Time as Performance Medium

Theatre and Dance are sometimes referred to as "live arts," sometimes as "time-based mediums."
To think about time as a medium we will read a noh script that  might appear to take little time, but as we will see in class, a script is not a performance. Or, is it?

First script:
Dojoji, a noh play, in Karen Brazell anthology (OCRA)

Second Script: The America Play by Suzan-Lori Parks.

Third Script:  Fly, by Yoko Ono

Recommended, chapter 2, "Finding Faux Fathers" from Rebecca Schneider, Performing Remains (OCRA)

 

View this video from the early days of the  musical Hamilton:



Recommended:  New Yorker Essay on Hamilton
And a TV news show spot on it:

Reading response -- craft something from the jumble of questions in this paragraph:  What is the time of a script in relationship to the time of performance? Are theatre and dance time-based?  Can time be a medium like clay? Can you speed it up or slow it down? Can you bend it? Or can it be, as in jazz, syncopated? Porous? Multiple?  Can theatre be a monument or a bust or a portrait? Can a monument be theatre? What happens when a time-based art-form replays history? Does theatre ever step outside of time? Inside of time?  The three scripts are each very very different, and each prompt a different theatre (if they prompt theatre at all). SO... make a response that shows us your thoughts and refers to one or more of the "plays" in play here. There are no right or wrong answers, obviously, with this response!