Environmental Performance

Studio seminar investigates live performance as a medium in constant flux. No play is performed the same way twice; no experience can ever be repeated. When a performance breaks the fourth wall, audiences are immersed fully and completely in a world with its own unique attributes. Exploring the many tropes of engagement including site-specific theater, interactive theater, environmental theatre, location theater or public art performance, students will engage in the process of dismantling some of the known boundaries of experience. Studio exercises, readings, screenings, and performance assignments tackle questions of identity, human relationship to space, as well as the creative and logistical aspects of making performance in non-traditional spaces—spaces which blur the line between spectator and participant. With a particular focus on the works of contemporary performance artists and theater companies, final projects require participants to plan, create and execute an original performance with consideration to space and identity on location at MIT.

Adrian Piper, Mythic Being Still 10 (1973)