WesMaps - Wesleyan University Catalog 2015-2016       Summer Session       Winter Session       Home       Archive       Search
CS92PROD
Schwanze-Beast (S-B) Performance Composition--Animals and the Future


COL 264
Spring 2016
Section: 01  
Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory
Course Cluster: Animal Studies

This interdisciplinary course led by writer and performance artist Carmelita Tropicana explores the meaning and role of animals in our lives and problematizes neat categories and distinctions between humans and other animals. The course also examines the use of sci-fi as a genre for social and political critique. Tropicana will be joined by longtime collaborator filmmaker Ela Troyano, along with guest faculty from different disciplines.

The studio course will provide students the opportunity to share in the collaborative process and create content based on Schwanze-Beast (S-B), a sci-fi project by Tropicana and Troyano. This hands on practical course aims to strengthen creative writing for interdisciplinary work. Students are given writing exercises developed by playwright Maria Irene Fornes to create original material; they will view/read works that use animals and the sci-fi genre examining the work for themes, character, plot, and the use of other elements in performance to break up the narrative, e.g., lectures and interviews. Participants will use the Liz Lerman critical response process for performance. Students will also work as research assistants for Tropicana.

Schwanze-Beast (S-B) is a (work in progress) full-length performance with video/set installation by Carmelita Tropicana and Ela Troyano. A futuristic interspecies narrative, part performance, part scientific lecture, in S-B the future becomes the lens through which to look at our current cultural landscape. An interspecies woman/hyena and an android question what separates the human from the Beast (or the Other).

The course requires written report(s) based on artists covered in class and/or work with guest faculty. The course culminates in a student-written epilogue for S-B, with a handout for the audience envisioning the future and possible actions to be taken to create a more equitable and just world.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA COL
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: None
Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available

Last Updated on MAR-29-2024
Contact wesmaps@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions. Please include a url, course title, faculty name or other page reference in your email ? Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459