Examines the complex relationship between violence and performance. How is violence “performed,” both on stage and in everyday life? How have societies used performance to combat violence? To foment it? How can performance help us better understand the violence that is present in the US today? Through reading, viewing (both live and digital), and writing, introduces students to concepts, methods, and ethics of studying violence and its embodied representations in theatre, film, and other media. Addresses the ways that race, gender, ethnicity, age, class, and sexuality affect proximity to and representations of violence and considers how performance can offer resistance to or redress of violent acts.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2022.

When people think of the theater they often think of pure entertainment, like a spectacle-filled Broadway musical. But the theater has a revolutionary side. It was banned after the Puritans gained power in England. Actors were excommunicated in France. Playwrights were imprisoned in Soviet Russia. What makes this kind of theater, and the artists that make it, so threatening to power? And how can it be reconciled to its entertainment-based side? In this class students will use their bodies, their voices, and their imaginations to understand how this art form that focuses on play and pretend also has the power - and the responsibility - to tell the truth. Students will read plays critically, see and discuss live performance, and apply new skills in collaboration, making and presenting original performance work. No previous theater experience required.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2022.

Acting for the Camera introduces students to the intellectual, vocal, physical and emotional challenge of the acting process, distilled for on-camera work. Students will learn and practice exercises examining human behavior within the camera's frame and moment-to-moment storytelling. They will create on-screen acting projects, then analyze their own and peers' work while also studying celebrated professionals' work within the art of acting on camera. Students will also learn the language of the screenplay and how to analyze it for acting clues, learning, developing and deploying new techniques that help translate that analysis into embodied performance. (Same as: CINE 1151)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2020.

The core of the theater is a shared experience in community. Now more than ever we value presence together in a room. But what does it mean to be fully present? In this beginning level acting class students learn the basics of acting and how those skills translate to presence not only onstage, but in work and personal relationships. Students will learn and practice various acting techniques designed to bring ideas off a page and into performance, working with their bodies, their hearts, and their minds. Assignments include writing and performing original monologues, working creatively and collaboratively in rehearsal, and performing scenes from contemporary plays, resulting in authentic presence not only onstage, but in community.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020.

Improvisation is a fundamental tool used by dancers, musicians, actors, writers, and other artists to explore the language of a medium and to develop new work. An interdisciplinary introduction to some of the primary forms of improvisation used in dance and theater. Content includes theater games, narrative exercises, contact improvisation, and choreographic structures.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021.

For millennia, we have organized our fictions, our religions, our histories, and our own lives as narratives. However much the narrative form has been called into question in recent years, it seems we just cannot stop telling each other stories. Examines the particular nexus between narrative and performance: What is narrative? How does it work? What are its limits and its limitations? How do we communicate narrative in performance? Involves both critical inquiry and the creation of performance pieces based in text, dance, movement, and the visual image. (Same as: DANC 1203)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2021.

Introduction to the language, theory, and practice of theater and dance technology. Students explore the history of theater technology with experiential projects in Bowdoin's performance venues, including Pickard and Wish Theaters as well as visits and workshops from guest artists. Topics include lighting, scenography, costuming, and sound, among others. The course considers the possibilities, demands, and limits inherent to different forms of performance and space. Lab required. Course fulfills the Technical Production (THTR/DANC 1750) requirement for Performance Arts major. (Same as: DANC 1301)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023, Fall 2021, Fall 2020.

An introduction to theatrical design that stimulates students to consider the world of a play, dance, or performance piece from a designer’s perspective. Through projects, readings, discussion, and critiques, explores the fundamental principles of visual design as they apply to set, lighting, and costume design, as well as text analysis for the designer and the process of collaboration. Strong emphasis on perceptual, analytical, and communication skills. (Same as: DANC 1302)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020.

Students will explore different phases of the creative process that involve drama and music for the stage. We will study and compare recent productions of operas, musicals, and other theatrical and dance performances. Now that theaters, opera venues, and concert halls are closed, this course will serve as a reminder of the vibrant collaborative work between artists and the connections they establish with their audiences. We will discuss the different areas of design, such as scenography, costume, lighting, sound, and projection, and we will analyze in a cohesive way how they relate to the music score. We will engage with a variety of genres covering a wide time span, and we will analyze in-depth specific works, such as Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, and Robert Lepage’s staging for Peter Gabriel’s The Secret World Tour. (Same as: MUS 1304, DANC 1304)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2021.

In this introductory theatrical design class, a picture is worth a thousand words. Have you ever gone to a great movie or play and been totally immersed in a different time or place? Discover how artists use visual imagery from the past to tell stories in the present. Students will learn new, creative research skills in order to analyze American life and culture through its imagery, scavenging for print and media from bygone eras. For example: how did the clothes people wore, the streets they walked, the food they ate, and the social and political norms of the day all create a particular feel, or culture? Next, students will practice that new knowledge with hands-on projects, making their own pitch for the way a movie or play should be produced. Working on individual and group projects, students practice bringing the past to life while celebrating our current perspectives, understanding not only our progress, but also our blind spots. No experience in theater or drawing necessary.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024.

Through research and practice, explores the notion of the performing artist as public intellectual and engaged citizen. In the first half semester, students research international social justice performance, 1913-2013: suffrage, race and economic protest pageants; Living Newspapers, Agit-prop, and the Workers Theatre Movement; collective creation and documentary theater; performance at the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, diaspora, and transnationalism; women’s protest performance; theaters of healing and repair concerned with inter-ethnic conflict. In the second half, students research current sociopolitical and economic events, identify an issue of local, regional, and/or national significance, and collaboratively devise a performance intended to protest, educate, and inspire community action.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023.

