..:
To...........
siMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
MEMORANDUM
?
?^.
Senate ?
.
.
From ..,.....
?
nate
Commi
ttee
on
?
Undergraduate Studies
.
Subject..........
Appr
ovai
New
.
ourses
.
.
Date..................
S.eptember
16, 1976
FPA. 116-6 ,160-5 , 251-3, 382-3 , 384-3.
Action taken by the Senate Committee on Undergraduate
Studies at its meeting of Tuesday, 14 September 1976 gives rise
to the following motion:
MOTION
That Senate approve and recommend to the Board of Governors for
approval the following new courses in Fine and Performing Arts:
FPA. 116-6 The Arts in Context: North American Styles
FPA. 160-5 Introduction to the Image
FPA. 251-3 Dramatic Interpretation II
FPA. 382-3 Aesthetics of Performance
FPA. 384-3 Criticism of Performance
Note: The Senate Committee on Undergraduate Studies
)
having been
assured of the feasibility of earlier offerings, has
approved a waiver of the two semester time lag requirement
for FPA. 116-6, FPA. 160-3, FPA. 251-3 and FPA. 384-3.
a,
SiMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
SCUS
7C-27
MEMORANDUM
To ?
. ?
Mr. H.M. Evans.,
Registra.... ........ ... ........ .. ....
.
Secretary ... of. ... the...S.enate. . Committee........
on Undergraduate Studies
Subject ....
.
.
New, Course Proposal.
FPA. 116
From..
J. Blanchet, Secretary
....
.of the......................
Faculty of Interdisciplinary. ... Studie.s...
Undergraduate Curriculum Committee
Date..
...........September .3,1976...................................
The Arts in Context: North American Styles
I.S.C. 76-24
The Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies Undergraduate
Curriculum Committee has reviewed and approved the attached new course
proposal, and I ant forwarding it to you for inclusion on the agenda of
the Senate Committee on Undergraduate Studies.
oAttachment
.-
LS.C. ?
1I-2.-
SENATE COMMITTEE ON UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES
?
NEW COURSE PROPOSAL
FORM
Ciendir Information
?
Department:
Abbreviation Code:
FPA.
?
Course Number:
116 ?
Credit Hours:?
Title of Course:
The Arts in Context: North American Styles
Centre for the Arts
?
6
Vector:
5-2-0
Calendar Description of Course:
A
selective
study of the various arts, including decorative, popular, and folk arts,
in Canada and the United States from the 16th to the 20th Century. The course will
emphasize the development of the arts within national and regional contexts. Tutorials
will focus on a single art form and may involve practical explorations in that form in
Nature of
Course
Lecture/Tutorial ?
relation to regional styles.
Prerequisites (or special instructions):
15 Hours Credit
What course (courses), if any, is being dropped from the calendar if this course Is
approved:
None
2.
Scheduling
How
frequently will ttte course be offered?
?
At least once every two years
Semester in which the course will first be offered? 77-1
Which of your present faculty would be available to make the proposed offering
'
?
possible?
E. Gibson can be seconded from Geography
Objectives of the Course
See attached statement and course outline.
4.
.Budgetary
and Space Requirements (for information only)
?
-
What additional resources will be required in the following areas:
Faculty
Staff
Library
Audio Visual
Space
Equipment
5. Approval
Date:
y,7/J / 7_
?
7 ?
2(
?
1•4L.r#é.
/f76
Department Chairman
?
Dean
?
Chairman,
SCLJS
Ath
SCUS
course
73-34b:-
outline).
(When completing this form, for instructions see Memorandum SCUS
73-34a.
)ct . 73
a
?
•.
FPA. 116 - THE ARTS IN CONTEXT: NORTH AMERICAN STYLES
COURSE OBJECTIVES
This course is the third "context" course to be introduced in conjunction
with the developing arts program. Like its predecessors, it is intended
primarily to provide an introduction of several arts and their interrelation-
ships to students who wish to undertake a concentration in any art form.
In addition, it should be of interest to students in any discipline who wish
to acquire some grounding in the arts.
A single individual will take overall responsibility for the lectures,
but we do not
,
expect that individual to be olnnicompetent: there will be
numerous guest lectures from specialists on and off campus in areas out-
side the expertise of the main instructor. The course does not claim to
cover all the arts of the area in a survey fashion: it should be at
once broad and focussed, exploring instances that do most to reveal the
essential qualities of arts in the region and their interrelationships.
As the only "area" course we now plan in this series, this course will
particularly explore the relations between art and locale.
Because of the nature of the course it should be re-thought each time it
is offered, reflecting the interests of the main instructor and reaching
out from those central concerns. Attached is an outline of the course as
we anticipate it will be taught in the Spring of 1977.
0
b * ?
•'
FPA. 116 - THE ARTS IN CONTEXT: NORTH AMERICAN STYLES
S
COURSE OUTLINE
I.
Categories of North American Arts
What arts will be studied in this course? For practical reasons
it is appropriate to move in a general direction for the more
ubiquitous and concrete arts toward those that are less omnipresent
and abstract. Thus the course begins with the Decorative Arts of
costume, furniture, town design and sculpture, and then cartography.
In turn Architecture and Sculpture, and then the Visual Arts of
painting, photography, filmmaking and television will be studied.
Finally the Performing Arts of theatre and dance will be surveyed.
•
?
In and through these different arts, certain images and associations
persist and it is the purpose of this course not merely to define
and analyse them but to see them in relation to the historically,
regionally and nationally varied experiences of North Americans.
II.
North American Art History as a Humanity
This course will approach art history as a humanity and to make
plain what this means, it is useful to distinguish art history as
a humanity from art aesthetics, appreciation and connoisseurship.
The arts of North America, whether good or bad, can be experienced
without recalling to mind their intellectual or emotional origins,
that is without relating them intellectually or emotionally to any-
thing outside them. But, this mere enjoyment, the aesthetics of
North American arts, is not art history.
II.
?
North American Art History as a Humanity
?
(Cont'd)
.
So too you can easily separate the appraising and interpreting
of North American arts according to one another or to the arts
of other civilizations and not go further, not be critical.
