who wish to make a difference.
- Credit awarded in environmental design, natural
science, visual art, community studies, social context
of design and expository writing.
- Total: 16 credits each quarter.
- Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in design professions, community development, environmental
studies, visual art, natural science and social science.
- This program is also listed in First-Year Programs,
Environmental Studies, and Scientific Inquiry.
The
Erotic Impulse (cancelled)
Fall, Winter/Group Contract
Faculty: Paul Sparks
Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Junior or senior standing, transfer students
welcome; one year of college-level work in the visual
or media arts such as Foundations of the Visual Arts,
Mediaworks or the equivalent and demonstrated upper-division
writing skills (exceptions may be made for students
willing to do remedial writing work at the Learning
Resource Center).
Faculty Signature: Yes. Paul will conduct interviews
at the Academic Fair, May 16, 2001. Students must submit
a portfolio or samples of visual work, a sample of expository
writing or complete a writing test. Transfer students
should contact Paul Sparks three to four weeks in advance
of the Academic Fair at The Evergreen State College,
Lab II, Olympia, WA 98505 or phone (360) 867-6024. Students
will be informed of acceptance by May 18, 2001.
Special Expenses: Approximately $300 for field trips
and art supplies.
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None
No subject in our society generates quite
as much argument and confusion as the conflict between
our beliefs and practices regarding sex and sexuality.
This is a program for students who want to take a serious
academic look at those contradictions while doing creative
studio work exploring sensuality and eroticism. This
program will mix studio work and critiques with workshops,
seminars and research. Readings will include literature,
philosophy and social history. Some of the themes we
may explore are: (1) the history of pornography and
the boundaries, if any, between pornography and eroticism;
(2) postmodernist feminism's celebration and suppression
of erotic expression; (3) sexual politics and the rise
of the therapeutic bureaucracy. The ideal student for
this program has a functional sense of humor, a thick
skin and a willingness to tolerate ambiguity. Our principal
modes of inquiry will be through creative work, public
debate and discussion.
- Credit awarded will depend upon student projects.
This is a studio arts program with upper-division
expectations.
- Total: 16 credits each quarter.
- Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in visual and media arts.
Foundations
of Visual Art
Fall, Winter, Spring/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Jean Mandeberg, Susan Aurand(F), Lucia Harrison,
Susan Platt(S)
Enrollment: 40
Prerequisites: Sophomore standing, transfer students
welcome; one year of a coordinated studies program or
equivalent.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: Approximately $250 per quarter for
art supplies.
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None
Foundations of Visual Art is a yearlong
group contract that offers an intensive introduction
to the making of two-dimensional and three-dimensional
art forms in conjunction with the study of aesthetics
and art history. This program is designed for students
who have a passion for art, the ability to take risks,
the stamina and patience to work hard for long hours,
openness to new ideas, and the willingness to share
their work and support others' learning. The program
functions as a community of working artists, learning
together and sharing ideas through intensive in-studio
work.
Fall quarter, students will be assigned
to either the 2-D component or the 3-D component for
the quarter. In winter quarter, the groups will switch,
so that by the end of winter, each student will have
had an intensive introduction to drawing, 2-D design
and 3-D design. In spring quarter, all students will
study painting and mixed media. During all three quarters,
students will write analytic papers and take exams about
art history ideas and issues in contemporary art. Students
will be expected to be in class and work in the studio
at least 40 hours per week.
The 2-D component (fall or winter)
will focus on drawing, using conventional and contemporary
techniques. Students will develop a visual vocabulary,
seeing skills and understanding of 2-D composition.
Students will complete weekly studio projects, study
life drawing and develop an individual body of work
on a theme of their choice.
The 3-D component (fall or winter)
will be an introduction to 3-D art and design, emphasizing
experimentation and direct work with materials to understand
some of the major issues involved in making sculpture.
Spring quarter, all students will
gain an introduction to painting and mixed media work,
do more intensive study of color theory and again create
a body of work on a personal theme.
- Credit awarded in drawing, sculpture, 2-D design,
3-D design, painting, printmaking and art history.
- Total: 16 credits each quarter.
- Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in art, education and the humanities.
International
Feminism
Fall, Winter, Spring/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Angela Gilliam, Ju-Pong Lin, Therese Saliba
Enrollment: 75
Prerequisites: Sophomore standing or above, transfer
students welcome.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: Approximately $100 each quarter for
field trips.
Internship Possibilities: Possibly during spring quarter.
Travel Component: None
This program offers a broad overview of
the contentious and problematic constructions of womanhood
and women's lived experiences all over the world. The
program also interrogates many approaches to feminism,
the contemporary methods for studying women's lives.
While much of bourgeois feminism has focused on sexual
liberation, women's struggles internationally are rooted
in the claim for economic, political and social, as
well as sexual equality.