This course focuses on the creative collaboration that creates a full-length performance project for the public and mirrors a professional theater process. It is led by a professional director either on faculty or visiting as a guest artist. It is produced by department with a generous production budget and supported by a professional stage management mentor, professional designers, and department staff. Performances are open to the Bowdoin and broader Brunswick communities. Areas of concentration may include rehearsal and performance of roles, assistance to the director, dramaturgy, stage management, or assistance to the designers. Students gain admission to THTR 1700 through audition or interview. Areas of concentration are determined by the project’s director and assigned. Rehearsals may fall outside of traditional class hours. May be repeated for credit earning for a maximum of two credits.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2021, Spring 2021.

Explores the history of drama written in English from its origins in the deep past through to the present day. Studies how plays across space and time have moved spectators to laugh, cry, and gasp. Authors include Samuel Beckett, Tony Kushner, William Shakespeare, and August Wilson. (Same as: ENGL 1106)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2020.

Statistics show people are more frightened of speaking in public than death. And yet, everyone wants to be heard. How can we speak so others will listen, and how can we do so in an authentic way? This is a skill found in the art of acting. Students will learn how breath, the voice, the body, and the emotions are connected and practice theater exercises that create new paths of access to each. They will learn ways of grounding themselves in character study, group performance, and solo work. This will not only enhance their acting skills. It will also strengthen their ability to speak authentically, claiming their seat at the table in all situations, especially those with high-stakes like job interviews, performances, presentations, or instances of revealing an important truth to a friend or family member.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023.

Extends the principles of Acting I through a full semester of rigorous physical acting work focused on presence, energy, relaxation, alignment, and emotional freedom. Develops and brings the entire body to the act of being on stage through highly structured individual exercises and ensemble-oriented improvisational work. Scene work is explored through the movement-based acting disciplines of Lecoq, Grotowski, Meyerhold, or Viewpoints. Contemporary physical theater makers Théâtre de Complicité, Mabou Mines, SITI company, and Frantic Assembly are discussed. This course, along with Theater 2201, Acting II: Voice and Text, is part of a two-semester course series. Theater 2201 and 2202 may be taken individually or in any order.

Prerequisites: THTR 1100 - 1799.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2022.

Introduces students to the major principles of play direction, including conceiving a production, script analysis, staging, casting, and rehearsing with actors. Students actively engage directing theories and techniques through collaborative class projects and complete the course by conceiving, casting, rehearsing, and presenting short plays of their choosing. A final research and rehearsal portfolio is required.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2022.

Musical theater is a popular performance form that challenges students to work in multiple disciplines, combining dance, acting, music, and design. This course will give students with experience in acting, singing, and dancing an opportunity to hone their skills together through the performance of songs and scenes from a variety of musical theater styles. Students will do projects in ballad singing, choral numbers, group dances, and acting the song. Actors, singers, choreographers, and musicians will be encouraged to work together in class and in evening rehearsals toward a public performance and a cabaret performance at the end of the semester. Performances will be grounded in historical readings and research that contextualizes the origins of the pieces being performed. (Same as: DANC 2205, MUS 2605)

Prerequisites: THTR 1100 - 1799 or DANC 1100 - 1799.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2022.

An acting class for your ears only. In this time of quarantine and stay-at-home orders, audio drama is experiencing a renewed surge of interest. Comedies, mysteries, art experiments, podcasts, radio documentaries, The Moth, Snap Judgment, This American Life, and other forms of audio production are proving to be an important part of the theater ecosystem, sustaining all of us with stories and glimpses into other worlds and other people’s lives without ever leaving our armchairs. This class will explore the history of audio drama, from the panic of War of the Worlds to the influence of The 1619 Project podcast. We will also create our own radio plays, podcasts, and documentaries over the semester. Focus will be placed on developing dynamic and colorful vocal acting skills, sound mixing and editing techniques, and hands-on experience with writing and recording for broadcast.

Prerequisites: THTR 1000 - 1999.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2021.

An introduction to the magnificent power and beauty of Shakespeare’s tragedies, with special attention to their poetic expansiveness, theatrical structure, and emotional impact. Studies Shakespeare's evolution as an artist and maker of theater while also raising important questions about race and gender in his works. Secondary readings on tragedy by Aristotle, Hegel, and others will guide our inquiry, though we will also explore links between Shakespeare and contemporary culture. Students will also have the opportunity to memorize and perform short scenes from the plays over the course of the semester. Note: Fulfills the pre-1800 literature requirement for English majors. (Same as: ENGL 2205)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024.

Explores Shakespeare’s evolution as a master of comic drama by considering his accomplishments in plot, characterization, and language. We will pay special attention to the politics of his humor both then and now, as well as to historical staging practices and issues of race, gender, and class that animate many of the plays. We will enhance our readings of the plays by watching videos of recent performances of the plays by the Globe Theater, Royal Shakespeare Company, and other professional companies. Students will also have the option to create and perform scenes working in small groups. Plays may include The Two Gentlemen of Verona, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, Much Ado about Nothing, Measure for Measure, Twelfth Night, and The Tempest. Note: Fulfills the pre-1800 requirement for English majors. (Same as: ENGL 2208)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023.

As technology has evolved, so has the world of theater and dance. Offers students an in-depth look at the technology, theory, and aesthetics involved in lighting design choices for theater and dance productions. Students explore the latest software and technology used by lighting designers, while learning to make their own artistic choices for contemporary performance. Assignments include creating lighting plots for specific scenes and performance events. By the end of the semester, students have reimagined and developed their own original lighting designs for a play or dance project to be presented in class. (Same as: DANC 2303)

Prerequisites: THTR 1000 - 1999.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024.