Connoisseurship - assessment through identification of North
American arts with respect to their date, creator, and user -
is not art history. Treating the study of North American arts
as a humanity may be to treat them aesthetically, as appreciator
and as a connoisseur. But more: it is to place them in a con-
cept of North American living and to judge their social function.
This is the principal goal of the course.
III. The North American Perspective
In the histories of Canada and the United States you see how the
transplanted arts of European migrants started to develop in dif-
ferent regional forms from the 15th Century on. Those forms not
only depended on the cultures of the Spanish, French and British
peoples who settled on the continent but on the astonishing differ-
ences in the natural environments and the varied levels of Indian
and Eskimo cultures that they encountered here
In spite of the large differences in arts made by the development
of independent nation states, first the United States in 1776 and
then Canada in 1867, these early regional formations have continued.
In fact these formations compliment and stimulate the arts of both
nations because both nations have federal governments, and the provinces
and the states act as cultural entities in their own rights. After
all, the written record of the arts in North America stretches back
over 400 years while that of the United States runs only 200 years
0
4
?
-
-3-
and that of Canada a little more than 100 years.
So the real history of arts on the North American continent may
only be understood in the context of their varied regional and
national expressions. This perspective should not be mistaken
for a "continentalist" perspective on North American arts. On
this latter perspective powerful attitudes have gathered, attitudes
which seem to ignore and indeed reduce the large differences
between the arts in Canada and the United States. The content of
the last two weeks in the proposed course outline make clear no
national differences are to be ignored or reduced.
IV.
?
Course Objectives
The objectives of the course can be formally stated in a format
that will be paralleled in the twelve units of work outlined in
the next section. These are:-
1.
To distinguish among the different theories of art history
employed in the study of North American arts and to give
students practice in both using local art history resources
and in writing art history reports.
2.
To define the Decorative Arts used in North American living,
to group these arts into periods and regions that will provide
a backdrop against which can be placed other classes of art.
3.
To distinguish among the period and regional styles of North
American architecture and sculpture and to identify the social
ideals that they express and help to advance.
4.
To trace the development of the Visual Arts first as expressions
of and instruments perpetuating ideals of North American peoples,
then as expressions shaped by and shaping other classes of arts.
-4-
S
IV. ?
__
Course Objectives (Cont'd)
5.
To trace the development of the Performing Arts first as
expressions of and instruments perpetuating ideals of North
American peoples, then as expressions shaped by and shaping
other classes of arts.
6.
To demonstrate the changing forces of centralization and
decentralization operating in North American arts.
7.
To describe and assess the impact of Canadian and United
States political economies on North American art.
8. ?
To give a better understanding of the connections among
arts and within
varied social environments of North America.
V. ?
Block Time Table
Week ?
•Sector
Subject
1
?
A
The History of Art History
B
Methods of Art History
C
Art History as a Humanity (Simon Fraser
University Art History Resources)
2
?
A
European and Other Origins of North American
Arts
B
Periodizing North American Arts
C
Audio-Visual
Ov
erview of North American
•
Decorative Architectural, Performing
and Visual Arts
3
?
A
Cultural Expression in North American
•
Decorative Arts, l6th-20th Century
(costume, domestic and furniture)
B
Cultural Expression in North American
Decorative Arts, l6th-20th Century
(Mapping and Town design)
C
Visiting Lecturer
- 5
V. ?
Block Time Table
?
(Cont'd)
Week
Sector,
Subject
4
A
Architectural Style as Artifact of North
American Living
B
Sculpture as Artifact of North American
Living
C
Films on Canadian and United States Recon-
structions of National Monuments
5
A
Visual Arts:
?
Painting in Different Cultural
Periods
B
Visual Arts:
?
Photography as Chronicler of
North American Life
C
Films on Regional Schools of Painting
6
A
Visual Arts:
?
Film as Artifact of Canadian
and United States Political Ideology
B
Visual Arts:
?
Television and Patterns of
Change in North American Values
C
Visiting Lecturer
7
A
Performing Arts:
?
The Rise of National and
Regional Theatre Schools and Festivals
B
Performing Arts:
?
Social Change in North
America Through the Theatre
C
Visiting Lecturer
8
A
Performing Arts:
?
The Importance of
.
Quebec
Theatre in North America
B
Performing Arts:
?
The Tradition of Difference
Between Canadian and United States Theatres
C
Visiting Lecturer
9
A
Performing Arts:
?
Vernacular Dance in Early
North America
.
B
' ?
Performing Arts:
?
The Development of the National
Ballet of Canada and Other North American Dance
Schools
C
Visiting Lecturer
4 ?
. ?
-
-6--
V. ?
Block Time Table
?
(Cont'd)
Week
?
Sector ?
Subject
10
?
A ?
Performing Arts: The Tradition of the "New"
Dances
B ?
Performing Arts: The Biographies of Signi-
ficant North American Musical Performers
C ?
Visiting Lecturer
11 ?
A ?
Regionalism: The Rise of Cultural Imperialism
in North America
B
?
Regionalism: The Survival of Regional Differ-
ences in North American Style
c
?
Visiting Lecturer
12 ?
A ?
Nationalism: The Political Economy of Art in
the United States
.
?
B ?
Nationalism: The Political Economy of Art in
Canada
C ?
Visiting Lecturer
Tutorials for the course will study a single art form in greater
detail than can be achieved in the lecturs alone. Tutorials may
involve practical exploration in an art form as a means of under-
standing
NorthAlfleriCan
styles. Evaluation of student performance in
the course will be based on an assessment of the students' knowledge
and understanding of arts in the modernist period.
..
-7--
Required Texts:
McLanathan, Richard
Art in America: A Brief History
Harcourt Brace J., 1973
($8.50)
S
National Gallery of
?
300 Years of Canadian Art
Canada
and
?
Information Canada, 1967
Hubbard, R.H.
?
(Bilingual Edition)
($8.00)
.
?
Although these are the only two works students will be required to pur-
chase, an extensive bibliography has been prepared on the various topics
to be covered in the course. Much of this material will be placed on
reserve and required of students.
0
SiMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
?
Scus
7&2g
MEMORANDUM
eTo... ....Mr.
H.M. • Ev
5,
Registrar ..