Thus this program will examine the
experiences of women, both in the United States and
abroad, through art, film, literature and cultural and
political analysis. The structural inequality between
men and women and the ways in which this inequality
has been eroticized across historical and geographical
contexts unites many women around the world. We will
explore how women's bodies function as signs and sites
of struggle, and how women artists, filmmakers, writers
and activists produce resistant works that deconstruct
the historical coding of women's bodies.
Beginning with colonialist representations,
we will examine the uncomfortable intersection of ethnography,
pornography and Victorian medicine, and its effect on
women's lives and consciousness of self. These representations
of primarily African, Arab and Asian women laid the
foundations for the eroticization of inequality and
the medicalization of motherhood. Focusing on the politics
of mothering, we will explore the history of birthing
practices and neo-colonialist interventions in the mothering
process. We will also look at how the construction of
race and gender are interrelated; for example, how concepts
of "beautiful," "ugly," "exotic"
and "erotic" are used in relation to Black
women's hair, Asian women's eyes, or veiled Arab women.
We will examine how performance artists and filmmakers
use their bodies as signifiers to deconstruct the power
of language as a tool of oppression.
Recent developments in the global
economy are reshaping the political and social terrain
of global feminism. Through case studies on the global
sex trade, women prisoners and female sweatshop workers,
we will examine the intersections of gender, class and
national and racial inequalities. In addition, we will
interrogate the tensions between women's search for
liberation as women and their often conflicted role
within cultural nationalist movements. From colonialism
to globalization, we will explore how migration and
transnational movements have shaped the identities of
women in the Diaspora, and how they represent their
identities in performance art, installation, film and
writing.
In workshops, students will develop
skills in video production, art installation, oral history
and creative nonfiction. During spring quarter, students
will work on individual or collaborative projects on
women's issues using these skills and/or intern with
a women's organization.
- Credit awarded in gender studies, international
studies, multicultural literature, media studies,
history and cultural anthropology.
- Total: 16 credits each quarter.
- Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in women's advocacy, media, education, international
relations, art and writing.
- This program is also listed in Culture, Text and
Language and Social Science.
Filming
Fictions
Spring/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Bill Ransom, Caryn Cline
Enrollment: 48
Prerequisites: None. This all-level program will accept
up to 25 percent or 12 first-year students.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: Up to $300/student may be required
for materials, equipment and theater admissions.
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None
This one quarter coordinated studies program examines
the choices writers and filmmakers face when telling
stories. We will study the work of a number of writers
and the filmmakers who've brought adaptations of their
work to the screen. Engaging in a close critical reading
of literary texts, and building our skills as print-text
readers, we will also learn to look at their film adaptations
and to read the filmic uses of space and time, images
and sounds.
What are the requirements of fiction? Of film? How do
the elements of plot, character, setting, mood, point
of view, narrative voice, tone and foreshadowing work
in fiction? In film? When to translate from the text
literally and when to diverge? What makes for a successful
adaptation? How does the screenwriter translate words
into images and sounds? What is gained and lost in the
translation?
This program emphasizes small group work in workshop
and seminar, supplemented with lectures by visitors
and faculty. Along with four program peers, students
will write weekly seminar papers, keep extensive lecture
and journal notes, participate in on-line and in-person
workshops. Each participant will write a short story
from scratch and will adapt this story to screenplay.
Faculty will present the basics of story writing and
adaptation, shooting and editing video, and students
will create a short video from their completed screenplay
(or a scene from that screenplay). The emphasis for
the production component of the program will be on process
rather than product. No video experience is necessary,
but students with intermediate and/or advanced production
experience may enroll in the program. For students with
media production skills, alternative assignments must
be arranged with the faculty. Guest speakers and an
extensive reading/viewing list will infuse this program
with effective methods for approaching the fiction-to-film
process.
Total: 16 credits.
Local
Knowledge: Communities, Media Activism and the
Environment
Fall, Winter, Spring/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Anne Fischel, Lin Nelson
Enrollment: 50
Prerequisites: Sophomore standing and above; successful
completion of coordinated studies or Core program. Transfer
students can contact Lin Nelson (360) 867-6056.
Faculty Signature: No. Students are encouraged to attend
an information session with the faculty at the Academic
Fair, May 16, 2001.
Special Expenses: $100 or more for research, local travel
and media production.
Internship Possibilities: Yes, during spring quarter.
Travel Component: None
Local Knowledge is a yearlong program
of community-based work using tools drawn from video
and multi-media production, oral history, participatory
research and other forms of activist learning. We will
explore the meaning and dynamics of community life and
develop strategies for collaborating with local communities
as they respond to environmental, economic, political
and cultural change and crisis. We will also investigate
linkages between local, regional, national and international
movements that offer opportunities and new directions
for sustainable community development.