Puppetry, the animation of inanimate objects in performance, is typically considered a ‘small’ art form yet it has a sprawling historical, cultural, and aesthetic reach. Venerable theater historian George Speaight highlights puppetry’s ubiquitous presence when he says, “Puppet shows seem to have existed in almost all civilizations and in almost all periods . . . It has everywhere antedated written drama and, indeed, writing of any kind. It represents one of the most primitive instincts of the human race.” An introduction to puppetry, this course integrates the practical modes of design, construction, and performance with an examination of theories of origin, historical context, and global cultural significance. Through studio projects, individual and group performance, critiques, discussion, readings, video viewing, and research presentations, students will consider, create, and manipulate a variety of puppetry styles including object theater, shadow puppetry, hand puppets, bunraku-type puppets, and rod puppets while exploring what puppetry is, where it came from, its role in the history of western theater, as well as its cultural significance in Asia, Indonesia, Africa, India, and the Middle East. (Same as: DANC 2304)

Prerequisites: THTR 1302 (same as DANC 1302).

Previous terms offered: Spring 2022.

This class is designed for students who have a basic understanding of the principles of theatrical design and want more intensive study of the costume design process. Students utilize and build upon the foundational principles learned in introductory design classes, while learning and practicing new skills for investigating narrative as reflected in the psychology of clothing through the art of costume. Students engage individually in a rigorous performance-based research process by analyzing various sources such as text, music, or dance, while practicing collaboration by holding to a directorial concept, working with a design team, and building a relationship with the costume shop. Necessary design skills, including interpretation of visual research, costume plots, figure drawing and rendering techniques, and materials, are fostered through practical exercises throughout the semester.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023.

This class is an advanced scenic design course for theater and dance in which we study how to conceptualize space and other visual elements on stage. By analyzing scripts, physical movement, or other sources of motivation and narratives, the course explores visual research from an array of different sources like artistic styles, painting, photography in different places and time periods, and how to translate this information into specific scenic environments or devices. Students will explore visual vocabulary of drawing, sketching, rendering, drafting, scale, and principles of applied theater mechanisms and techniques. We examine how scenography relates to other design areas, such as lighting, costume, sound, puppetry, and the embodied storytelling experience on stage, as well as the challenges of artistic collaboration, collective and personal visual impact, and sustainability. (Same as: DANC 2308)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2022.

In this course, students explore a variety of theatrical genres that use music as a central component, typically ranging from early Italian opera to current Broadway musicals. Each semester, the course is tailored to feature exciting productions that can be viewed on Live HD or streaming platforms or attended in person. The course has included works by Monteverdi, Mozart, Gershwin, Sondheim, Blanchard, Glass, Miranda, Mitchell, Aucoin, Caro, and others. It introduces historical conventions, genres, styles, and processes of artistic expression and collaboration, including staging and production design. We will engage in discussions about historical and social contexts, as well as issues of gender, race, identity, aesthetics, or politics. (Same as: MUS 2302)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2021.

Playwrights say nothing compares to hearing their words onstage in live performance. But how does a story become a play? How is a play different than a novel, a short story, or a screenplay? This creative writing class focuses on writing for live performance and includes exercises in writing dialogue, character, conflict, scenes, and solo performance texts, then moves to the writing (and rewriting) of a short play. Students also read plays critically, considering how writers use image, action, speech, and silence; how they structure plays and performance pieces; and how they approach character and plot. Weekly writing exercises are critiqued in a group workshop format. (Same as: ENGL 2866)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2022.

Examines theater and poetry in Spain and Latin America from the eleventh-century verses of Jewish and Muslim authors to the twentieth-century works of Nobel Prize winners. Through class discussions and critical analysis, students will discover how the structure, form, content, and performance of poetry and theater relate to a work’s aesthetic movement, historical context, and contemporary adaptations. Some of the topics for discussion include: religious conflicts and their influence in literary forms; the cultural and political implications of the colonization of the Americas, its legacy, and the resistance to it; the Baroque, its innovative aesthetic techniques, and its transatlantic influence; the mechanisms used by writers to subvert discourses of patriarchy; the importance of Indigenous cultures in the development of Latin American nations and cultural traditions; and the political and artistic relationships with the US and other European avant-garde movements. Conducted in Spanish. (Same as: HISP 2409, LACL 2409)

Prerequisites: HISP 2305 (same as LACL 2205) or HISP 2306 (same as LACL 2306) or HISP 2308 (same as LACL 2308) or Placement in HISP 2409 or 2410.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2020.

Ibsen, Brecht, and Beckett are undoubtedly some of the most influential playwrights of the twentieth century. As both scholarly and performance texts, their plays have long presented challenges to scholars and theater artists alike. Yet they—the scholarly and artistic-- rarely work together to benefit from the insights each approach can offer. Beginning with plays like, for example, “A Doll's House,” “The Good Person of Setzuan,” and “Waiting for Godot,” students then move to more contemporary masters, including groundbreaking playwrights of color Lorraine Hansberry and Suzan Lori-Parks, and provocateur Martin McDonagh. Lastly, students examine the legacy of Beckett’s work in television by examining contemporary television drama like “Pose”. (Same as: ENGL 2457)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2022.

The city has long been central to the creation of theater. From Athens to Beijing and Abydos to London, performance is deeply connected to the places where it is created. But the opposite is also true—performance creates cities. This course explores how theater and performance shape the ways people move, connect, build, remember, and generally live in cities. Through readings, theater attendance, and performance-making, students examine how performance has influenced various global cities’ histories, architecture, environments, and economies. Cities examined may include Portland, Maine; New York; Grahamstown; Mexico City; Beijing; London; Berlin; Athens; Buenos Ares; or Tokyo. (Same as: URBS 2507)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023.