..reta.ryof the Senate Committee
on Undergraduate Studies
Subject....
New Course Proposal
FPA. 160
From .
J. Blanchet, Secretary of the
Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies
Undergraduate Curriculum Committee
Date.........
September
.3P.
19.7.6
Introduction to the Image
I.S.C. 76-25
The Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies Undergraduate
Curriculum Committee has reviewed and approved the attached new course
proposal, and I am forwarding it to you for inclusion on the agenda of
the Senate Committee on Undergraduate Studies.
Attachment
•
0
SENATE COMMITTEE ON UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES
NEW COURSE PROPOSAL
FORM
40
Calendar Information ?
Department:
Centre for the Arts
Abbreviation
Code:FPA.
?
Course Number:
160
?
Credit Hours:
3
?
Vector:
0-0-6
Tirte of
Course: ?
Introduction to the Image
Calendar
Description of Course:
This course will introduce students to the process of
visual expression through a series of studio exercises. The course leads from an engage-
ment with the significance of objects toward an understanding of the structure and design
of images. Drawing, painting, and three-dimensional construction will be accompanied by
analytical discussion and independent assignments.
Nature of
Course ?
Laboratory (Studio)
Prerequisites (or special instructions):
What course (courses), if any, is being dropped from the calendar if this course is
approved:
None
2.
Scheduling
How frequently will the course be offered? ?
Twice a year
Semester in which the course will first be offered?
19771
Which of your present faculty
would
be available to wake the proposed offering
possible?
Objectives of the Course
This is a first studio-course in visual arts. It does not assume extensive background
in the visual arts but should serve to identify students qualified to proceed to further
studio work as well as give the general student some familiarity with visual fundamentals.
See attached course outline.
4.
Budgetary and Space Requirements (for information only)
What additional resources will be required in the following areas:
Faculty
?
None
Staff ?
None
Library ?
None
Audio Visual None
Space
?
Studio area (to be established)
Equipment
?
Minimal studio equipment (already budgeted)
5.
Approval
Date:
/
7
?
•)
7 ?
'tZ"
W ?
Department Chairman
?
Dean
?
airman, CUS
SiUS
73-34b:--
(When completing this form, for instructions see Memorandum SCUS 73-34a.
Attach course
outline).
)ct.'73
0 ?
COURSE OUTLINE FOR FPA. 160 - INTRODUCTION TO THE IMAGE
Image Exercise Continuing Throughout the Term
Students will choose at random (from a pre-established collection) a
single image. It may be a reproduction of a painting, a photograph, or
other. They will be required to keep this picture with them through-
out the term, to live with it, in fact. Consciously, they must search
out all the ways in which the meaning of the image reveals itself to
them, how it relates to their everyday concerns, how it connects to
other kinds of experience, visual or otherwise. They must continually
encounter this image, much as an artist encounters and becomes involved
with works or images which become important to him. A physical record,
written or otherwise, must be kept of this process, and this record will
constitute a part of the student's submission for evaluation at the end
.
?
of the term.
Studio Work
Studio work is organized to bring all formal, technical, stylistic
problems into play in relation to the student's own desires to create
visually. At this introductory level, formal investigation and studio
skill development will be undertaken through a series of exercises into
which the student brings a subject of importance to him or herself.
Students are requested to select a single object which has a special,
personal meaning to them. This would probably be a personal possession.
All of the studio work will be centered on the problem of creating an
image of this object. Creating such an image will, of course, be more
than a simple "exercise" involving, as it does, personal matter which
the student feels a need to formulate or objectify.
-2-
The Exercises
These are outlined in the order in which the class will work through
them, and each
"
exercise "
does not necessarily correspond to a single
studio session or week's attendance.
The student will make a drawing (or painting if he wishes) of his
object, using any medium, approach technique, etc., he desires. No
instruction or suggestion will be given at this point, only the following
demand will be made:-
YOU MUST NOT SPEAK (to the instructor) ABOUT THE IMAGE, OR
EXPLAIN IT IN ANY WAY. THE INSTRUCTOR WILL NOT DISCUSS YOUR
REASONS FOR CHOOSING AND REPRESENTING THIS PARTICULAR SUBJECT.
HOWEVER, YOU MUST GIVE THE INSTRUCTOR A SENSE OF WHY THIS
SUBJECT IS BEING REPRESENTED.
After submission, a discussion will take place about the class's work,
concentrating upon the student's choice of such things as size of the
image, relation of the size of the image to the size of the paper it is
on, texture, materials, etc.
Exercise 2:
A period of sustained studio work will be undertaken in DRAWING. These
will be aimed at practicing basic drawing approaches techniques. Use of
line, tone, dark and light relationships (chiaroscuro) will be practiced
in relation to both simple and complex objects and under various lighting
.
a
-3-
S
conditions. (During this period, students will interchange the drawings
done in Exercise 1.)
STUDY THE OTHER PERSON'S DRAWING AS YOU ARE STUDYING THE
IMAGE SELECTED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE COURSE. TRY AND DETER-
MINE WHY THE ARTIST MADE HIS PICTURE THIS WAY.
This drawing work will be continued for several weeks in parallel with
subsequent exercises. The object of this drawing work will be to become
competent in rational representation as understood in art history.
Exercise 3:
Return to the object chosen. Students will draw it again freely but
keeping in mind what has been learned in the drawing work. This drawing
?
5 ?
must be interchanged as was the first. Students must now study both
drawings they have received in the sense underlined above.
4 a
Students will interchange their objects in reference to the two drawings
of that object which they already possess. They will draw the object
freely.
DRAW THE OBJECT AS YOU UNDERSTAND IT, JUDGING:
1)
THE TWO DRAWINGS
2)
THEIR RELATIONSHI P
TO THE OBJECT ITSELF
3)
YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE PROCESS TO THIS POINT.
?
- ?
Students will receive their own pictures and object back plus the other
person's drawing of their object.
STUDY ALL THREE DRAWINGS OF THE OBJECT.
-4--
S
The student will draw his object freely again this time from memory.
The drawing shoulci be as complete and fully stated as possible.