Art and research are forms of action
that can help communities face new challenges. We will
learn how to identify, support, and critically analyze
locally held knowledge and resources and collaborate
with community groups that are responding to regional
and global change. We will explore how economic change,
internal conflicts, and divergent experiences (class,
gender, race, immigration and oldtimer/newcomer positions)
challenge and diversify the knowledge and perspectives
available to community members. Drawing on community
case studies, we will begin by asking: What sense of
history and future guides these communities? What self-knowledge
exists or could be cultivated? How do these communities
define themselves in time and space? What does the mainstream
media tell these communities about themselves and what
images, ideas and experiences exist to counter these
received messages? How does "expert" information
and input change how they identify and solve problems?
What regional, national, or international networks could
offer information or support to local struggles?
We will learn how communities, particularly
marginalized ones, identify, respect, critically evaluate
and energize locally-based knowledge. We will work with
communities on projects focusing on social justice,
environmental protection and public art and communication.
We will explore how communities can investigate and
re-vision their own history and we will develop tools
and strategies to assist them in their work. We will
also examine community projects which are creating new
possibilities for economic, cultural and ecological
sustainability. Our approaches will be drawn from media
activism, public art, popular education, participatory
research and community-based research. Our program will
visit and collaborate with three communities in the
region (most likely Shelton, Tacoma and Centralia/Chehalis).
We will meet with residents, familiarize ourselves with
community resources, visit community archives, learn
to support ongoing projects and jointly produce multi-media
projects on issues of community concern.
During fall quarter we will focus
on developing foundations in the philosophy and practice
of community-based research and documentation. We will
also critically analyze mainstream and alternative media,
study theories of visual representation, learn to do
community-based research and develop an overview of
environmental and social justice issues. We will learn
basic skills in video production, visual design, media
literacy, archival and historical research, oral history,
political/social analysis, and use of government documents.
We will explore the broad areas of democracy and technology,
science and citizenship and media activism through historical
and current case studies and documentation.
Winter quarter will offer more in-depth
experience with a range of tools and approaches. Students
will be researching and planning collaborative multi-faceted
projects to be implemented in spring quarter that draw
on a range of skills and interests. Our goals will be
to collaboratively develop projects contributing to
community discussion and decision-making, to develop
a strong sense of local place, story and culture, and
to widen our understandings of regional and international
movements and support networks available to local communities.
- Credit awarded in media production, media theory,
community case studies, community-based research,
environmental policy and politics, history, political
economy, labor studies and other subject areas specific
to spring quarter project work.
- Total: 16 credits each quarter.
- Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in community development, public policy, media, community
organizations, non-governmental organizations and
environmental and social justice groups.
- This program is also listed in Environmental Studies.
Marking
Time: Rituals, Gestures and Languages of Movement
Fall, Winter, Spring/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Ruth Hayes, Doranne Crable, Lance Laird
Enrollment: 60
Prerequisites: Sophomore standing, transfer students
welcome; Core program and college-level reading and
writing.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: Approximately $150 for art materials.
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None
People hang a calendar on the wall and
place a sundial in the garden. A band marches in place
while the dancer leaps, spins, taps or slides across
the stage. Individual frames of film speed before our
eyes to create the illusion of continuous movement,
while commencement ceremonies and rites of passage cast
the spotlight on a single moment of transition. A yogi
counts breaths, while a college student counts credit
hours. All are marking time.
In this program we will explore the
variety of ways human beings mark time as we construct
our lives, tell our stories and move our bodies through
space. We will examine the boundaries and intersections
between religious ritual, dance and animation: from
a Catholic Office of the Hours to the Muslim's five
daily prayers, from drawn gestures to the key frames
of animation and from the core to the distal breath
in Laban movement.
We are called upon to play many roles
in our lives. Sometimes we think we choose the roles,
and sometimes they seem to choose us. We may feel guided
and comfortable in this process, or we may feel that
we are lost. As we write the score of our lives, we
define our identities among the infinite number of roles
available, frequently reshaping one identity into another.
The archetypes of metamorphosis and liminality (threshold
crossing) will be central to our work in this program.
Humans set boundaries in almost every
area of their lives in order to manage time and shape
space to a human scale. At many times of life and across
cultures, we mark the boundaries with rituals, celebrations
and narratives. They help us find security, nurturing
and sustenance for creative life. At the same time,
boundaries, canons, rules and traditions can bind or
limit our freedom. One of the questions we will consider
is what drives some individuals or groups to leave a
spiritual, artistic or political tradition, when it
is the very space that has nurtured and sustained them?
What is the benefit of going into the unknown, a "space"
without boundaries, community or tradition? The individuals
and groups we will study are those who have done this
and returned to their tradition, renewing it and reinitiating
a cycle.
Our explorations will lead us along
various disciplinary pathways. They include spiritual,
religious and mystical traditions, the arts and anthropology,
politics and poetry. We will have workshops in animation,
movement, spoken word and meditation, and take field
trips to places of worship and to performances. We will
seek answers to our questions through numerous texts
and works of creative art. Kafka's Metamorphosis, Eliade's
The Myth of the Eternal Return, Lawlor's Sacred Geometry,
Purce's The Mystic Spiral and Chatwin's Songlines, the
mystical writings of Meister Eckhart, Hildegard of Bingen
and Black Elk, the films of Buñuel, Svankmajer,
Deren and the Fleischer Brothers, and poetry by Mary
Oliver, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Rumi and Rainer Maria
Rilke, are examples of works with which we may engage.
