Upcoming SDaS Course Offerings
Autumn School for Designing a Society
August 23 - November 23, 2010
Seminar 1: Composing Arts and Activism: We want to change the world, but are faced with the same tired out language and tactics. Design ideas from cybernetics, permaculture, and composition will be used to address problems of contemporary relevance.
Seminar 2: Indymedia Arts Lube: A practicum in making media, independently. To begin by listening for those voices silenced by mainstream’s monologuing, inside and out; to then harness the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center’s plethora of do-it-yourself invitations, and make something—a news article, a video, a radio show, a live event, a costume—towards intended consequences in the public discourse. How to amplify silenced voices without distorting them—in the place of so-called “objectivity”, what?
Performance and Composition Laboratory: Intensive rehearsal and composition work in the framework of ensemble. Composing and rehearsing projects are garnered both from individual and group probes. Four public performance opportunities are offered throughout the semester.
Practicum 1: Urbana-Champaign Udderbot Marching Choir: A joint endeavor with UC-OddMusic, the UC-UMC takes this invented instrument as a starting point for an experimental community marching band. An ensemble which draws on personal weirdnesses to construct the genuine collaborative social Oddness which any societal shift requires.
Practicum 2: Performers' Workshop: A weekly workshop where performers seek input on performances-in-progress.
Cybernetics, a 'slow reading' group: Cybernetics, the study of observed and observing systems, offers a toolbox for talking about systems change. This reading group will use 'slow reading' (rather than the usual academic 'speed reading') to bring comprehension through critique of language.
Clowning and Performing in Costa Rica (September 6-10): This 5-day trip with Patch Adams, M.D. and the Gesundheit! Institute provides participants with daily experiences in hands-on care, using clowning, performance, humor and play in hospitals, nursing homes, public parks and streets. The trip is for both beginning clowns and performers, and more advanced ones. In addition to performing in clinical settings, there will be daily practical workshops in clown technique, song, poetry, Theater of the Oppressed, improvisation, along with composing in small groups. Special Discount for SDaS Autumn Session Students: $500. See the trip registration page for more details.
$1500 covers tuition for new students; some financial aid available. For more information and to apply, email admissions@designingasociety.net.
Spring Semester (Feminist Composition School)
February 15 - May 1, 2011
More info soon!