PUT AWAY EVERYTHING BUT THIS LATEST DRAWING. DON'T LOOK
AT THE OBJECT OR ANY PREVIOUS DRAWINGS. STUDY THIS ONE IN
THE USUAL SENSE.
F
i ll -
Draw your object from memory again but:
1) Simplify it as much as possible. Include only what is clear in
memory.
•
?
2) Arrive at a simplified image. Make the closest thing to a mech-
anical drawing possible.
PUT AWAY THE PREVIOUS DRAWING. CONCENTRATE ONLY ON THIS
ONE.
Ca I -
Reproduce your image again from memory. Then using the media provided,
colour the image as you feel appropriate. By this stage students will
have produced what to them is the essential representation of their object.
Study the whole group of drawings. Prepare your responses. to the process.
Exercise 8:
0 ?
Class discussion with all drawings and objects in the studio.
-5--
I
.
Exri
?
q
Once again in the studio, working from the object, make a colour
representation. In connection with this a period of sustained studio
work will be undertaken in COLOUR representation (including painting).
Proble in colour interaction, composition and technique will be dealt
with.
Exercise 10:
Students will produce a three-dimensional representation of their object
in any technique which can be managed in our studio conditions. All two
and three-dimensional work will form the student's submission for evalua-
tion.
KI
SiMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
MEMORANDUM
To......
Mr. FLM..
vans,.,.Registrar.. ...
..........
?
From..
J. Blanchet, Secretary..of. the ...................
..
.
of-the..$enate,.Clitte
e
?
.... Faculty.. of .,
nt.erdisciplinary ...
Studies ...
on Undergraduate Studies
?
Undergraduate Curriculum Committee
Subject....
New .Course Proposal.....................................
? September ... 3,..1976............
........
..........
FPA. 251
Dramatic Interpretation II
LS.C76-26
The Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies Undergraduate
Curriculum Committee has reviewed and approved the attached new course
proposal, and I am forwarding it to you for inclusion on the agenda of
the Senate Committee on Undergraduate Studies.
• ?
•-
-
?
Attachment
•,
.-
ft ?
a
SENATE
C
0
1TTEE ON
IJN
DERGRAUATE
STUDIES
NEW COURSE
PROPOSAj.
FORM
Abbreviation
Iit1
C-Alendar
of Course:information
Code:
?
Dramatic
FPA
?
?
Course
Interpretation
Number:251
ii
?
Credit
Department:centre
Hours: 3
?
Vector:
for the
0-0-8
Arts
Calendar
Description of Course:
This course is designed to continue and expand upon the work
undertaken in
FPA. 250. Exercises concentrating on the further development of performance
skills are combined with a systematic approach to
p
oetic realism in the theatre.
Nature of Course
Laboratory
Prerequisites
(or special instructions):
FPA. 250
What
approved:
course (courses), if
any,
is being dropped from the calendar if this course is
None
2
Schedulj
How frequently will the course be offered?
?
Once a year
Semester in which the course will first be offered?
?
77-1
Which
possible?of
your present faculty would be available to make the proposed offering
D.Rotenberg
Objectives of the Course
This course is intended as the second of two atthe second year level which
will together provide intensive foundation work for theatre students, with
emphasis on the actor's art in relation to the total art of the theatre. See
attached course outline.
4. Budgetary
and
Space
R
equirements (for information only)
What additional resources will be required in the following areas:
Faculty ?
None
Staff
?
None
Library ?
None
Audio Visual
None
Space ?
None at this time
Equipment
?
None
5. Approval
-
Date:/,'
?
Z9
Zi
O
£
Department Chairm
an'
( ?
/
--L
—E-I,^/,-
li
l.
Dean ?
Chairman
sctjs
At.t..cb
scus
73-34b;-
course
outline).
(When
completing this form, for
!
nstructjons see Memorandum SCUS 73-34a.
',.,.. ?
t'7)
.- ?
•.-J
.
?
FPA. 251 - DRAMATIC INTERPRETATION II
COURSE OUTLINE
This course is designed to lead from FPA. 250 in furthering the student's
work in the theatre, with emphasis on the art of the actor. New and
different approaches are examined and put into practice. There is a heavy
emphasis on scene presentation accompanied by discussion of initial texts
and performance critiques. The Laban, Spolin, voice and method training
techniques are accelerated and applied in a practical setting. By the use
of texts which have their origins in poetry (see weekly breakdown and bibli-
ography) the role that poetry and myth play in the theatre are examined.
From this examination and a continuation of text analysis the director's
function is introduced. Through developing and executing their own direc-
toral concepts the very difficult subject of Poetic Realism in the theatre
will be introduced.
I
Pre-requisite FPA. 250. Students who have completed courses equivalent to
FPA. 250 elsewhere will be admitted only by special permission.
Course size is limited to 20.
Structure: Studio work and discussion.
Evaluation: Will be based on the achieved level of both skills and under-
standing.
a
0
I ?
I.
-1-
.
?
FPA. 251 - Weekly Course Breakdown
Week 1:
?
Introduction to the approaches of this course.
Laban session #8.
Basic movement and voice.
Text analysis of Edward Bond's Narrow Road to the Deep North.
In conjunction with this analysis Basho's Narrow Road to the
Deep North will be discussed.
Week 2: Sce
The
The
• Week 3: The
The
The
All
ies presented from Bond's Narrow Road to the Deep North.
scenes are critiqued and re-thought.
class formulates a directoral approach to the play.
scenes are re-mounted with the directoral approach in mind.
students are required to present pieces of Basho's poetry.
speech approach is used to help the poetry reading.
scenes are critiqued and evaluated.
Week 4:
?
Basic Voice and Movement.
Laban session #9.
Private moment exercises.
Improvisation.
Week 5: ?
Presentation of one of Brecht's early poems.
Poems are critiqued.
Reference material is discussed (Brustein's The Theatre Revolt
and Bentley's Playwright as Thinker).
Week 6: ?
Presentation of scenes from Brecht's Puntilla and Matti and/or
• ? In the Jungle of the Cities.
Scenes are critiqued and re-thought.
-2-
Week 7 ?
Class is divided into two sections.
&
Week 8:
?
Each section develops a directoral concept for one of the two
Brecht plays and presents scenes in accordance with their
concept.