- Credit awarded in drawing, animation composition
and techniques, animation studies, comparative religion,
ritual studies, comparative mysticism, religion and
art, fundamentals of movement, poetry and prose: analysis
and interpretation, cultural mythology and rituals
of performance.
- Total: 16 credits each quarter.
- Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in the arts (animation, dance and theater), education,
world literature, humanities, religion and religious
studies.
- This program is also listed in Culture, Text and
Language.
Mediaworks:
Experiments with Light and Sound
Fall, Winter, Spring/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Laurie Meeker, Sally Cloninger
Enrollment: 45
Prerequisites: Junior or senior standing; Core program
or coordinated studies program. Transfer students must
complete at least one quarter of a coordinated studies
program before being considered for this program.
Faculty Signature: Yes. Written application is required.
Applications will be available from Academic Advising
by May 1, 2001, and will be due May 17, 2001. Send applications
to Laurie Meeker, The Evergreen State College, COM 301,
Olympia, WA 98505.
Special Expenses: $200-$300 per quarter. Students are
responsible for their own film stock, processing and
other production supplies.
Internship Possibilities: Spring quarter only.
Travel Component: None
Mediaworks is the entry-level moving image
program offered by faculty in the Expressive Arts Planning
Unit. The program emphasizes the linkage of media theory
and practice and requires students to develop research
and writing skills along with production skills. It
is designed to provide students with the opportunity
to study film/video history and theory, the critical
analysis of nonfiction film and video art forms and
film, video and audio production. The program encourages
students to develop a critical perspective on media
consumption and imagemaking, one that examines the politics
of representation, especially with regard to race, class
and gender.
We will focus our theoretical work
on nonfiction forms, examining the documentary impulse,
its historical origins, development and the strategies
filmmakers have used to represent "reality."
We will also examine the history of the avant-garde
and experimental film/video practices and the aesthetic
and ideological approaches that have influenced experimental
imagemakers. We will pay specific attention to media
artists who deliberately mix styles, incorporate diverse
aesthetic impulses in their work, move across disciplines,
critique the dominant corporate media, explore autobiographical
themes and attempt to broaden both film language and
the perceptual sensibilities of their audience. Texts
may include: Technologies of Seeing, Brian Winston;
Direct Theory: Experimental Film/Video as Major Genre,
Edward Small; Film Theory: An Introduction, Lapsley
and Westlake; Feminism and Film Theory, edited by Constance
Penley; Representing Reality, Bill Nichols; States of
Emergency: Documentaries, Wars, Democracies, Patricia
Zimmermann; Resolutions: Contemporary Video Practices,
edited by Michael Renov and Erika Sunderburg; Struggles
for Representation: African American Documentary Film
and Video, edited by Phyllis Klotman and Janet Cutler.
Students will spend fall and winter
quarters acquiring critical and technical skills, exploring
the design process as it applies to the moving image,
executing experiments in visual imagemaking, screening
and evaluating films and video tapes, and writing. Students
should expect major periods of study devoted to reading
film theory and learning to analyze visual material.
Seminars, research and writing assignments will help
students develop critical thinking skills with regard
to both written and visual texts. Putting theory into
practice, students will be introduced to a variety of
production skills, including basic 16mm cinematography,
pre-production planning and design, video production,
post-production techniques, sound recording and editing,
and digital filmmaking. Students should expect to work
both individually and collaboratively and to design
projects consistent with the stated themes of the program.
During spring quarter, students will develop a proposal
for a short documentary, nonfiction or experimental
media project, 10-15 minutes in length, and will be
expected to develop a production schedule, work through
the collaborative critique process and meet deadlines.
Students may also develop internships. Participation
in spring quarter is provisional and depends on meeting
the program requirements during fall and winter.
- Credit awarded in film theory and analysis (documentary,
experimental, feminist film theory), film, video and
sound production, visual research and independent
media projects.
- Total: 16 credits each quarter.
- Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in media art, visual art and communications.
Experiments
in Performance, Music and Puppet Theater: Music-not
yet-Theatre
Fall, Winter, Spring/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Arun Chandra, Ariel Goldberger
Enrollment: 50
Prerequisites: None; This program is now an All Level
program, accepting 25% or 12 First year students
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: No
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None
This is a revised description for the program Music-(not
yet)-Theater. Students interested in registering for
this program must register under the old title MUSIC,
CRN 10013 for 12 credits and CRN 10014 for 16 credits.
This experimental program will focus on studying the
ways in which Music, Objects and Puppet Theatre interact
in performance. Students will be expected and encouraged
to work collaboratively exploring these two media in
ways that are experimental and exploratory.
