Course
AAS 260 Topics in Asian American Culture:
Revolutionary Afro Asian Spoken Word and Performance
September 2 – December, 11 2008
Lecturer: Fred Ho, Interdisciplinary Artist-in-Residence, Arts Institute, UW–Madison
Lec 01, 3 credits
Pre-Requisites: Audition
Course Times: Tuesday, Thursday, 11:30 am–2:30 p.m.
Classroom Locations:
TUESDAYS, Room 2521, Humanities Building
THURSDAYS, Room 1321, Humanities Building
Course Description:
REVOLUTIONARY: To imagine and develop the practical basis for a new society with focus and emphasis upon the experimental and that which is “coming into being”;
AFRO ASIAN: To primarily (‘though not exclusively) base our perspective (historical, aesthetical) upon the traditions of the African and Asian Diasporas;
SPOKEN WORD and PEFORMANCE: To primarily develop texts (literary forms) that will be performed with skill, craft, originality, experimentation and innovation in interactivity with performing artists (dancers, musicians, etc.).
The course is a workshop in which the students will create a new performance piece under the direction of Fred Ho that integrates music and sung and/or spoken text, theater, and movement, and will be inspired by the nexus of the African-Asian and African American-Asian American cultural traditions, forms and histories. The work will interrogate the western musical genres of jazz, opera, and in the process provide a context for creation of a new sound fusion inspired by Afro-Asian musics, and African American and Asian American aesthetics. Through a multi-disciplinary focus, students integrate sound with movements and theater. The new student piece will be performed in a public concert on November 22, 2008, in the Wisconsin Union Theater. Students will also carry-out outreach workshops in on-campus classes and at off-campus sites (neighborhood centers, middle and high schools).
Inset photo by Robert Adam Mayer.