VERBAL PERFORMANCE
104BN (4 units)
Mon. and Wed. 12:00 - 2:50 MANDE 219

Professor: Ricardo Dominguez
Email: rrdominguez@ucsd.edu
Office Hours: Wed. 4pm to 5pm (CAL IT2/Atkinson Hall 2nd fl - 2129)

Since the early part of the 20th century performance artist have used language, breath and silence to
create work. Performance artist ranging from the Dadaist to Karen Finley have created ruptures via the
question of the verbal. We will look at the of many artist from Rachel Rosenthal to Annie Sprinkle to Spalding Gray to Ron Athey, Marina Abramovic, Vito Acconci, Faith Wilding, William Pope L., Maria Teresa Hincapie, Nao Bustamante, Ana Mendieta and beyond. Each student in the class will be expected to participate in class dialogue, critiques and most importantly the presentation of new gestures. Each gesture
should be no-longer than 5 minutes and any media can be used to presented to the class (from video to live).

Attendance:

You will be expected to attend every class. If you have more than 2 unexcused absences, your final grade will drop 1/2 a letter for every additional unexcused absence. Two unexcused lateness will be considered an absence.

CATALOGUES AND BOOKS THAT ARE RECOMMENDED:

CATALOGUES:
Out of Actions (LA MoCA)
Outside the Frame: Performance and the Object (Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art)
Performance Art (edited by Roselee Goldberg)
Body and the East: Form the 60s to the Present, (Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia)

BOOKS:
Art Works: Perform, Jens Hoffmann and Joan Jonas
The Twentieth Century Performance Reader, eds. Michael Huley and Noel Witts
Performance, Marvin Carlson
Contract with the Skin, Kathy Odell
Performing the Body, Amelia Jones
The Explicit Body of Performance, Rebecca Schneider
Performance Art from Futurism to the Present, Roselee Goldberg
Happenings and Other Arts, ed Mary Ellen Sandford
Unmarked, Peggy Phelan
Acting Act: Feminist Performances, eds. Lynda Hart and Peggy Phelan
Let's Get it On: The Politics of Black Performance, ed. Catherine Ugwu
Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas, ed. Coco Fusco
Greenwich Village 1963, Sally Banes
The Blurring of Art and Life, Alan Kaprow
Imaging Her Erotics, Carolee Schneeman
The Citizen Artist: An Anthology from High Performance Magazine
Liveness, Philip Auslander

CLASSES

Jan 9 - Introduction to the question of the Verbal: sound, silence and breath

A dialogue about the trajectories that potential gestures can follow during
the class.

Karen Finley
http://www.youtube.com/v/rxWD_LZ1aRo&rel=1

Sylvia Plath
http://www.youtube.com/v/6hHjctqSBwM&rel=1

(FIRST GESTURE) Select 3 words and tell us the story of your life.

Jan 16 - Words (3 words).

The ABC's of DADA (1 of 3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqkIJ0odFxA Dada Sounds
http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Dada-Sounds.html
Christian Bok http://www.ubu.com/sound/bok.html
(FIRST GESTURE) to be presented to the class. In class we will review and discuss everyone's performance.

(SECOND GESTURE): Select a part or bit of your body and let it speak, let it confess.

Jan 23 - Confessions of the Body

(SECOND GESTURE) to be presented to the class. In class we will review and discuss everyone's performance.

(THIRD GESTURE) The banality of the everyday often offers a space for the voice. Let "self" who fills out forms, rides elevators and pays bills. Use an aspect of your "everyday self" to create a verbal gesture.

Jan 30 - Everyday Me.

(THIRD GESTURE) to be presented to the class. In class we will review and discuss everyone's performance.

(FORTH GESTURE) Give yourself commands and follow them (like Simon's Says!)

Feb 6 - Commands

(FORTH GESTURE) to be presented to the class. In class we will review and discuss everyone's performance.

(FIFTH GESTURE) Create a monologue as someone who is not you, about something you have never done.

Feb 13 - NO CLASS

Feb 20 - Not I/Almost I/Another I

(FIFTH GESTURE) to be presented to the class. In class we will review and discuss everyone's performance.

(SIXTH GESTURE) Find something as you are walking to class that you find on the
floor, grass etc., then improvise a story about it for us

Feb 27 - Improvising words

(SIXTH GESTURE) to be presented to the class. In class we will review and discuss everyone's performance.

(SEVENTH GESTURE) Tell us about the most intimate moment of you life.

March 5 - Intimate words, sounds, memories

(SEVENTH GESTURE) to be presented to the class. In class we will review and discuss everyone's performance.

(EIGHTH GESTURE) Tell us how you would like life to be after you pass away, could be the
afterlife, reincarnation or a tale about those left behind.

March 12 - Last Class/Testament

(EIGHTH GESTURE) to be presented to the class. In class we will review and discuss everyone's performance.