What are the ways in which music and puppet theatre
relate? How can we experiment with both to create performances
and events that transcend what we already know? How
can we redefine our understanding of these two arts
and learn more about their boundaries, limits and possibilities?
Can there be theater without language? Can there be
language without music? How can we use these arts to
express our vision of this world and its possibilities?
Can we create a community of artists? How can we develop
new ways of working as artists?
Participants will be working in groups, composing, writing,
performing, discussing, arguing, learning, challenging
what theater and music ought to be and ought to become.
You will be expected to compose, to write, to speak,
to perform, to create, to argue, to be present and be
alive with eyes and hearts of fire. Depending on how
the program goes, we may develop an evening or a day
of presentations, showing what puppet theater and music
shall become.
Each week will consist of a combination of workshops
in movement and puppetry, lectures on music and composition,
faculty attended group work sessions and weekly performances
and critiques. There will be two performance projects
per quarter.
This program requires self-directed work and collaborative
engagement from the participants. Your ideas and vision
will help define the scope and direction of your work.
College level work will be expected.
Credit awarded in theater, acting, performance, music,
music composition* depending on individual work. Upper
level credit will be awarded to deserving students.
Total: 12 or 16 credits each quarter. Students may elect
to enroll in the four-credit course Music in Context.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in theater, music and the performing arts and careers
with performative components.
The
Order of Things
Fall, Winter/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Bill Ransom, Joe Feddersen
Enrollment: 50
Prerequisites: Junior or senior standing, transfer students
welcome.
Faculty Signature: Yes. Admission to the program is
contingent upon review of student art portfolio and
writing samples, to be presented to the faculty before
the Academic Fair, May 16, 2001. Send art portfolio
and writing samples to Bill Ransom, The Evergreen State
College, Lab I, Olympia, WA 98505.
Special Expenses: Students can expect to pay up to $300
in art supplies per quarter, and up to $100 for field
trips.
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None
This is a two-quarter program of advanced
studies in the visual arts and in the written word.
We will draw expression from the contextualization of
objects, extracting from them and from their contexts
hidden or implied meanings. We will explore the texture,
form, shape and mood of found objects to create meaning.
An assortment of readings will deal with how others
have gleaned meaning from the found object. We will
spend time on the works of Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Beuys,
Joseph Cornell, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, Jimmie
Durham and Robert Rauschenberg. Readings, like Foucault's
The Order of Things, will deal with the cultural display
of objects and how text is used to convey ideas. Students
will be expected to bring with them an advanced level
of achievement in either the written word or visual
arts. We will offer workshops in the fall to fill in
some gaps-meaning that some of the workshops will address
the whole group, but we will make a special effort to
give the visual artists more skills in writing and the
writers a better understanding of visual arts. Students
will be required to participate fully in both writing
and visual arts assignments. In winter quarter, students
will have the opportunity to focus on a major project
culminating in a final exhibition and/or publication.
Readings will include selections from
contemporary authors who utilize found or everyday materials
to make poetry and fiction; these include, but are not
limited to, Tim O'Brien, Pattiann Rogers, Ken Brewer,
Rebecca Wells, Bill Ransom and Carolyn Forché.
A visiting-artist-and-writer series will be an integral
part of this program.
- Credit awarded in open- and closed-form poetry,
research writing, expository writing, fiction, art
history, philosophy, semiotics and studio arts.
- Total: 16 credits each quarter.
- Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in the arts and humanities.
- This program is also listed in Culture, Text and
Language.
OFFERINGS
BEGINNING SPRING QUARTER
Footnotes:
Topics in Cultural History, Literature and Dance
Spring/Group Contract
Faculty: Kabby Mitchell
Enrollment: 20
Prerequisites: Sophomore standing, dance audition and
faculty conference.
Faculty Signature: Yes. Contact Kabby Mitchell, (360)
867-6336 or email mitchelk@evergreen.edu to set up an
appointment for an audition and conference.
Special Expenses: Approximately $50 for field trips
and performance expenses.
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None
Dance is a way of entering into an investigation of
cultural understanding. In this program students will
be exposed to dance history, the world of contemporary
dancers and to film and videos related to cultural expression.
Students will also conduct research on topics related
to classical and original stories and literature. From
these stories, students will collaboratively create
small-group dance performances using their research
as context for the production.
Students will be expected to attend daily dance technique
classes four-times per week and scheduled rehearsals.
Dance performances for the quarter include one small-group
and one full-class performance. Students must participate
in both performances in order to receive full credit.
Credit awarded in dance, topics in cultural history
and literature, and dance performance.
Total: 16 credits.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in dance, performance and liberal arts.
Ensemble
Theater
Spring/Group Contract
Faculty: Mari Nelson
Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Sophomore standing and above. One year
of college-level work in theater.
Faculty Signature: Yes, after successful completion
of an audition. Auditions will be held on Tuesday, February
26, and Thursday, February 28, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. Contact
faculty for location (360) 427-6404.
Special Expenses: Approximately $150 for makeup, mask-making
materials, theater tickets, etc.
