As part of the Center for the Humanities' Mellon Digital Publics Fellowship 2-year Initiative, Jaime Shearn Coan will be teaching a new course, Writing about Contemporary Performance, at Queens College in Spring 2018. This course will take place in partnership with the CUNY Dance Initiative, bringing students into direct contact with dance artists as they develop their writing voices. Writing about Contemporary Performance is open to all Queens College undergraduate students and fulfills the Writing 2 core requirement.
DRAM 130: Writing about Contemporary Performance: A Partnership with the CUNY Dance Initiative
DRAM 130 SEC 02
Writing about Performance
Instructor: Jaime Shearn Coan
Registration: 66796
Date and Time: Th 1:40-4:30
Location: Rathaus Hall Room 219
Course description: This writing course will serve as an active laboratory where students will consider what it means to write about dance performance and how to go about it. The politics of reading and representing bodies in motion will be a thread running through all discussions. Students will encounter writings that range from journalistic, to academic, to creative, and will learn and practice a repertoire of techniques and strategies for bold, clear, and engaging writing through short in-class exercises and writing workshops. The course has a hands-on approach due to its development in collaboration with the CUNY Dance Initiative, housed at The Kupferberg Center for the Arts at Queens College Queens College, with the aim of strengthening the connections between CDI dance artists, students, faculty, and New York City performance communities. Students will attend performances and rehearsals, and develop writing alongside the practices and performances of the artists, with the ultimate goal of developing a longer piece to be published in the CDI online platform, From the Floor. This seminar fulfills Queens College’s College Writing 2 requirement, which means it is a second semester, discipline-based writing seminar that provides students with the opportunity to hone their writing skills as applied to work in specific discipline(s): here, the disciplines of dance and performance as taught by the department of Drama, Theater and Dance.
Queens College undergraduate students can register for the course here through CUNYFirst.
Co-sponsored by Queens College, The CUNY Dance Initiative, and the Mellon Digital Publics Fellowship from the Seminar on Public Engagement and Collaborative Research at the Center for the Humanities, the Graduate Center, CUNY.