Investigates the history and practice of one of the few truly American art forms: the musical theater. From its beginnings, influenced by opera, minstrelsy, and popular music, to the current Broadway landscape, which grapples with post-pandemic performance, the American musical has provided fascinating insights into the values, ideas, and mores of the society that created it. Special attention will be paid to the Black creators, women writers, and artists of color whose work has shaped the genre but who have remained under-acknowledged by past generations of both academic and popular historians. Students will encounter well-loved Broadway smash hits as well as forgotten off-Broadway gems while being encouraged to develop a deeper, more nuanced love for the genre. (Same as: DANC 2509)

Bridging the unhelpful divide between critical scholarship and performance studies in studying drama, this co-taught course enables students to “remake” Shakespeare as an author for both page and stage. By integrating techniques of theatrical performance with modes of textual analysis, the course balances critical and performative approaches to produce a thorough and embodied understanding of Shakespeare. In analyzing Shakespearean language with an eye to performance, for example, students will increase their understanding of the plays. Likewise, producing scholarly writing about Shakespeare will enhance the way that students perform his works. Students will produce scene studies as well as a range of writing assignments, including a research essay. Note: Fulfills the pre-1800 requirement for English majors. (Same as: ENGL 2207)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2021.

Focusing on plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, this class explores new genres, character types, and modes of experience made possible by the development of professional theater in early modern London. In addition to situating plays by Christophe Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton, and other authors in their political and cultural contexts, we will also ask how their plays elevated questions of race, gender, and sexuality. Students will select, memorize, and ultimately perform one scene from one of the plays, working together in small groups to bring new life to old texts. Note: Fulfills the pre-1800 literature requirement for English majors. (Same as: ENGL 2200)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2020.

Examines the history and contributions of African Americans to United States theater from the early blackface minstrel tradition, to the revolutionary theater of the Black Arts writers, to more recent postmodernist stage spectacles. Among other concerns, such works often dramatize the efforts of African Americans to negotiate ongoing tensions between individual needs and group demands that result from historically changing forms of racial marginalization. A particular goal is to highlight what Kimberly Benston has termed the expressive agency with which black writers and performers have imbued their theatrical presentations. Potential authors include Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Lorraine Hansberry, Amiri Baraka, Ron Milner, Adrienne Kennedy, Ntozake Shange, George C. Wolfe, Anna Deavere Smith, Afro Pomo Homos, and August Wilson. Note: Fulfills the African American, Asian American, Indigenous, Latinx, multiethnic American, or global literature requirement for English majors. (Same as: ENGL 2654, AFRS 2630)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024.

This course considers the storied nature of ideas about Ireland through the consideration of a variety of Irish artists. Part of the aim of the course is to register the changes in the ways Irish letters have been reimagined by writers and critics in the last fifty years. In this iteration, we will be focusing on Samuel Beckett’s oeuvre, which includes prose, drama (famously and notoriously, Waiting for Godot), essays, radio, and film (e.g., Film with Buster Keaton in 1964). He has been designated a modernist, a postmodernist and not Irish at all, having lived in France for most of his writing life: “exile was a condition of Being.” Beckett’s reach has been enormous: his work has been the subject of numerous critical thinkers in the last century, including Theodor Adorno and Jacques Lacan, whom we will read. We will look at his Irish contemporaries, including James Joyce, Sean O’Casey, Edna O’Brien, and his outside impact on others, e.g., J.M. Coetzee, Maggie Nelson, and painters such as Jasper Johns. (Same as: ENGL 2453, GSWS 2453)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2021.

An advanced acting class that explores issues of style. What is Tragedy? Farce? Melodrama? Commedia? Realism? The Absurd? Through research, analysis, and scene work in class, students become familiar with a range of theatrical idioms. Emphasis is placed on understanding the social/cultural needs that give rise to a particular style, and the way in which style is used in contemporary theater to support or subvert a text.

Prerequisites: Two of: THTR 1100 - 1999 and THTR 1000 or higher or DANC 1000 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2021.

Looks at several facets of comedy on stage, from its origins in Greek and Roman theater to contemporary comic forms. Theory is combined with practical exercises in clowning, satire, physical comedy, wit, timing, phrasing, and partner work to develop a comic vocabulary for interpreting both scripted and original work. Students work in solos, duets, and groups to create final performance projects that are presented to the public at the end of the semester.

Prerequisites: Two of: THTR 1100 - 1999 and THTR 1000 or higher or DANC 1000 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2020.

An advanced level acting course dedicated to the analysis and performance of heightened text. Beginning with Shakespeare, students will build on the skill sets learned in Acting I and both sections of Acting II, combining advanced text and rhetorical analysis with rigorous physical and vocal work designed to bring the text off the page and into layered, nuanced performance. Study and practice will also include text analysis and scene-study from texts and writers renowned for their poetic and innovative use of language in performance texts, e.g., Sarah Kane, Ntozake Shange, and Suzan Lori-Parks.

Prerequisites: Two of: THTR 1201 and THTR 2201 - 2202.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023.

Experienced student actors, dancers, and musicians collaborate to devise an original performance event. Examines the history of collective creation and the various emphases different artists have brought to that process. Immerses students in the practice of devising, stretching from conception and research to writing, staging, and ultimately performing a finished piece. (Same as: DANC 3401)

Prerequisites: Two of: THTR 1100 - 1999 or DANC 1100 - 1999 and THTR 2000 - 2799 or DANC 2000 - 2799.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2021.

Dancing Place explores the interrelationship between body, place, and imagination to construct experimental choreographies and sound scores. Students will deepen their relationship with the Maine bioregion through site-specific practice and research: by engaging their physicality and senses and expanding their awareness and perception of the more-than-human world. They will move within (and be moved by!) a variety of sites, both on campus and off, including the Schiller Coastal Studies Center and the Cathance River Nature Preserve. They will metabolize and communicate their findings and discoveries in creative process leading to a final choreographic project and accompanying sound design. The course may include the interdisciplinary study of place through visits by local artists and organizations, and guest faculty from across the campus. This course is a Capstone course open to non-majors and minors. (Same as: DANC 3404)

Prerequisites: DANC 2204 - 2299.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023.

