| ARTS 445: Special Topics in New Media: Performance UIUC School of Art + Design Room 334 Flagg Hall Mondays + Wednesdays, 1-3:40p Fall 2022 |
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| Assignment 05: FINAL SHOW - Due FRIDAY and SATURDAY DECEMBER 2nd & 3rd - VENUE TO BE ANNOUNCED O.K., let's try for something a little more finished. Something for an audience bigger than ourselves. We will produce a 60 to 90 minute long show in The Armory Free Theater. The show (to be named, produced, created, advertised, made, born the class) will be presented twice, at 7:00pm and 11:59pm on Friday December 2. Treat the show as a cabaret evening - a series of short performances (solo pieces, small groups, big groups, etc.). The show could take other forms (we'd have to agree on whatever form that would be - the class and Deke). The main boundary is that the show should not be longer than 90 minutes and the weight of the evening should rest in The Armory Free Theater. This time limit includes EVERYTHING - the performances, the transitions,(I advise you NOT to make the show so long that you need an intermission). Site-specific work will need to be approved by myself and the class. |
| MULTIPLE HATS In creating these evening-length pieces, there are a number of considerations - different hats - for each of you to wear. In some cases, good things happen for those who wait... but in many many other cases (most cases, actually), those who wait around for somebody else to get something done will wait around for a long time. For this show and your art career - don't wait: DO IT YOURSELF. CONTENT 1) The Individual Pieces: Create a 3-5 minute performance. This can be a solo or group performance. If it's a group performance, please limit your group to people in the class - if you want to use people who are not in the class, it must be approved by the class. It can be based on one of the performances you've already made in class or something new. 2) The Whole Show: How will the show flow? How will the different performances fit together? You could think of this as curating a visual arts show or editing a book of poems/short-stories or creating an album of songs (which pictures hang next to each other? what is the sequence of short-stories... there are the individual stories, but there is a “meta-story” being created - a series of juxtapositions and connections that are being made by how the smaller parts fit together). Maybe there is a general theme you’d all like to respond to or maybe you’d all make the requirement that everybody HAD to include one particular odd prop in every performance... 3) Transitions: Some of my favorite performance/theater memories are of brilliant transitions. Once the show starts - do not stop it. It is a very very very good idea to choreograph the transitions between the various pieces. A fairly traditional - but often fun - idea is to have an master-of-ceremonies kind of character who comes out and sings/tells-bad-jokes/takes-the-attention-spotlight while props/set/etc. is removed from the last piece and arranged for the next piece. In the UK these characters are known as “comperes.” A more difficult, but often more satisfying form of transition is to actually create small performances out of the transitions - tiny performances that include elements from the previous performance and foreshadowing elements for the next performance. FORM 1) The Individual Pieces: What do you need technically? How can you get it - for the performance itself and for rehearsal? Where will you rehearse? What deadline should you give yourself to have it written/shaped so you can have enough time to rehearse the piece? How can you streamline your set-up/break-down time so it can be incorporated into a short transition? 2) The Whole Show: Who will be running the lights for the show? Sound? Where will you get the lights? Where will you get the sound system? Stage managing? Who will be ushers? How are the props/tech/set items arranged so they are ready to go out for the particular pieces? 3) Transitions: Rule-of-thumb for transitions - the people who are performing should not be setting up or taking down their own props/tech/set/etc. The transitions should be as thought-through and choreographed as any of the set performances. Who does what? Where does everything go? Are you doing it in the dark? What is happening? Sound? Image? Tone? Bad joke? ADVERTISING/etc. Posters? Fliers? Web? TikTok? Instagram? FB? Word-of-mouth? Threats? Prime-time T.V. commercials? Who will make them? Who will give them all the information? When does the designer need to have the final art-work to the printer to get them back to you all to be able to hand them out? A big part of being a working artist is the business end of things. Get used to it. Make it as interesting as the art. |