THE MOVING BODY

How do stage and screen use movement to further the meaning of texts? What relationships emerge between motion and emotion, between kinesis and empathy, and how do those relationships vary across different body types and identities, and even across the movement repertories of animals and objects? How does the moving body evade theoretical frameworks that seek to arrest it? To answer such questions in two historically specific ways, this seminar zigzags between early modernity and the last century to survey major performance genres in each that make pronounced use of movement. In addition to plays, we will study dumb shows and silent film, masques and ballets, “dramatick operas” and tanztheater, fairs and freak shows, civic pageants and protest theater, animal baiting and circuses, “motion men” and motion capture. We will draw in particular upon the insights of phenomenology, performance theory, and critical dance studies, as well as affect, animal, critical race, and disability studies. We will examine motion at the scale of individual and collective embodiments, and in actions that range from gestures to dance steps. Major figures studied include Amiri Baraka, Pina Bausch, Charlie Chaplin, Merce Cunningham, Asadata Dafora, William Davenant, Thomas Dekker, John Dryden, Eiko & Koma, Mat Fraser, Thomas Heywood, Bill T. Jones, Ben Jonson, Young Jean Lee, Suzan-Lori Parks, Marius Petipa, William Shakespeare, and Luis Valdez.