Class is underway. Check out the blog http://actingoutinmovement.blogspot.com/

Acting Out: Experiments in Movement is part gym class, part art class and part philosophical discussion. Over 5 weeks, this class will get us out and moving around. We will explore how we move in our everyday lives by shifting, transforming and distorting those movements in our experiments and exercises. This class will be fun and challenging. Anyone is welcome as long as you’re into acting up and acting out.

COURSE DESCRIPTION/OBJECTIVES:

In this course, we will move our bodies in order to understand how we move or rather what it means to move. Experimenting with everyday movements such as walking, gestures, games, sports and dance, we will ask questions about how we move in space, in relation to one another, in our homes and in the city. Any level of fitness is welcome. As a group, we will share our own personal knowledge of how we move ourselves and learn from each other. All that is required is an open and curious sense of adventure.

The emphasis of this course is on getting out and moving our bodies wherever we feel that we need to. This may be a walking exercise through the city or game of soccer using the entire University campus as the playing field or experimenting with contact improvisation. We will work as a group as well as individually on a personal level. All our activities will be done safely and will be considerate of each participant’s physical abilities.

Using the ideas of philosopher Michel de Certeau and his text The Practice of Everyday Life as a jumping off point, we will begin by discussing how systems are realized in the practice of those who use them and how movement is a way of acting out and challenging the stability of a given system. This is movement as enunciation. This is movement as a possible sight of subversion and resistance.

This course will combine short readings from de Certeau’s text with a discussion period at the beginning of each class. In that discussion, we will turn over the ideas presented and find how we relate to them. Then we will put the talk aside for action. The class length will be determined by the activity of the evening. After the class ends, we have the opportunity to reflect and extend the discussion through an online blog. This will be a space to post new ideas, thoughts on what we have done that week or related materials such as pictures, videos and texts.

COURSE STRUCTURE:

This course will meet every Tuesday evening for 5 weeks. It is up to the participants to determine how long an activity will continue and therefore the class may run later or finish sooner, depending. The first class will be an introduction, hand out of provided readings and an activity determined by the facilitator to get us started. From there, the course material will be open and flexible depending on the special interest of those participating. At the end of each class or through that week’s blog discussions, we will determine what the content of the next week will be. The last class will be devoted to a final project that each participant will develop in order to express their special concerns and interests. This may take any form such as a performance, a specially designed group activity or even a private act that will be shared through the retelling of it.

RECOMMENDED TEXT:

Handouts of the sections we will discuss will be provided at no cost. This text will launch our explorations in movement.

de Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: California UP, 1984.

Please send me an email if you are interested or if you have any questions. Hope to see you there! Erin Fraser erinf@uniserve.com