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None
This group contract will focus on ensemble acting work
in theater. It is appropriate for intermediate and advanced
theater students who want to hone their acting and directing
skills through scene work, character development, Alexander
technique, diction and voice work. Students will have
the opportunity to develop performance projects with
the possibility of combining them into a production
at the end of the quarter.
Students interested in this program will be required
to register separately in one or more, two credit technical
support courses through Evening and Weekend Studies:
Costuming for the Stage CRN 30563, Lighting for the
Stage CRN 30562, and/or Scenic Painting and Stage Craft
CRN 30564.
Total: 12 credits.
Main
Stage Production (cancelled)
Spring/Group Contract
Faculty: Stepan Simek
Enrollment: 24
Prerequisites: Performing Arts in Cultural Context,
Revolution! The Arts and Social Change or equivalent.
This all-level program will offer appropriate support
for sophomores or above ready to do advanced work.
Faculty Signature: Yes. Admission by audition and/or
interview. Auditions will be conducted at the end of
winter quarter (watch for audition notices). After auditions
and/or interview students may pick up an application
form from the Communications Building Program Secretary,
The Evergreen State College, COM 301, Olympia, WA 98505,
(360) 867-6605.
Special Expenses: No
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None
The program will consist solely of participating
in a faculty-directed main-stage production of a play
chosen by the instructor. The audition, rehearsal and
production work will follow a professional theater practice
that the students can expect in any Off-Broadway or
regional theater.
The play will be chosen from the realistic/naturalistic
theater canon, such as a work by Anton Chekhov, August
Strindberg, Henryk Ibsen, Eugene O'Neill or others who
are firmly rooted in the realistic/naturalistic tradition.
This will allow us to work with acting and directing
techniques that are developed specifically for that
kind of theater. These techniques include the Stanislavski
Method of Physical Action, the Maisner technique and
the American Method Acting. Students will experience
a thorough training in these techniques and will learn
to apply them in the performance of the play.
Participation in the production involves
acting in the play, dramaturgical work, assistant directing,
set, costume lighting and sound design, stage management,
publicity work, set and costume construction and all
the other areas related to a successful play production.
For example, after a successful audition a student will
be cast in the play, she will spend maybe half to three
quarters of her time in rehearsal, and the rest of the
time she might work in the shop building the set. A
student might present a portfolio of his lighting design,
and he will become the lighting designer for the production
as well as the publicity coordinator. In short, every
student will participate in more than one area of the
production process. While the production will be directed
by the faculty, the process will be an interactive collaboration
among all participants.
The program will spend the first eight
to nine weeks in rehearsal, and it will culminate in
a weeklong run of a fully mounted production in the
Experimental Theatre.
In addition to rehearsals and production
work, the program will meet once a week for an all-program
seminar on dramaturgical matters closely related to
the production. For example, if the production is a
play by Anton Chekhov, the seminars will deal with other
plays by the same author, Chekhov scholarship, the social,
political, economic and cultural environment of the
play, and so on. Those weekly seminars will help us
to understand the world of the play, as well as the
world of the author.
- Credit awarded in acting, directing, design, stage
management, company management, dramaturgy, according
to which function the individual student specializes
in, and in theater history, theory, literature for
the seminar preparation and participation.
- Total: 16 credits.
- Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in the arts and humanities.
- This program is also listed in First-Year Programs.
Portraits
Spring/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Marilyn Frasca, Sandie Nisbet
Enrollment: 48
Prerequisites: Freshmen must bring evaluation from Core
program to the first day of class. This all-level program
will offer appropriate support for sophomores or above
ready to do advanced work.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: Students must provide their own art
supplies; cost varies on projects, approximately $50
for drawing workshops and $10 for one theater/gallery
event.
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None
Students will be asked to choose a subject
for a portrait they will finish by the quarter's end.
We will study the nature of portraits in the visual
arts, in literature, performance and media. While some
people agree that portraits can only be made of human
beings, others believe that you may call an image of
a house or a car a portrait if it makes present the
soul of the thing. Can things have souls? What does
soul or essence have to do with portraits? Opportunities
to work in writing, two-dimensional image making and
performance will be provided during the first half of
the quarter. Students will be encouraged to research
a variety of subjects for their own work with portraits
and asked to make a choice of a subject and a discipline
for their final project.
Activities will include: journal workshops,
drawing sessions, slide talks, performance workshops,
seminars, film screenings, critiques of works in progress,
weekly assignments, rehearsals/practice, small-group
discussions and quarter-end presentations. The performance
workshop will include sessions in basic acting, readers'
theater technique, scripting, dialogue writing, one-act
play analysis, etc.