Week 9:
?
Laban session #10.
Improvisational work.
Basic voice and movement.
Week 10:
?
Shakespeare & Fletcher's The Two Noble Kinsmen is read in
class.
Outside of the class Chaucer's The Knight's Tale is to be
read.
The way to use a first reading will be discussed.
How to evaluate motivation from verse will be broached.
Week 11:
?
Scenes from The Two Noble Kinsmen will be presented.
They will be critiqued and sent out to be re-done.
Week 12:
?
The scenes from The Two Noble Kinsmen are presented and eval-
uated. They are also re-directed in class by the instructor.
Week 13:
?
A week of analysis and review of materials covered.
0
El
MM
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF FPA. 251
Edward Bond:
Narrow Road to the Deep North
Basho:
Narrow Road to the Deep North
Robert Brustein:
The Theatre of Revolt
Eric Bentley:
Playwright as Thinker
Brecht:
In the Jungle of the Cities
Brecht:
Puntilla and Matti
Brecht:
Any early volume of his poetry
Fletcher & Shakespeare:
The Two Noble Kinsmen
Chaucer:
The Kniqht's Tale
is
SiMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
SC OS
7
6-
30
MEMORANDUM
• Mr. H.M. Evans., Registrar ..
?
.
.........Secretary... of ... the ... Senate ... Committee
on Undergraduate Studies
Sub j
ect...
New Course Proposal
FPA. 382
From
J. Blanchet, Secretary. of the
Faculty. of Interdisciplinary Studies
Undergraduate Curriculum Committee
Date.. ?
.
September. .3, .19.76.....
Aesthetics of Performance
I.S.C. 76-27
The Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies Undergraduate
Curriculum Committee has reviewed and approved the attached new course
proposal, and I am forwarding it to you for inclusion on the agenda of
the Senate Committee on Undergraduate Studies.
Attachment
•
o
SENATE COMMITTEE ON
UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES
NEW COURSE PROPOSAL PORN
.
C.AIendar
Information ?
Department:
Centre
for the Arts
Abbreviation C
ode:
p
A,
?
Course Number:
392
?
Credit Hours:
3
?
Vector:
2-1-0
?
-
Title
of Course:
Aesthetics of Performance
Calendar
Description of Course:
This course will examine theatre, dance, and film as public arts. Relationships
of form and meaning among these and other modes of performance
will
be investigated
through topics that may vary from semester to semester. The course is specifically
designed for students of theatre, dance, and film.
Nature of Course
Lecture/Tutorial
Prerequisites (or special instructions):
That course (courses), if any, is being dropped from the calendar if this course is
approved: ?
None
2.Scheduling
How frequently will the course be offered? ?
Once a year
Semester in which the course will first be offered?
77-3
Which of your present faculty would be available to make 'the proposed offering
possible?
.
J. Zaslove can be seconded from English.
Objectives of the Course
See attached statement and course outline.
4.
8udetary and Space Requirements (for information only)
What additional resources will be required in the following areas:
Faculty ?
None at present
Staff ?
None
Library
?
None
Audio Visual
None
Space ?
None
Equipment ?
None
5.
Approval
7 (
?
41
(l'1\ ?
f7(
W ?
Department Chairman
?
Dean
?
Chairinan,
SCUS
LUS
73-34b;-
(When ccnp].eting this
form s , for
r
structiona see Memorandum
SCUS 73.34.
.ch
course
outline)
t7
FPA. 382 -
AESTHETICS
OF
PERFORMANCE
COURSE OBJECTIVES
The primary intent of the course is to encourage students with some know-
ledge of theatre, dance or film to place that knowledge within the context
of other modes of performance. The course will engage students with
problems concerning the forms, idioms and styles associated with theatrical
performance. According to the instructor's interests and preferences, the
course will concern itself with broadly defined areas of theatrical presenta-
tion including ceremony, ritual, drama, music, dance, mime, cinema, spectacle,
puppetry, etc. Emphasis will be placed on the ways in which form creates
meaning in the presentation of theatrical images and theatrical literature.
Especially important will be the development of a critical vocabulary which
will enable the student to notice the particular intellectual and social
"matter" used in particular modes of dramatic presentation.
Although the questions raised in the course will be fundamentally aesthetic
. ?
questions, the material examined will vary from semester to semester. The
course may focus primarily on a single genre or range through a variety of
genres or thematic or historical movements, for example primitive rites of
passage through contemporary theatre of cruelty. Various types of presenta-
tion or problems may be emphasized, for example heroism, expressionism,
translation of novel into film, gesture, the dramatic contexts of everyday
life. Attention may be paid to insights about theatrical presentation to be
derived from cultural anthropology, cultural geography, philosophy, psycho-
analysis, history of literature and art, or any other discipline which
broadens the basis of criticism in the arts. Although a single instructor
will be responsible for the course in a given semester, it is assumed that
various guests will be asked to contribute their expertise from time to time.
Whatever specific shape the course assumes on each occasion it is taught, its
essential purposes will remain the same: to investigate relationships among
various modes of performance, relationships between form and meaning in per-
formance, and relationships between the performing arts and the culture which
surrounds them.
-•1-
I
SPECIFIC PROPOSAL FOR A COURSE TO BE OFFERED
IN
1977, FALL
Act, Actor and Spectacle: Images of Anxiety, and Resolution
in Contaxts of 'Cultural Estrargement
Jerald ZaSlove
This course will research the origins of anxiety in styles of modern
performance by focussing on the unconscious presuppositions behind
modern styles. The course is designed to provide the student with
specific reference points
which will illuminate the relationship be-
tween gesture, style and intellectual content. These reference points
are described in the following pages, but the questions which the
reference points are designed to answer can be mentioned: What. happens
to the theatre in an age when other rituals or modes of seeing (religion,
fi], etc.) dominate traditional forms? How is it that the form of an
event - in art or life -
can repress as well as illuminate the creative
impulse which gave rise to the need to preEent images of life? How is
it that style operates independently, of the content of the work of art?
How does style communicate with content? If performance is a public
event, what are the unconscious and conscious assumptions spectators
• ?
share as a community of onlookers? Is there any historical continuity
in style seen not as "stylistics", but as barriers and mediations between
art and life.
