Kristin Grace Erickson

ME455 - Improvised Music Theater - CalArts - Fall 2012

Instructor: Kristin Grace Erickson Email: kerickson@calarts.edu Phone: 850-656-8879 Room: The Wild Beast Office: B222 Schedule: Monday 4:10pm6:00pm Course Fee: $0 Materials Fee: $0 Description - This interdisciplinary performance ensemble is open to all departments. Throughout the semester we will adapt improvisational games from both music and theater to a broader interdisciplinary environment. By playing, analyzing, and modifying these games, we will employ an iterative design process for creating performances. The fall semester will focus on algorithmic strategies for improvised performances. Improvisational games and computer algorithms are both comprised of rules. Building on this, we will adapt concepts from computer science, video game design, and consciousness theory to our performances. A portion of the semester will be dedicated to improvising with computer programs modeled on the performance algorithms created by the class. The spring semester will focus on a large-scale performance based on the methods developed during the fall semester. Non-performance-oriented artists are encouraged to enroll. Improvising costume designers, production designers, video artists, writers, directors, animators, visual artists, puppets, inventors, philosophers, etc. Methodologies - The class period will consist warm-up, technique, performance, and critique. Students will bring their performance tools to class: ideas, musical instruments, props, costumes, and other performance-related materials. All work is done during class, except for the final performance at the end of the semester. Learning Goals / Outcomes - By the end of the semester, each student will have expanded and honed their personal toolbox of performance possibilities. Students will have gained experience improvising in a large ensemble of artists with varying backgrounds. Collectively, the ensemble will have developed and invented techniques for improvising music theater. Through this experience, the individual artist will have gained the ability to create new methods of communication required for future collaborative endeavors across creative divides.

Kristin Grace Erickson

Grading Policy - Grading will be based on class preparation, attendance, and participation. Attendance - Three unexcused absences will result in a lower grade. More than three unexcused absences may result in an NX. Assignments - Small assignments will be given involving thinking and preparing for the next class. Student will keep a log of their development through the semester documenting their technical experimentation and creative growth as an improviser. Each student will write the rules for an original improvised music theater piece to be performed in the final concert. Class Topics - Improvising Complex Dynamic Systems. Improvising Feedback and Recursion, Self-Adaptative and Evolutionary Improvisation, Improvising Externalized Models of Consciousness, Memory and Emotions