This course will examine how racial identity in the United States is coproduced through formal legal decisions (court cases and laws), popular aesthetic forms such as theater and film, and everyday public performances. Through readings, viewings, writing assignments, class presentations, and performances, students will investigate how legal rights are “performed” every day—and how social constructions of race determine which legal rights can be fully enacted and by whom. Beginning with the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705 and continuing through contemporary criminal and immigration law, students will use performance theory to analyze the distinctions between the law-as-written and the law-as-performed, while also exploring the everyday performances and cultural products that have shaped understandings of racial difference at key moments in US history. The course will culminate in a student-created performance piece that reveals the intersections between performance, race, and the law.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2021.

This course will explore how people in the United States—particularly those absented from centers of structural power—have used performance to imagine, interrogate, and demand freedom. Through reading, digital viewing, and writing, students will examine various ways that people have performed freedom throughout US history, including spectacular actions such as slave rebellions, Lakota Ghost Dance practices, Freedom Rides, the occupation of Alcatraz, and the Stonewall Rebellion. Students will also consider quieter and even hidden performances of freedom, such as work slowdowns on plantations, freedom suits, and covert resistance embedded in the WPA’s Slave Narrative Project. Students will then apply this historical understanding to analyses of contemporary liberation movements, including Indigenous water protection and Black Lives Matter. The course will culminate with a student-created online exhibit that highlights and analyzes the centrality of performance in US freedom movements.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2022.

An advanced performance-based studio course in which students develop an original project in their chosen performance area: e.g., acting, choreography, dance, design, directing, dramaturgy and criticism, or playwriting, among others. The course meets regularly as a group to critique, discuss, and present their work and may include guest artists and travel to attend productions in Portland and Boston, as available. Projects are presented in a festival format in late November, students are encouraged to collaborate on each other’s projects. Required for all performance arts majors; theater and dance minors and other majors may be admitted by permission of instructor. (Same as: DANC 4040)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2021, Fall 2020.

An advanced performance-based studio course in which students perform an original project in their chosen performance area: e.g., acting, choreography, dance, design, directing, dramaturgy and criticism, or playwriting, among others. The course meets weekly and as needed throughout the semester to rehearse, present, and critique final projects. The course may also include guest artists and travel to attend productions in Portland and Boston, as available. This is the second half of a two-semester sequence with THTR/DANC 4040 taken in the fall. Both courses are one-half credit (0.5). Students must have completed THTR/DANC 4040 to enroll. Required for all Performance Arts majors; Theater and Dance minors and other majors may be admitted by permission of instructor.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2021.

Making Dances in the Digital Age is an introduction to dance-on-screen as art, as activism—specifically as an expression and document of the movement of Black Lives Matter—and as popular culture. We will explore and analyze dances on a variety of digital platforms—TikTok, Instagram, You Tube and Vimeo—including video documentation of live performances. We will learn and apply movement compositional tools toward the unique creative possibilities offered by digital mediums, exploring dance film, as well as considering sound, location, lighting, costume, and more in the process of creating our own dances for the screen. This is primarily a movement-based class drawing on Yoga, and postmodern dance techniques and improvisation.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2021, Fall 2020.

Dancing is a fundamental human activity, a mode of communication, and a basic force in social life. Investigates dance and movement in the studio and classroom as aesthetic and cultural phenomena. Explores how dance and movement activities reveal information about cultural norms and values and affect perspectives in our own and other societies. Using ethnographic methods, focuses on how dancing maintains and creates conceptions of one’s own body, gender relationships, and personal and community identities. Experiments with dance and movement forms from different cultures and epochs -- for example, the hula, New England contradance, classical Indian dance, Balkan kolos, ballet, contact improvisation, and African American dance forms from swing to hip-hop -- through readings, performances, workshops in the studio, and field work. (Same as: GSWS 1102)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2022.

An introduction to the practice and art form of dance improvisation. Warm-ups and structures enhance student creative expression, range of movement, and body awareness. Various forms are introduced such as Contact Improvisation—a partnering dance form—Authentic Movement, and the improvisational methods and strategies of specific contemporary dance artists. Includes reading, writing, discussion, and, when possible, attendance at live improvisation performances and work with visiting professional artists. No previous dance experience is required.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2021.

This studio-based course is designed for students will limited or no previous experience in hip-hop dances. Students work on technique, improvisation, and dance invention, as well as developing an understanding of hip hop culture and history through supplemental readings and videos. Students may generate original movement and learn set material from the instructor to create an original group piece to perform in an end of semester dance performance. Attendance at all classes, rehearsals, and performances is required. May be repeated for credit.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023.

For millennia, we have organized our fictions, our religions, our histories, and our own lives as narratives. However much the narrative form has been called into question in recent years, it seems we just cannot stop telling each other stories. Examines the particular nexus between narrative and performance: What is narrative? How does it work? What are its limits and its limitations? How do we communicate narrative in performance? Involves both critical inquiry and the creation of performance pieces based in text, dance, movement, and the visual image. (Same as: THTR 1203)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2021.

This studio-based course is designed for students with little or no previous modern dance experience. Students work on technique, improvisation, and dance invention, as well as developing an overview of twentieth-century American modern and postmodern dance through watching and discussing videos and live performances. Students generate original movement and learn set material from the instructor to create an original group piece to perform in an end of semester dance performance. Attendance at all classes, rehearsals, and performances is required. May be repeated for credit.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2020.