Texts and topics for our review will
be drawn from the following works and/or authors and
artists: Schneider's The Art of The Portrait, Wallace
Stevens' The Necessary Angel, Toni Morrison's Sula,
Miguel De Unamuno's Abel Sanchez; poetry by Emily Dickinson,
Adrienne Rich, Allen Ginsberg, Gertrude Stein, Ntozake
Shange; paintings by Giotto, Bellini, Rembrandt, Caravaggio,
Ingres, Kokoschka, Khalo, O'Keefe, Picasso, Dubuffet,
Laurencin, Balthus, Schiele, Neal, Lichtenstein, Hockney,
Marisol, Bacon; plays by Samuel Beckett, Tony Kushner,
Tina Howe and Edward Albee.
- Credit awarded in art history, drawing, creative
writing and performing arts.
- Total: 16 credits.
- Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in the humanities, art and theater.
- This program is also listed in First-Year Programs.
Scale
and Detail: Designing with the Environment
Spring Group Contract
Faculty: Robert Leverich, James Stroh
Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Eco-Design in the Real World
Faculty Signature: Yes. Students must submit a preliminary
study proposal to the faculty prior to, or at the Academic
Fair, March 6, 2002. Email: Robert Leverich leverich@evergreen.edu
or James Stroh strohj@evergreen.edu
for more information.
Special Expenses: Based on individual study proposals.
Internship Possibilities: Yes.
Travel Component: At lease one field trip.
Design is a way of thinking about and solving problems
with complex and often conflicting variables. These
problems can be small scaled, or very large scaled---a
dish drainer to conserve and recycle rinse water, for
example, or a regional master plan for water conservation
covering hundreds of square miles. They can involve
global concepts and minute details. How can designers
working in different disciplines and at different scales
work in ways that are responsive to environmental concerns?
What skills can they learn from one another? How can
they make their work ethical, beautiful and part of
a sustainable way of life?
This program will serve students continuing their studies
from Eco-Design in the Real World, as well as students
ready to undertake projects with a direct connection
to design and the environment, ecology and sustainability.
Students initiate individual or small group study plans
that address design and the environment at one of several
scales: furniture and sculpture, building design and
construction, or site and regional studies. They will
have regular weekly meetings with faculty. Whole group
activities will include a weekly workshop/seminar addressing
topics centered on the questions listed above, at least
one field trip, and an end of term project presentations.
Readings may include, among others, Design on the Land
by Ian McHarg, Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human
Place in Nature, edited by William Cronon, and Conservation
by Design by Scott Landis.
Total: 12 credits or 16 credits with RHINO (3d modeling)
workshop. The program will have options for more advanced
study in 3D computer modeling or geographic information
systems (the latter by registering for the 4 credit
Geographic Information Systems for Environmental Studies
elective through Evening and Weekend Studies).
This program is also listed in Environmental Studies
and Scientific Inquiry.
Student
Originated Studies: Performing Arts
Fall, Winter/Group Contract
Faculty: Bud Johansen
Enrollment: 12
Prerequisites: Junior or senior standing. Theatre intensive
or equivalent college-level work in music, dance or
performance.
Faculty Signature: Yes, performance experience will
be assessed at an interview with faculty at the Academic
Fair, May 16, 2001.
Special Expenses: Production costs will depend on project;
expenditures for such things as costumes, makeup and
prop materials may be required.
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None
This group contract will help students
accomplish their goals in the performing arts by providing
an all-program seminar and critique of participating
students' work.
Each student will make an agreement with the sponsor
to focus their work on some form of performance, i.e.,
musical theatre production, music ensemble, theatre
production, dance production, etc.
The faculty will direct the seminar and critique sessions
with strong input by the students; will aid and assist
in the productions as needed; will have close contact
regarding the creative process; and will critique the
projects.
Students will need the skills to work collaboratively
on projects that they develop and produce. All students
share their works in progress each week for reactions
and helpful critiques by the group.
Credit awarded in performing arts according to each
student's project. Credit will reflect the type of work
done by each student and may vary depending on his or
her role in the project.
This program is being offerred for variable credit:
4, 8, 12, 16
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in performing arts and arts management.
Seeing
the Light
Spring/Group Contract
Faculty: Bob Haft
Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Sophomore standing or above, transfer
students welcome; intermediate-level in photography.
Faculty Signature: Yes. Students must present academic
and photographic portfolio to Bob Haft, The Evergreen
State College, Lab I, Olympia, WA 98505. Call (360)
867-6474 to schedule an interview.
Special Expenses: Approximately $200-$300 for photo
materials.
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None
This is a one-quarter group contract designed
for intermediate and advanced-level photography students.
Students will work with medium- and large-format as
well as 35mm cameras. Students will study the work of
historical and contemporary photographers, view and
analyze films and read texts dealing with the history
and critical analysis of the medium. In addition to
classroom work, students will take field trips to galleries
and museums to view exhibits and/or collections of photographs
of particular interest. There will be a series of assigned
projects designed to further technical and aesthetic
skills. As a final project, students will work in teams
to produce a theme-centered document combining images
and text. All of the projects will be formally presented
and critiqued.
- Credit awarded in intermediate photography, history
of photography, aesthetics, art theory and criticism
and individual research projects.
