Spring 2010
THEA 10: “Hearing Voices through Invisible Walls: The Art(s) of Facilitation”
@ 3A
Co-taught by Pati Hernandez and Professor Ivy Schweitzer
Description:
This course examines how four different media––theater, dance, writing, and documentary film making––work to facilitate voice with the goal of turning the invisible walls that separate us into bridges across differences. We will study how these arts facilitate voice through reading, discussion, journaling, reflection papers, and guest speakers, including writers, theater artists, and documentary filmmakers who work with incarcerated people, recovering addicts, and refugees. Students will produce a collective performance about having a voice, and each student will create a short documentary giving voice to a person behind invisible walls in the community. LIT, Dist: CI
Directed by Deja Kemp'10 and Lou-Lou Igbokwe'10
There will be a Q & A with the playwright in the Moore immediately following the reading.
Ruined is a haunting, probing work about the resilience of the human spirit during times of war. Set in a small mining town in Democratic Republic of Congo, this powerful play follows Mama Nadi, a shrewd businesswoman in a land torn apart by civil war. But is she protecting or profiting by the women she shelters? How far will she go to survive?
Hailed by Chicago and New York critics as "dazzling," "gripping," and "the play that in every way deserves to become the 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner for drama," Ruined premiered at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and is now playing off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club.
This reading is co-sponsored by the Theater Department's VOICES program.
About the Playwright
In addition to Ruined, Nottage is also the author of Intimate Apparel, (New York Drama Critics Circle’s Best Play; Roundabout, Center Stage, South Coast Rep); Fabulation, Or The Education Of Undine (Obie Award; Playwrights Horizons, London’s Tricycle Theatre); Crumbs From The Table Of Joy; Las Meninas; Mud, River, Stone and Por’knockers and Poof! .
Nottage received the MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” Award, the PEN/Laura Pels Award, the 2005 Guggenheim Grant for playwriting, and fellowships from the Lucille Lortel Foundation, MTC, New Dramatists and the NYFA is an alumna of New Dramatists, and a graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama where she is a visiting lecturer.
Ms. Nottage’s residency is co-sponsored by The Leslie Center for the Humanities, The Dickey Center, The Rockefeller Center, the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity, the Kingsdale Fund in Drama, the English Department, the African and African American Studies Program, and the Office of Pluralism and Leadership.
THEATER 10 - VOICES: Playwrights of Color
3B Winter Term, Professor Soyica Colbert
This course will explore the perspectives of contemporary playwrights of color by focusing on their texts' social and political contexts. We will also examine how the playwrights comment on the formation of identity and subjectivity, paying particular attention to the categories of race, gender, sexuality, and class. We will consider how the playwrights utilize these demarcations to construct and explode identity, realizing how race, gender, sexuality, and class have always been fluid, enigmatic, constructed, and historically informed categories. Moreover, we will consider how the specular quality of theater comments on these categories. We will read plays by Chin, Hwang, Moraga, Parks, and Wilson.
2A Fall Term, Professor Patricia Herrera
This course examines how performance has functioned as a forum to raise consciousness and rehearse notions of community in the 20th century. Our archive will include various theoretical texts and performances that spark civic dialogue. Students will have the opportunity to work with guest artists, experience hands on interventionist techniques, and collectively develop a performance piece. This course is open to all students with or without a background in theater.
As part of “Voices: The Dartmouth Theater Visiting Artist Program,” the nationally acclaimed Poetic Ensemble Theater Company Universes and the renowned hip-hop dancer and choreographer Pop Master Fabel will be in residency at Dartmouth in the fall along with in-house poet, playwright, and performer Woon-Ping Chin. These artists will conduct public presentations, master classes, and workshops for the course “Voices: Peformactivism” (THEA 10/LATS 11/AAAS 86). Under the guidance of Professor Herrera and direction of community activist Pati Hernandez participants will develop a culminating performance engaging the Dartmouth campus community and community at large around a current social issue. This production will be held in the Bentley Theater on Wednesday, December 3, 2008 at 8pm.
Co-sponsors for the following residencies include: VOICES program, Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies Program, African and African American Studies Program, the East Wheelock Cluster, The Leslie Center for the Humanities, The Rockefeller Center, and The Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity.
To learn more about the VOICES Visiting Artists Universes and Pop Master Fabel, please visit the Baker-Berry Library Exhibition "Latinos and Latinas at Dartmouth: Community, Culture, and Scholarship" starting Friday, October 10.