From the folkloric dance forms to popular and secular dance practices, this course journeys through various islands and countries of the Caribbean to learn about their various histories and cultures, including the music, costumes, and basic rhythms associated with each particular dance form. This in-studio course provides a general introduction to some of the sacred and popular dances of the Caribbean. Although movement is the primary work of this course, what we learn in class may be supplemented by readings and outside research. *Please note that no prior experience or training is required. Grading will not be based on technical skill levels, but on mindful, full-bodied participation that demonstrates comprehension and articulation of course materials. (Same as: AFRS 1213)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2021.

Introduction to the language, theory, and practice of theater and dance technology. Students explore the history of theater technology with experiential projects in Bowdoin's performance venues, including Pickard and Wish Theaters as well as visits and workshops from guest artists. Topics include lighting, scenography, costuming, and sound, among others. The course considers the possibilities, demands, and limits inherent to different forms of performance and space. Lab required. Course fulfills the Technical Production (THTR/DANC 1750) requirement for Performance Arts major. (Same as: THTR 1301)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023, Fall 2021, Fall 2020.

An introduction to theatrical design that stimulates students to consider the world of a play, dance, or performance piece from a designer’s perspective. Through projects, readings, discussion, and critiques, explores the fundamental principles of visual design as they apply to set, lighting, and costume design, as well as text analysis for the designer and the process of collaboration. Strong emphasis on perceptual, analytical, and communication skills. (Same as: THTR 1302)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020.

Students will explore different phases of the creative process that involve drama and music for the stage. We will study and compare recent productions of operas, musicals, and other theatrical and dance performances. Now that theaters, opera venues, and concert halls are closed, this course will serve as a reminder of the vibrant collaborative work between artists and the connections they establish with their audiences. We will discuss the different areas of design, such as scenography, costume, lighting, sound, and projection, and we will analyze in a cohesive way how they relate to the music score. We will engage with a variety of genres covering a wide time span, and we will analyze in-depth specific works, such as Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, and Robert Lepage’s staging for Peter Gabriel’s The Secret World Tour. (Same as: MUS 1304, THTR 1304)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2021.

Studio work accompanies video viewings and readings on twentieth-century modern dance and ballet. Focuses on the cultural politics of dance performance -- vocabularies and notions of representation, intention, and authorship -- and changing ideas of the performance space. Viewing and reading moves chronologically, while studio work addresses global themes such as dance and identity, expressionism, self-reference, and the natural. No previous dance experience is required.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2022, Spring 2022.

This course is a continuation of principles explored in DANC 1104 Improvisation, with the addition of techniques and skills for dancing in physical contact. Emphasis is on the partnering duet form, contact improvisation: rolling, how to fall and land softly, how to give and receive weight, how to move with an awareness of sensation. The class is studio focused and will include readings, in-class discussions and watching live and recorded dancing.

Prerequisites: DANC 1101 or DANC 1102 (same as GSWS 1102) or DANC 1104 or DANC 1211 or DANC 1212.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2022.

Musical theater is a popular performance form that challenges students to work in multiple disciplines, combining dance, acting, music, and design. This course will give students with experience in acting, singing, and dancing an opportunity to hone their skills together through the performance of songs and scenes from a variety of musical theater styles. Students will do projects in ballad singing, choral numbers, group dances, and acting the song. Actors, singers, choreographers, and musicians will be encouraged to work together in class and in evening rehearsals toward a public performance and a cabaret performance at the end of the semester. Performances will be grounded in historical readings and research that contextualizes the origins of the pieces being performed. (Same as: THTR 2205, MUS 2605)

Prerequisites: THTR 1100 - 1799 or DANC 1100 - 1799.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2022.

Intermediate-level dance technique class. Students are expected to have prior training and/or have received full credit in Modern I. Classes progress through warm-up, center work and phrases across-the-floor. Concepts will be further illuminated through choreographic combinations. Emphasis is placed on musicality, and imagery and breath to stimulate and open energetic pathways in relation to alignment, mobility, and expression. Students will learn how to work individually and move together as a group. Additional work in improvisation and somatics/anatomy may be included.

Prerequisites: DANC 1211.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023.

Builds on the beginning level performances in DANC 1212: Modern I: Repertory and Performance. This course deepens students' work in creative process, rehearsal and performance through the creation of original choreography for the Department Dance Concert. Students will be provided with a clearly defined grading rubric as well as course goals and expectations. Students may be involved in generating movement material as well as engaging in improvisational structures for performance. The course may also feature guest artists and opportunities for student choreography. In semesters when both Dance 2211 and 2212 are offered, it is recommended that students enroll in both simultaneously, but this is not required.

Prerequisites: DANC 1212.

A continuation of modern dance principles introduced in Dance 1211 with the addition of African-derived dance movement. The two dance aesthetics are combined to create a new form. Technique classes include center floor exercises, movement combinations across the floor, and movement phrases. Students also attend dance performances in the community. (Same as: AFRS 2236, LACL 2396)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2021.

As technology has evolved, so has the world of theater and dance. Offers students an in-depth look at the technology, theory, and aesthetics involved in lighting design choices for theater and dance productions. Students explore the latest software and technology used by lighting designers, while learning to make their own artistic choices for contemporary performance. Assignments include creating lighting plots for specific scenes and performance events. By the end of the semester, students have reimagined and developed their own original lighting designs for a play or dance project to be presented in class. (Same as: THTR 2303)

Prerequisites: THTR 1000 - 1999.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024.