The course will assume that the limits of spectacle lie in the modes
of ambivalence and anxiety which are active, and dormant in the cultural
iconography presented to the spectator. Once we have the performance
before us cultural memory shapes the frame and integrates individuals
into the fantasy. Certain st
yles
can be described as "permission giving"
structures which enable meaning to exist in a detached or distanced
framework. These styles embody meaning, however, and encourage accept-
ance and
collaboration
with the culture or they encourage a demythologizing
of situations and reality. How is the illusion created which permits the
contemplation of experience? How are anticipation and dramatic tensions
created? To what end are the modern techniques of dissocation, super-
imposition and orchestrated space used? How are organic affects created?
How are intellectual needs gratified by emotional techniques? The theatre
may be said to be a primary and pivotal ritual of mankind, fusing economic,
technical and imaginative modes into a form which projects and polarizes
perception within communicable forms. What is our relationship to this
experience and how can we talk about this relationship? If ideas and images
are both artifacts and commodities how can those in the service of making
art become critical without losing touch with their creative purposes? -
this is the central question.
a'
ORGANIZATION OF THE COURSE:
-2-
A. The texts used belong to the period 1900-1930 in Europe. I will
emphasize the origin and development of theatre, language, and
political commitment of the artists Kafka, Brecht, Hasek, Paul Klee
and Fritz
Lang. The focus on the period of post-World War I art
and literature
has two purposes: (1) to look at a specific his-
torical period and so indicate the coherence of a period as seen
through the form, content, and development of particular modes of
art commonly referred to as expressionism or surrealism; and (2) to
indicate how this particular period has influenced our sense of
what we accept as "modern" - especially to show how the works of
the writers and artists above have triumphed in our contemporary
world as the dominant style of both popular and avant garde art.
Introductory Texts:
Weston LaBarre:
?
The Ghost Dance (specific chapters)
Susanne Langer:
?
Philosophy in a New Key (specific chapters)
John Willett: ?
Expressionism
o
?
Jack Lindsay:
?
A Short History of Culture (various chapters)
Weeks 1 -
4:
Bertolt Brecht:
?
Baal, Jungle of Citiesi A Man's A Man,
Messingkauf Dialogues
Peter Bogdanovicb: Fritz
Lang in lunerica (film)
Antonin Artaud: ?
The Theatre and its Double
Paul Klee:
?
The Diaries of Paul Klee (movement)
Weeks 5 - 8:
Franz
Kafka:
?
The Trial
Erwin Piscator:
?
The Political Theatre
Milton Mayer:
?
They Thought They Were Free (society as theatre)
Siegfried Kracauer: From Caligiari to Hitler (film)
H. Eisner: ?
The Haunted Screen (film)
46
-3-
0
Weeks 9 - 13:
E.Z. Friedenberg:
Richard Schechner:
Jerzy Grotbwki:
Paul Radin:
Sam Shepard:
Coming of Age in America
Environmental Theatre
Towards a Poor Theatre
The Trickster
Plays
Jaroslav Hasek:
?
The Good Soldier Schweik
N.E. - Material above will supply lecture content; some reading
of above required, other reading recommended. Students
from the various arts will be asked to create scenarios,
plans, and problems based on Kafka's The Trial. Coming
of Age in America will be, used to suggest how childhood
and adolescent school experience shapes the theatrical
expectations
of modern students of theatre, film, and
dance.
a
B. The aesthetic problems of style and performance mentioned in the
paragraphs describing the course will be dealt with as follows:-
I will not only assume that there are specific aesthetic "givens"
which belong exclusively to individual art forms (theatre, film,
movement-dance).
I
will attempt to show that problems of time,
space, tension, image, gesture, intellectual idea and artistic
style are fulfilled in and through the artists' view of the world
and the artists' ?
of the social media available. "Style" will
be treated as a function of historical tropes, that is as themes
or reference points from which the artist develops his art and
attempts, thereby, to change the world to his way of seeing and
experiencing.
Here follows some of the "tropes" which will be used
in the course to explain how and why certain experiences precede
and accompany performance and give form to ways of seeing:
1. SOCIETY AS SACRED SPECTACLE: The Ghost Dance (by Weston LaBarre)
Entrance into religious mystery,
ritual origins of theatre, violence and ecstacy as formal ingre-.
dients, wizardry, priestcraft, and the collective soul, gestures
as relative to modes of. repetition, ideas of collective soul and
group participation. Theories of Artaud, Grotowski, Schechner.
Ethnic
nationalism and the ideal of the total mobilization of the
human body against thought and for thought.
-4-
o
??
2, THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE CULTURE HERO: The
__
Trickster (Paul Radin)
Banditry, trickster, and
stylized forms of individual response to
collectivization: super-
manism, dandyism, sexual stereo-typing, narcissism, gangsterism
and versions of cathartic portrayal which expect identification
from audience, or sympathy from audience. (G. Legman, Harold
Rosenberg, Meyerhold, Marx Brothers, Brecht ...).
3.
THE HUMAN BODY AS IRREDUCIBLE GIVEN: Cult of authenticity;
masks; stripping of emotion;
war on the mind; physiognomy of faces, relationship of movement
to work and sensuality; relationship of movement to ideas of
disease and discipline, athleticism and repose; inventions and
fashions which extend the human body; the relationship of action,
speed, fluidity, plasticity to human body; ideals of beauty in
the human form, nudity, competition, dimension, color, dance
the body as the repository of the repressed emotion.
4.
SCENIC EXPECTATIONS, REPRODUCTION
.
AND DUPLICATION OF "PASSIVE"
SITUATIONS:
The city, the relationship of mass to mob; machine
space, light, advertising as the poetry of pre-
established needs, the production value of design, ideologies
.
?
of literacy (everybody is literate because he or she can talk
or read), passive audience stereo-typing, perspective seen as
devices to distance spectator, illusions of intimacy, cult of
youth and other devices which prolong pastoral image of "school";
documentary styles and distancing; piety and religiosity in art-
works.
5.
THE FILM AS A
HEDIUM COLLABORATING
WI
TH
.