- Total: 16 credits.
- Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in art history, photography and the humanities.
Shakespeare
in China: A Search for Holistic Theater (cancelled)
Spring/Group Contract
Faculty: Rose Jang, Hilary Binda
Enrollment: 50
Prerequisites: Sophomore standing, transfer students
welcome; one year of coordinated studies or equivalent
in either literature or performing arts.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: Admission fees for theater tickets.
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None
Shakespeare and classical Chinese theater
share many traits and elements clearly aimed to embody
something close to a total, or holistic, theater experience.
Textually, both Shakespearean and Chinese theater resort
to poetic rhythm and highly structured literary schemes.
Aesthetically, both of them explore purity and simplicity
through multiplicity and exuberance. Thematically, both
traditions depend on the constant cross between the
real and the fantastic, the joining of the physical
and the emotional worlds, and the desire to transcend
human senses to a lyrical, musical and hence mythical
state of existence.
This program will search for ways
and mechanics to bring these two together, and to create
a theater of the joint adventure-the third, the harmony-for
public presentation at the end of the quarter. A full-length
Shakespearean play, or selections from a host of them,
will be set in the context of ancient China. The classical
form of Chinese performing arts, best exemplified by
elaborate Chinese costumes, makeup and performance style-including
Chinese music, movements, martial arts, individual as
well as group fighting choreography-will underline the
stage presentation. All these flamboyant theatrical
elements will come to serve the dramatic discourse and
emotional core of the performance-the original Shakespearean
drama.
Our study in the program will embrace
a continuous line of explorations, from literary criticism
and dramatic interpretation to performance and production
work. While we are exploring all elements and stages
of the process together each student will be required
to focus on one aspect of the program, and stay with
either the literature or performance aspect of the production.
Under this design, close literary and dramaturgical
analyses, conducted by a smaller group of student dramaturgs,
will take place simultaneously with movement workshops,
technical theater workshops and rehearsals, participated
in by theater students. Each activity will inform and
complement with the others throughout the process. A
series of Chinese movement/stage combat workshops, taught
by a visiting artist, will be offered to prepare student
actors for the special performance demands of the stage.
The final production will be directed by faculty and
acted and designed by students, under the thematic and
aesthetic guidance of the faculty. Students who are
interested in Shakespearean study, dramaturgy, acting,
dance, movement study, Chinese martial arts, various
Chinese fighting techniques and technical theater (lighting,
sets, costumes, props, theater management, promotion
and publicity) are strongly encouraged to join the program.
- Credit awarded in Shakespearean study, literary
and dramatic criticism, dramaturgy, theater acting,
movement, stage combat and technical theater.
- Total: 16 credits.
- Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in theater, literature, cultural studies and performing
arts.
- This program is also listed in Culture, Text and
Language.
Performative
Shakespeare
Spring/Coordinated Study
Faculty: Rose Jang, Hilary Binda
Enrollment: 48
Prerequisites: This all-level program accepts up to
25 percent or 12 first-year students.
Faculty Signature: No
Special Expenses: Admission fees for theater tickets
Internship Possibilities: No
Travel Component: None
In the program, we will study Shakespearean dramas as
both masterpieces of literature, as well as theatrical,
performative texts. We will concentrate on a select
group of plays from the Shakespearean canon and apply
the most up-to-date, cutting-edge theories of literary
criticism to them. We will also complement literary,
theoretical explorations with practical applications
and performances, by experimenting with and acting out
different interpretations of scenes and characters from
the plays, using both literary criticism and performance
theory as interpretative and cognitive foundation. Besides
general group meetings and film-viewing sessions, there
will be smaller workshops focused on literary analysis
and performance training. Students are required to engage
in both activities in the process, but they have the
choices of responsibilities and concentration for the
final production. The program will culminate in a public
performance of Shakespearean scenes, with suggestive
costumes, makeup and scenic components, in the Recital
Hall at the end of the quarter.
Credit awarded in Shakespearean study, literary and
dramatic criticism, dramaturgy, theater acting, movement
and technical theater.
Total: 16 credits
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies
in literature and performing arts.
Vision
and Expression
Fall, Winter, Spring/Group Contract
Faculty: Paul Sparks
Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Junior or senior standing; successful
completion of Foundations of Visual Art or college-level
course work in painting.
Faculty Signature: Yes. Students must submit a portfolio
of samples of visual work and a sample of expository
writing. Contact Paul Sparks (360) 867-6024 for information.
Special expenses: $200-300 for materials and field trips
This is a demanding program designed for
intermediate- or advanced-level students who want to
be serious about painting. The principal objective will
be the development of personal language and imagery
through intensive studio work. Basic technical competency
will be a precondition of participation. The performance
expectations of this class will be greater than normal,
as will be the rewards. This program should be particularly
attractive to those students anticipating thesis work
or preparing portfolios for graduate school.
Total: 12 or 16 credits each quarter. |