Puppetry, the animation of inanimate objects in performance, is typically considered a ‘small’ art form yet it has a sprawling historical, cultural, and aesthetic reach. Venerable theater historian George Speaight highlights puppetry’s ubiquitous presence when he says, “Puppet shows seem to have existed in almost all civilizations and in almost all periods . . . It has everywhere antedated written drama and, indeed, writing of any kind. It represents one of the most primitive instincts of the human race.” An introduction to puppetry, this course integrates the practical modes of design, construction, and performance with an examination of theories of origin, historical context, and global cultural significance. Through studio projects, individual and group performance, critiques, discussion, readings, video viewing, and research presentations, students will consider, create, and manipulate a variety of puppetry styles including object theater, shadow puppetry, hand puppets, bunraku-type puppets, and rod puppets while exploring what puppetry is, where it came from, its role in the history of western theater, as well as its cultural significance in Asia, Indonesia, Africa, India, and the Middle East. (Same as: THTR 2304)

Prerequisites: THTR 1302 (same as DANC 1302).

Previous terms offered: Spring 2022.

This class is an advanced scenic design course for theater and dance in which we study how to conceptualize space and other visual elements on stage. By analyzing scripts, physical movement, or other sources of motivation and narratives, the course explores visual research from an array of different sources like artistic styles, painting, photography in different places and time periods, and how to translate this information into specific scenic environments or devices. Students will explore visual vocabulary of drawing, sketching, rendering, drafting, scale, and principles of applied theater mechanisms and techniques. We examine how scenography relates to other design areas, such as lighting, costume, sound, puppetry, and the embodied storytelling experience on stage, as well as the challenges of artistic collaboration, collective and personal visual impact, and sustainability. (Same as: THTR 2308)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2022.

Using a range of improvisatory techniques and structures, experienced dancers excavate movement sources and improve the range, subtlety, and responsiveness of their dancing. Detailed work on personal movement vocabulary, musicality, and the use of multidimensional space leads to a strong sense of choreographic architecture. Students explore the play between design and accident—communication and open-ended meaning—and irony and gravity. Studio work is supported by readings on dance and its relationship to other art forms.

Prerequisites: DANC 1000 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2021.

This course examines hip-hop culture's vast array of expressive practices. Focusing primarily on hip-hop dance practices, our study will situate these dances within a larger hip-hop culture, acknowledging hip-hop as both inherently African diasporic and specific to the particular US historical, cultural, and sociopolitical contexts in which—and the communities from whom—these practices emerge. Exploring aesthetics and/as cultural values, we will pay particular attention to the roles of power and inequity, interrogating themes that may include racism, anti-Blackness, white supremacy, globalization, appropriation, community, joy, and agency. We will examine our own positionalities, asking what it can mean to engage responsibly in hip-hop as well as what it can mean to be responsible to the communities of folks who created and continue to create hip-hop culture. Primarily a reading-, writing-, and discussion-based course, our study will be supplemented with physical practice in the studio. (Same as: AFRS 2290, MUS 2298)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023.

What is the role of the body in protest? How does the state unequally choreograph peoples’ right to move freely? How can we embody resistance? This course interrogates the infinite ways people and communities have resisted, refused, and cultivated alternatives to oppressive structures and systems. Utilizing the term choreography to refer to the ways bodies move through space, this course examines examples of political dance performances, as well as the worldmaking that can take place as folx dance together; however, it also considers gestures such as “hands up, don’t shoot” and the mass occupation of public spaces during uprisings. The course explores themes including white supremacy, colonization, heteropatriarchy, state violence and policing, anti-Blackness, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, racism, and capitalism. Primarily a reading-, writing-, and discussion-based course, our study will be supplemented with physical practice in the studio to draw on embodied experiences.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023.

This class deepens students’ work in creative process, rehearsal, and performance through explorations of Africanist and hip-hop aesthetics and cultural approaches. Students will advance their understandings of and skills in hip-hop dance practices, including further development of critical listening skills and musical embodiment. Students may be involved in learning and generating movement material as well as engaging in freestyle and improvisatory practices. This course culminates in a performance, and all students must be available for any technical and dress rehearsals as well as performances.

Prerequisites: DANC 1105 or DANC 2000 - 2969 or DANC 3000 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024.

Dance—an art form whose medium is the body—and ethnography—the study of people and their cultures—are great tools for addressing some of the ways different dancing bodies have been historically policed for “dancing sex(y).” Other tools, such as critical dance and black theories, in addition to queer and feminist approaches, will also be utilized to comprehend the uneven ways these bodies are further racialized, sexualized, and gendered within the Americas. In particular, students will learn about various dances (such as the Brazilian samba to the Cuban rumba, Jamaican Dancehall, and the Trinidadian wine) through readings, lectures, and actual in-studio dancing. Ultimately, the intention here is to understand dancing as both a meaning-making activity and a way of understanding the world. In turn, it is an important lens for critically thinking, talking, researching, and writing about politics of identity (especially regarding nationality, gender, race, and sexuality). (Same as: AFRS 2292, GSWS 2505, LACL 2392)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2021.

An introduction to dance as a meaning-making, cultural practice. Using embodiment/performance, writing, and discussion, students will use the gestures embedded within dance cultures as critical tools necessary for analyzing and theorizing aspects of race, sexuality, gender, and nationalism. Accordingly, students will understand the meanings and roles of dance and gesture within larger historical, cultural, social, and theatrical contexts. In sum, this class examines dance forms and dancing bodies, such as Indian classical dance, Puerto Rican bomba, and blackface minstrelsy, to better understand how cultures throughout the globe come to know and understand both themselves and the world at large. (Same as: AFRS 2238)

Prerequisites: DANC 1000 or higher or THTR 1000 or higher or AFRS 1000 or higher or GSWS 1000 or higher or ANTH 1000 or higher.