:
AND ILLUMINATING CULTURE:
a)
Rural Naturalism and Ambivalent Devotion to a Cause:
"Autobiography of Maxim Gorkii"
?
(Russia, 1938)
"Best
'
Years of our Lives"
?
(USA, 1946)
b)
Dream Cornp.siofl, Urban Gothic and the Spokesmen for Persecution:
"M"
Germany
1931
Fritz Lang, Dir.
"Three Penny Opera"
Germany
1931
Engel, Brecht,
"The Trial"
USA/France,
etc.196?
Orson Welles, Dir.
"Partners"
Italy
1968
Bertolucci
c)
Sentimental Tragedy, Moral Journalism:
"Little Caesar" "High Noon" "Easy Rider"
d)
Documentary Ainoralism and Technique as Style:
"Titicut Follies"
?
(Wiseman)
"I Am curious Yellow"
?
.(Sj&an)
-5-.
i
e)
The Inventive Body and Music Hall Anarchism:
"Duck Soup"
?
(Marx Brothers)
"The Old Fashioned Way"
?
(WC. Fields and others)
"Million Dollar Legs"
?
(W.C. Fields, Jack Oakie...)
"Drole de draxne"
?
(Barrault, Simon, LeCroux...)
"Boudu Saved from Drowning"
?
(Renoir/Simon)
"It's a Gift" ?
(W.C. Fields)
f) Director as Culture Hero, The Skilled Hack and Pseudo-
Profundity of Style; Introspective Filmmaking:
"Monsieur Verdoux"
?
(Chaplin)
"Vir j d j a" ?
(Bunuel)
"The Silence" ?
(Bergman)
"Blow Up" ?
(Antonioni)
"Lee Enfants du Paradis"
N.B. - Films will be shown concurrently with course and films
in use from other courses will be discussed. A selection
will be made from above list.
a
411
SiMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
SCU-S
7&3/
MEMORANDUM
T.
?
....................
.........
Secretary ... of ... the ... Senate. ..Comiiittee....
on Undergraduate Studies
Subtect ........
New...Course..Proposal.. ..... . ......................... ....
FPA. 384
From .......
J.
.Blanchet, Secretary ... of. ... the .... ...................
Faculty.
..of... Interdisciplinary..Studies...
Undergraduate Curriculuth Committee'
Date
.........................
September ..3.,.. .1976........................................
Criticism of Perfonnance
I.S.C. 76-28
The Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies Undergraduate
Curriculum Committee has reviewed and approved the attached new course
proposal, and I an forwarding it to you for inclusion on the agenda of
the Senate Committee on Undergraduate Studies.
Attachment
:jk
.
0
5.
Approval ?
Date:
4:L.
Department Chairman
•
c4
7
/F2L
Pc
Dean
Chairman,
3
Scus
I
?
t.S.C. 1-7..Y
SENATE COMMITTEE ON UDERCRADUATE STUDIES
NEW COURSE PROPOSAL
PORN
Calendar
Information
?
Department:
Centre for the Arts
Abbreviation Code:
FPA.
?
Course Number:
384 ?
Credit Hours:
3
Vector:
03-0
Title
of Course:
Criticism of Performance
Calendar Description of Course:
This course is designed to give students practice and
encouragement in articulating their responses to live performances of drama, dance, and
other forms of theatrical presentation. The course will involve discussions about
critical method in relation to various performing arts and about individual productions,
as well as attendance at numerous performances and occasional rehearsals. A substantial
amount of critical writing will be required.
Nature ot Course
Seminar
Prerequisites (or special instructions):
What course (courses), if any, is being dropped from the calendar if this course is
approved: ?
None
2.
S
hedulin g
Row
frequently will the course be offered?
?
Once a year
Semester in which the course will first be offered?
77-1
Which of your present faculty would be available to make the proposed offering
possible?
Professor E. Alderson can teach the course in
77-1,
drawing on the resources
•
of Professor L. Kitchin of the English Dept. and Professors Garland and Rotenberg of the
Objectives of the
Course
?
Centre for the Arts.
?
See attached statement and course outline.
4.
Budgetary and
Space Requirements (for
information only)
What additional resources will be
required
in the following areas:
Faculty
Staff
Library
Audio Vis
Space
Equipment
None at this time
None
None
ual
None
None
None
Attach
scus
73-34b:--
course
outline).
(When completing this form, for instructions see Memorandum SCUS
73-34.
Oct. 1
731
4
?
S
FPA. 384 - CRITICISM OF PERFORMANCE
0
?
COURSE OBJECTIVES
The basic objective of this course is to train students to be alert and
engaged viewer-participants of live performance and so increase their
understanding of the performing arts. It emphasizes the articulation in
writing of critical response. It is designed primarily for students with
substantial knowledge of theatre or dance, but is open to others as well.
A single faculty.meinber should take responsibility for the course, but stu-
dents should have frequent exposure to experienced critics.and to persons
with expertise in the arts addressed in the course.
It may be well to state some things the course is and is not:-
Although it will require the regular writing of critical pieces, it is not
a journalism course designed to give students practice in writing reviews,
nor to train professional critics in any direct sense. The writing assign-
ments can take various forms and are intended to encourage students to
• ?
engage fully with performances by the requirement to articulate that engage-
ment.
Although it will ask students to become deeply concerned with aesthetic
values, it is not intended to give students fluency in passing negative
judgment nor to permit them to assume the posture of distant and chastising
guardians of taste. On the contrary, it assumes that the fundamental criti-
cal act is the positive act of response and attempts to encourage the dialogue
relationship between audience and performer from which the best criticism
emanates.
Because it asks students to write about a variety of performing arts, it
must expect them on occasion to practice criticism of arts in which they do
not have extensive background. This does not mean that the course will de-
value the importance of practical or theoretical knowledge of an art to the
criticism of it. Within the limits of its central purposes, the course should
require intensive study of theatre and dance, but centred around selected live
productions. Music will be discussed as it enters forms of theatre, but
i
sspecialized music criticism will not be expected. Students of any of the per-
forming arts, however, should become aware from a new perspective of their own
and other arts and of their interrelationships.
