Simon Fraser University
Engaging the World

Course Outlines

Spring 2024 - CA 255 D100

Body II (2)

Class Number: 6340

Delivery Method: In Person

Overview

  • Course Times + Location:

    Jan 8 – Apr 12, 2024: Mon, Wed, 12:30–2:20 p.m.
    GOLDCORP

  • Prerequisites:

    One of CA 123, 131, 146, 152, 161, 171.

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Further explores 'the body' as a primary material of performance using a variety of perspectives on embodied practice as aesthetic experience. With rotating topics each term, students develop the foundational skills for creating original, contemporary live art.

COURSE DETAILS:

In this course we'll explore performance making centered around "the body" as the primary material. Together we will examine different approaches for creation of live art: out to in, starting with external source material – including texts, images, other people’s work, site and anythingelse we deem out to in, and in to out, starting with the body – honoring embodied intelligences and what they can reveal.

Over the course of the semester, students will develop collective and individual practices that are rigorous and playfully embodied, that foster both practical skills for composition, ideation and devising, while honoring impulse, intuition and emergence. In studio class work, students will engage in a variety of daily warm ups, theatre exercises and contemporary dance/somatic techniques, as ways into preparing their thinking/sensing bodies for creation. Improvisational scores, movement studies and micro compositions will be regularly shared throughout the semester, with opportunities for class discussions, documentation and reflection. This course encourages disciplinary nomadic curiosity, challenging and stretching boundaries of where “the body” begins and ends, while continuing to re-center to the physical corporeal bodies doing the creating. The aim of this course is for students to leave with a deeper connection with embodied practices – to be carried into their future processes as makers of live art.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

  • Develop practical techniques and concepts for sustainable studio practices, using "the body" as a material for performance.
  • Explore two broad approaches for performance making: 1. Out to in starting with external source material 2. In to out, starting from the body as source material.
  • Explore personal impulses and preferences for creative research centered around the body. + To foster practical skills and enhance students' ability to listen to their creative impulses.
  • To challenge and expand traditional notions of the body's role in performance.

Grading

  • Attendance & General Participation 25%
  • Studio Work 50%
  • Project 1: leading physical warm up 13%
  • Journals 12%

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

  • studio clothes that students feel comfortable moving in (exercise clothes)
  • notebook and pen
  • method for documentation (can be interpreted broadly)

REQUIRED READING NOTES:

Your personalized Course Material list, including digital and physical textbooks, are available through the SFU Bookstore website by simply entering your Computing ID at: shop.sfu.ca/course-materials/my-personalized-course-materials.

Registrar Notes:

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: YOUR WORK, YOUR SUCCESS

SFU’s Academic Integrity website http://www.sfu.ca/students/academicintegrity.html is filled with information on what is meant by academic dishonesty, where you can find resources to help with your studies and the consequences of cheating. Check out the site for more information and videos that help explain the issues in plain English.

Each student is responsible for his or her conduct as it affects the university community. Academic dishonesty, in whatever form, is ultimately destructive of the values of the university. Furthermore, it is unfair and discouraging to the majority of students who pursue their studies honestly. Scholarly integrity is required of all members of the university. http://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/student/s10-01.html