Company-in Residence: Universes
Master Class: "The Voice of the Ensemble"
Tuesday, October 21 & Thursday, October 23, 2008
An exploration into the workings of ensemble, how pieces are formed individually and fused together.
Public Presentation: "Talking the Talk”
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
A look at the sights and sounds that make us, us, and you
Universes is a National/International ensemble Company of multi-disciplined writers and performers who fuse Poetry, Theater, Jazz, Hip-Hop, Politics, Down Home Blues and Spanish Boleros to create moving, challenging and entertaining theatrical works. The group breaks the bounds of traditional theater to create their own brand, inviting old and new generations of theater crafters as well as the theatergoers and new comers to reshape the face of American Theater.
The company recently (January & February 2008) returned from a four continent tour, which carried them through Africa’s Morocco and Tunisia, Europe’s England, Amsterdam, Romania and Turkey and even over to the Asian Continent via Istanbul. This tour was collaboration between Jazz at Lincoln Center and the US State Department to carry American music abroad on a Rhythm Road Tour. In addition, a Universes anthology of work and process entitled, UNIVERSES: THE BIG BANG (Plays, Poetry & Process) is scheduled for release in January of 2009 by TCG Books. Universes, is also completing their newest work, Ameriville, directed by acclaimed director, Chay Yew.
Steven Sapp and Mildred Ruiz, founding members of Universes, will be conducting workshops to the Dartmouth community. . She is the recipient of fellowships from the Theater Communication Group, National Endowment of the Arts, and Ford Foundation.
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Visiting Artist: Pop Master Fabel
Master Class: Foundational Dance Forms Associated with Hip Hop Culture
Tuesday, October 28 & Thursday, October 30, 2008
Public Presentation: “We Are One”
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Intertwining history, identity, struggle, commitment and perseverances, this presentation looks at the unity and parallels within the various forms of Hip Hop expression.
Legendary Jorge “Fabel” Pabon was born and raised in Spanish Harlem, NYC where, at an early age, he developed his dance and choreography career at Hip Hop jams and clubs throughout the city. His pioneering individuality has been showcased internationally since 1982. President of the Hierophysics crew, Senior Vice President of the Rock Steady Crew, member of Magnificent Force, and an honorary member of the Electric Boogaloos, Fabel is also co-founder of GhettOriginal Productions, Inc. With GhettOriginal, Fabel co-authored, co-directed, and co-choreographed the first two Hip Hop musicals ever, "So! What Happens Now?" and "Jam on the Groove" (first official Off-Broadway Hip Hop musical).
He has also toured internationally as a featured performer with "Jam on the Groove," which was nominated for best choreography at the Drama Desk Awards in 1996. Fabel was also featured in the cult classic Hip Hop movie "Beat Street." Along with fellow members of the Rhythm Technicians and Rock Steady Crew, he won the 1991 Bessie Award for choreography. Highlights of his career include performing in Lincoln Center's "Serious Fun!"; P.B.S.'s "Great Performances 20th Anniversary Special"; the Boston Ballet; the 1994 American-Japan Festival (sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution); both the 1983 and 1991 Kennedy Center Honors Gala events, and a Hip Hop version of Kurt Weill's "September Songs" for P.B.S. Fabel was the first American Hip Hop dancer to perform in Cuba, in 1986 & 1988, with the dance company, Ballet D'Angelo.
He is currently working on three documentaries: "Apache Line", "Fabel's History of Hip Hop Fashion Vol. 1" and "Puerto Ricans in Hip Hop." Fabel is a historian of and activist within Hip Hop culture. His other forms of expression include "graffiti" art, DJ'ing and rhyming. Fabel is a co-founder of Tools Of War, a grass roots Hip Hop company covering publicity, events coordination and promotions, activism, bookings, and consultation.
, came to speak in the Bentley Theater of the Hopkins Center for the Arts. Come and see our production ofThe 365 National Festival
Hundreds of theaters have joined a grassroots premiere of the plays in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Colorado, Greater Texas, Los Angeles, Minnesota, New York, Northeast, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Southeast, Universities (365U), Washington DC Area and Western US. And the festival is growing every day. To join go to www.365days365plays.com. Produced by Bonnie Metzgar and Suzan-Lori Parks.