FPA. 384 - CRITICISM OF PERFORMANCE
S
COURSE OUTLINE
It is impossible to give a week by week breakdown of the course well in
advance, because the schedule of discussions and assignments will depend
upon the timing of appropriate productions on and off campus. It is
possible to name and briefly elaborate seven areas of discussions that
would be continued throughout the course and five major projects that all
students would complete in addition to minor assignments tailored to indi-
vidual interests.
Areas of Discussion
1.
The Function of Criticism: artist vs. critic; criticism and the
improvement of the arts; implicit and explicit standards of performance
5 ?
as entertainment, play, propaganda, cultural appeasement, commodity,
art; journalistic aims of promotion, formation of taste, encouragement
of artists; critic as ideal audience.
2.
The Skills and Knowledge of the Critic: knowledge of process and eval-
uation of performance; critical traditions; knowledge of performance
styles and performance history; critical categories and the importance
of expectations.
3.
Response and the Question of Authority: subjectivist theories of criti-
cism; intention, interpretation, and response; the nature of external
authority in performing arts criticism; response exercises.
4.
Writing Criticism: the motive for writing; the question of audience;
rhetorical purpose and its relation to form; the variety of formal possi-
bilities; building form from essential responses; editing and revision
that retains the initial motive.
4
0
-2-
5.
Drama: the relation of text to performance; various directoral methods
of working with and away from text; director's theatre and actor's
theatre; influence of physical environments; production as a series of
choices.
6.
Dance: the problem of verbalized response to non-verbal art; structure
in the absence of text; the choreographic
process
and its varieties;
music and rhythmic forms; mimesis, sensuality and meaning.
7.
Mixed Forms and Avante-Garde: the need for affect and the assault on
formal categories; the reliance of criticism on formal expectations;
the temptations of i
n
terpretation and elitism; change in art and the
whole task of the critic.
Major Projects
The entire class would be required to become critically engaged with at
least five productions during the semester. Each of these projects would
involve class discussion prior to the performance, and writing and further
discussion after it, but they might vary in the following ways:
1.
Drama (off-campus production):
?
reading the play; discussion of critical
background and performance history with guest faculty; discussion of direc-
toral concepts with theatre faculty; following critical writing and dis-
cussion, meeting with director of production; re-viewing the production.
2.
Drama (on-campus production): reading the script; discussion with the
director, followed by meeting with designer, technical director, stage
manager, producer; attendance at rehearsals; following critical writing,
further discussion with director.
3.
Dance (off-campus production)
?
discussion of company, its history, style
•
?
?
and influences with dance faculty; meeting with artistic director if pos-
?
-sible; following critical writing and discussion, reading and discussion
of published criticism of c1iomry,
-3-.
40 ?
4. Dance (on-campus production): discussion of choreographic method with
choreographer; periodic attendance at rehearsals of a single composition,
keeping journal of responses; periodic discussions with choreographer
on creative process, including music and design; following critical
writing, further discussion and analysis from videotape of composition.
5. Mixed presentation, "happening" or other avante-garde performance (from
film or videotape, if necessary): writing descriptive piece on everyday
scene as theatre; following viewing and critical writing, discussion of
traditional sources of performance components; discussion with creator,
if possible.
In addition to the above assignments, students would be encouraged to attend
and occasionally to write on performances of their choice. They would also
be required to view and write briefly on a variety of other modes of theatrical
presentation, including a selection from film, television, mime, musical revue,
and opera. Selected reading would be assigned from the following texts, among
others
0
40
MAW
PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Theatre
Blau, H.
The Impossible Theatre.
Macmillan, 1965
Brustein, R.S.
Revolution as Theatre.
New York:
?
Liveright,
1971
Brustein, R.S.
Seasons of Discontent.
Simon & Schuster, 1965
Fergusson, F
The Idea of a Theatre.
New York: 1953
Gilman, R.
Common and Uncommon Masks. ?
Random House, 1971
Gilman, R.
Making of Modern Drama.
Farrar, Strauss, and
Giroux, 1974
James, H.
The Scenic Art, Notes on Acting and the Drama.
ed. A. Wade, Rutgers,
1948
Kerr, W.
?
Tragedy and Comedy. Simon & Schuster, 1967
Nathan, G.J. ?
The Critic and the Drama. New York: 1922
Shaw, G.B. ?
Plays and Players, Essays on the Theatre.
ed. A.C. Ward, Oxford, 1952
Taylor, J.R.
?
Anger and After. Penguin, 1963
The Second Wave. Methuen, 1971
Tynan, K. ?
Curtains. Anetheum, 1971
Williams, R. ?
Drama in Performance. New York: 1968
Reviews in:
Canadian Theatre Review
Drama Review
Performing Arts in Canada
Theatre Quarterly
is
-5-
.
Partial Bibliograp
hy
(cont'd)
Dance
Cohen, Selma Jean (ed.)
?
The Modern Dance: Seven Statements of
Belief.
Denby, Edwin
? Looking at the Dance.
Denby, Edwin
?
Dancers, Buildings, and People in the
Streets.
Gautier, Thophile
?
The Romantic Ballet. (trans. by C.W.
Beaumont) New York: Dance Horizons,
1932
MacDonald, Nesta
?
Diaghilev Observed. By the Critics in
England and the United States 1911-1929.
New York: Dance Horizons, 1932
Martin, John
?
Introduction to the Dance. New York: Dance
Horizons, 1968
Martin, John ?
The Modern Dance. New York: Dance Horizons,
1965
Siegel, Marcia ?
At the Vanishing Point: A Critic Looks at
Dance.
Sorell, Walter
?
The Dancer's Image: Points and Counterpoints.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1971
Reviews in:
Dance and Dancers
Dance Magazine
New Yorker Magazine (Arlene Croce)
New York Times (Clive Barnes)
Toronto Star (William Littler)
Village Voice (Deborah Jowitt)
York Dance Review
.
40
.- ?
*
-6-
Partial Bibliography (cont'd)
0
General
Bleich, D.
Readings and
Feelings,
an Introduction to
Subjective Criticism.
Urbana, 1975
Langer, S.
Feeling and Form.
?
New
York: ?
1953
Sontag, S.
Against Interpretation,
and Other Essays.
New York: 1953
.
40
