Karawane: Hugo Ball vs. Marie Osmond

In the Goldgerg book this week, you have read a fair amount about important Dada artist Hugo Ball. Some text and an image from his 1916 Cabaret Voltaire piece Karawane can be found on page 61. About seventy years later, Marie Osmond revisited the same piece. Hear her amazing rendition here.

FYI: Link to Andy Kaufman/Laurie Anderson piece

Here is the link to the Studio 360 radio piece on Andy Kaufman with Laurie Anderson.

Enjoy!

Week 2: Here is what you have to do before our next class

READINGS:
Here is the link to the JSTOR reading for this week:
Performing Bodies: Zhang Huan, Ma Liuming, and Performance Art in China, by Zhang Huan; Ma Liuming; Qian Zhijian
This week the reading assignment also includes pages 50-96 in the Goldberg book.

INTERNET:
At least 2 comments on the forthcoming "assignment post" regarding these readings;
At least 4 more links posted to your del.icio.us site;

PROJECTS:
A performance involving the Beuys clip art with photos posted to your Flickr account;

WRITING:
A working proposal for your Performing the Self project: at least one page and no more than two pages.

The Beaver Trilogy (assignment post)

For those of you that made it to the film last night, please post at least two thoughtful comments on the film.

Here are some considerations:
•Discuss Gary's characters (that he portrays) in contrast to the characters portrayed by (Sean Penn's) Larry and (Crispin Glover's) Larry.

•Discuss transformations or other subtleties between Gary and the two Larrys (who are both characters portrayed by actors).

•Examine a trajectory (thematic or otherwise) from the first film, an accidental documentary, through the other two subsequent fictionalized films.

•Highlight any performative methods (and locate them in the piece so I know what you are talking about) that were particularly effective or that may be useful to you in your personal practice.

Class photos now on Flickr

Photos from Monday's class exercise have now been posted on our class Flickr page.

Remember to set up your own Flickr and del.icio.us accounts and email your URLs to me ASAP. Also, make sure you are set up as an author on this blog, and don't forget to comment on the assignment post about this week's readings.

REMINDER: Film Tonight, 7 p.m.

Beaver Trilogy is a series of three short films revolving around the same character. The first piece, “The Beaver Kid” is a documentary about filmmaker Trent Harris’ accidental meeting of an eccentric young man from Beaver, Utah in 1979. The second piece, “Beaver Kid 2” is a fictional reworking of the original documentary starring Sean Penn. The third piece, “The Orkly Kid” is another treatment of the original documentary, this time starring Crispin Glover.

“Filmmaker Trent Harris is a genuine maverick who has posted his first piece of genius.”
James Christopher - The Times London

“Best Independent/Experimental Film of 2001”
Los Angeles Critics Association

“A rivetingly strange, multi-layered inquiry into celebrity, obsession, and serendipity.”
A.O. Scott- New York Times

• Runtime: 83 min
• Language: English
• Color: Black and White / Color
• Rating: Unrated (language, adult themes, Olivia Newton-John)

Links

• Beaver Trilogy Official Site
• Filmmaker Magazine / Interview with director, Trent Harris
• Reruns / PRI’s This American Life featuring Beaver Trilogy
• IMDb / Beaver Trilogy

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Also, if you have not signed up as an author for the blog, please do so ASAP. If you have already set up your del.icio.us and Flickr accounts, please email me with the URL (address) of your sites. You can also email me with any other questions you may have.

Readings Week 1 (assignment post)

Please post at least two comments on the readings for this week: the Klaus Groh essay, the Jon Erickson essay, and pages 7-49 in the Goldberg book.

Here are some considerations:
•How do the working definitions of performance art, whether delineated, implied, or retreated from, differ for each author?
•What claims are you inclined to believe/agree with? (and why)
•Are you willing to answer any of the questions asked by Erickson in the concluding sections of his essay? ("Should we expect a historian. . .to be a skilled theoretician at the same time?" "When and how does theatre become 'performance theatre," "the relation of art to life" etc.)
•Defend or refute Goldberg's claim on pg. 9 that the base of performance art has always been anarchic.
•If you have studied the Futurists in other courses (art history, English, etc), how does this recounting of the movement's history differ from what you learned before about the individual artists work, their motivations? Does this recontextualization affect your reading of their manifesto claims?
•Why are these authors making claims about artists' "desperation" (Groh), "impatience" (Goldberg), experience in "ridicule" (Erickson)? What might this imply about the art world, mainstream culture's perception of performance art, or an artist's choice to work in performance? How does this square with your experience of the "art world"?

Please note: Erickson's references to Goldberg's book, Performance: Live Art Since 1960 differ from his references to her book, Live Art: 1908 to the Present, which is an earlier version of our class text.

Welcome

Joseph Beuys Sonne Statt Reagan, (1982)

Welcome to the VaPA 390 Theory and Practice in VaPA: Performance Art's weblog.