Investigates the history and practice of one of the few truly American art forms: the musical theater. From its beginnings, influenced by opera, minstrelsy, and popular music, to the current Broadway landscape, which grapples with post-pandemic performance, the American musical has provided fascinating insights into the values, ideas, and mores of the society that created it. Special attention will be paid to the Black creators, women writers, and artists of color whose work has shaped the genre but who have remained under-acknowledged by past generations of both academic and popular historians. Students will encounter well-loved Broadway smash hits as well as forgotten off-Broadway gems while being encouraged to develop a deeper, more nuanced love for the genre. (Same as: THTR 2509)

Movement, Breath, and Healing draws upon improvisational dance, yoga, meditation and mindfulness techniques, and embodied anatomy—forms that offer potential for individual and collective empowerment and transformation through cultivating self-awareness, connection and wholeness, community, resilience, and joy. Revolving around a regular dance and movement practice, students will apply a feminist intersectional lens to their embodied practices, examining how power dynamics in the field of professional dance and the multibillion-dollar wellness industry in the West center some and marginalize and exclude others based on race, dis/ability, size, sexuality, gender, and class. Students will be exposed to the choreography and practices of artists working within and across spaces of movement, healing and embodied social justice, in the process of developing and cultivating their own choreographic and community/self-care practices that bridge the disciplines of art and healing.

Prerequisites: DANC 2211 or DANC 2212 or DANC 2221 or DANC 2222 or DANC 2241 (same as AFRS 2236 and LAS 2396) or DANC 2242 (same as AFRS 2237) or DANC 2401.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2021.

An advanced level dance technique class. Students are expected to have prior training and/or have received full credit in Modern II. The course is a continuation of the processes of 2211, with more challenging and complex phrase-work and more in-depth physical explorations. In addition, the course will emphasize artistry and performance. Partnering/hands-on work may be included.

Prerequisites: DANC 2000 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2022, Fall 2021.

Builds on the intermediate-level performances in DANC 2212: Modern II: Repertory and Performance. This course deepens students' work in creative process, rehearsal and performance through the creation of original choreography for the Department Dance Concert. Students may be involved in generating movement material as well as engaging in improvisational structures for performance. The course may also feature guest artists and opportunities for student choreography. It is recommended that students enroll in DANC 3211 (Modern Dance III: Technique) simultaneously, but this is not required.

Prerequisites: DANC 2212.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2021.

How do we cultivate a more flexible, awake, resilient and compassionate body-mind in the age of COVID-19 and a renewed consciousness of the violence of white supremacy? Advanced Dancing for Challenging Times explores how dance and improvisation are forms of an embodied politics, revealing and engaging with a matrix of social-historical conditions and constraints. Through grounded, fluid, weight and momentum-based dancing and improvisational structures and scores, students will explore dance as a “vital technology of the self” (Goldman, I Want to Be Ready), that has potential to create and form new, hitherto unimagined, spaces. A variety of techniques that bring us into a more full-bodied consciousness will be deployed: postmodern and contemporary dance and improvisation, somatics, functional anatomy, and Asian and South Asian wisdom traditions and practices including Yoga asana and pranayama, Qigong, and Buddhist metta practice.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2020.

This course fuses Afro-Diasporan aesthetics and cultural concepts with critical dance studies and US modern/post-modern/contemporary concert dance traditions. Students will engage with various Afro-based dance practitioners (such as Jawole Willa Jo Zollar), cultural praxes (such as Sankofa), and improvisational structures (such as Jamaican Dancehall and Haitian Yanvalou) to deepen their ability to create, rehearse, and perform original choreography, specifically for the purposes of advocating for social change and cross-cultural understanding. Using virtual, archival, digital, embodied, and scholarly research, students will learn about and generate performance material that is deeply connected to the histories, spaces, and places that we remember, take-up, and occupy. Students will also be expected to execute collaborations with each other and those within their communities as they create and perform movement for their final dance projects. (Same as: AFRS 3242, LACL 3342)

Prerequisites: DANC 1213 (same as AFRS 1213) or DANC 2241 (same as AFRS 2236) or DANC 1000 - 2969 or DANC 3000 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2022, Fall 2020.

Experienced student actors, dancers, and musicians collaborate to devise an original performance event. Examines the history of collective creation and the various emphases different artists have brought to that process. Immerses students in the practice of devising, stretching from conception and research to writing, staging, and ultimately performing a finished piece. (Same as: THTR 3401)

Prerequisites: Two of: THTR 1100 - 1999 or DANC 1100 - 1999 and THTR 2000 - 2799 or DANC 2000 - 2799.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2021.

Dancing Place explores the interrelationship between body, place, and imagination to construct experimental choreographies and sound scores. Students will deepen their relationship with the Maine bioregion through site-specific practice and research: by engaging their physicality and senses and expanding their awareness and perception of the more-than-human world. They will move within (and be moved by!) a variety of sites, both on campus and off, including the Schiller Coastal Studies Center and the Cathance River Nature Preserve. They will metabolize and communicate their findings and discoveries in creative process leading to a final choreographic project and accompanying sound design. The course may include the interdisciplinary study of place through visits by local artists and organizations, and guest faculty from across the campus. This course is a Capstone course open to non-majors and minors. (Same as: THTR 3404)

Prerequisites: DANC 2204 - 2299.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023.

An advanced performance-based studio course in which students develop an original project in their chosen performance area: e.g., acting, choreography, dance, design, directing, dramaturgy and criticism, or playwriting, among others. The course meets regularly as a group to critique, discuss, and present their work and may include guest artists and travel to attend productions in Portland and Boston, as available. Projects are presented in a festival format in late November, students are encouraged to collaborate on each other’s projects. Required for all performance arts majors; theater and dance minors and other majors may be admitted by permission of instructor. (Same as: THTR 4040)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2021, Fall 2020.