CMCL-C 414: Topics in Performance and Culture
(Topic: Experimental Film, Theater, and Performance Art)
Class Number: 15338

TuTh, 4:00 PM-5:15 PM, Location: TBA
Required film screenings: W, 7:00 PM-10:00 PM

Fulfills COLL A&H Requirement

Instructor: Joan Hawkins
E-Mail: jchawkin@indiana.edu
Office: Mottier Hall 113
Phone: 855-1548

In this class we’ll be looking at some of the intersections between
Experimental Theater, Film and Performance Art of the last 50
years.  Screenings will include Jill Godmillow’s documentary of the
controversial staging of King Lear, as performed by Mabou Mines;
experimental renditions of Jean Genet’s The Maids; avant-garde
productions by the Living Theater and The Wooster Group; films by
Luis Buñuel, Lotte Reiniger, Sophie Calle, Andy Warhol, and Jean
Genet; performance art by Ant Farm, Coco Fusco, Orlan, Carmelita
Tropicana, Karen Finley, Diamanda Galas, Mos Def and the Poets of
the Nuyorican Café; and experimental cinema that ranges from the
arty non-narrative films of Hans Richter and Yoko Ono to the radical
narratives of Beth B., Guy Maddin, Jennifer Montgomery, Todd Haynes,
Larry Fessenden Sadie Benning, Amos Poe and the Brothers Quay.  In
addition to scheduled screenings, students will be encouraged to
attend several live performances outside class.  Avant-garde and
experimental productions are often taboo-breaking works that push
the envelope on what’s considered acceptable—in terms of both theme
and style.  So be forewarned.  In the words of the Home Film
Festival Video/DVD catalogue, many of the works we’ll be seeing for
this class are “not for all tastes.”

Written work: a midterm, a comprehensive final exam, and 2 papers.

Readings:
Jean Genet, The Maids
Antonin Artaud, The Theater and Its Double
Greil Marcus, Lipstick Traces
selection of Xeroxed essays