On November 13, 2002, Pulitzer-prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks got an idea to write a play a day for a year. She began that very day, finishing one year later. The resulting play cycle, called 365 Days/365Plays, is a daily meditation on an artistic life. Some plays are very short, less than a page. Others last forever.
The 365 National Festival invites every theater in the world to join a grassroots premiere of this play cycle. Over 600 theaters are producing the plays in Atlanta, Austin, Canada, Chicago, Colorado, Greater Texas, Los Angeles, Minnesota, New York, Northeast, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Southeast, Universities (365U), Washington DC Area, Western US and in universities (365U). Produced by Bonnie Metzgar and Suzan-Lori Parks, the 365 Festival will be performed from November 13, 2006 through November 12, 2007.
Plays can be produced in traditional theater spaces or site-specific locations. They can be staged readings or fully produced. Participating theaters will each present seven plays, representing one week of this play cycle, before then passing the cycle on to the next theater in a cultural relay race that celebrates the community of theater artists around the world.
The Dartmouth College Department of Theater joins with the 365 Festival to celebrate the widely diverse cross-section of over 50 theater companies and universities who are participating in the Northeast component of 365. Make Theater. Make History.
NIEGEL SMITH is a freelance director and is the Artistic Leadership Associate at The Public Theater in New York City. Whether in the median of a busy highway or on the stage of a conventional theater, Niegel uses performance to navigate the boundaries between spectator and participant in communal experiences. With Todd Shalom, Niegel co-conceived and staged PROCESSION and FALLOUT, mass rituals in public settings. His New York directing credits include RAINY DAYS & MONDAYS, MAUD – THE MADNESS, ONE FOR THE ROAD, and LIMBS: A PAGEANT. He is Associate Director to Bill T. Jones on the new Concert/Musical FELA KUTI and has assisted directors Jo Bonney, George C. Wolfe, Kristin Marting and James Lapine. Niegel has received grants and fellowships from Theater Communications Group (through the NEA and Doris Duke foundation), the Van Lier Fund, The Tucker Foundation, and Dartmouth College. He has an A.B. in Theater from Dartmouth. He grew up in the North Carolina piedmont, fishing with his dad, shopping with his mom and inventing tall-tale fantasies with his two younger brothers.
Dartmouth College Office of Public Affairs * Press Release
Posted 05/02/07 * Genevieve Haas * (603) 646-3661
The Dartmouth Department of Theater is developing a new program that will produce an annual theater piece focusing on issues of particular relevance to Dartmouth's minority communities. The annual program, Voices: The Dartmouth Theater Visiting Artist Program, will bring to campus accomplished minority and other theater artists to collaborate on a production. The first event, sponsored and produced by the theater department, is tentatively scheduled for the fall term in 2007.
Peter Hackett, chair of the theater department, said that at a February 2005 August Wilson tribute, both he and Dartmouth President James Wright were struck by students' passionate desire to see more diverse voices represented in Dartmouth's theatrical productions. "The arts are in a unique position to take a leadership role in communicating via a collaborative, public art form," said Hackett. With an annual funding commitment from the administration, Hackett began to develop the program whose mission he describes as "presenting work of particular relevance to Dartmouth's minority communities; attracting and increasing the participation of members of Dartmouth's minority communities in the activities of the Theater Department; expanding and enriching the repertoire of Department offerings to regularly include significant theatrical works by artists of color; bringing to Dartmouth distinguished theater artists, including artists of color, to collaborate on these productions; and creating a highly visible artistic initiative that recognizes the diversity at the center of the Dartmouth community."
"A program like Voices is a way of putting into practice the ideals and spirit of Dartmouth," said Provost Barry Scherr, whose office is funding the program. "It provides a way for faculty and students to join with talented artists from outside the institution in creating something new and meaningful through theater."
Hackett, who is planning to convene the theater department in order to select a multidisciplinary selection committee, explained that Voices is deliberately amorphous. Beyond the basic requirement of inviting a visiting artist to contribute to a theatrical production, Hackett said he left the criteria and structure of the program flexible and open to allow for artists' schedules and to make possible different kinds of theatrical projects and collaborations that would not mesh with the more regimented performance schedule in an academic setting.
The flexibility of Voices not only allows for non-academic production schedules, but permits different kinds of artists, including playwrights, actors and directors, to make a variety of contributions to the program. Ideally, said Hackett, Dartmouth will develop a resource pool of talented artists invested in the program, and possibly find itself able to commission new works for the program.
