COPA5206

Improvisation is an integral part of the creative process across artistic disciplines and this first experimental collaborative laboratory course between Jazz, Drama, & Mannes explores the outer reaches of how student performers from these different disciplines can interact together using the common language of improvisation. This is a project-based based course for performing arts students interested in developing new perspectives and applications of performance art through improvisation outside of their individual disciplines. The course draws on methodology from musical and dramatic practice identifying improvisational strategies by balancing rigorous preparation and spontaneous performance. Through weekly explorations using music/text interplay, personal narratives, unconventional instrumentation and movement, students will move from short to longer form presentations and from traditional drama/music underscoring to more abstract and uncharted relationships between the two forms. The course will culminate in an end of semester project bringing class members together into small interdisciplinary teams to create provocative forms that represent their generational perspective. Saxophonist/composer Jane Ira Bloom (Jazz) and actor/director Joe Grifasi (Drama) will guide students in a masterclass setting through this experimental improvisational journey highlighting the role of spontaneous composition and intuitive play in the creative performer’s rehearsal process. Professional guest artists whose work draws on improvisation in acting, music, dance, and comedy will be invited to work with the class. By developing fluency in communication skills outside their own discipline and sharing a new vocabulary they may come to a deeper understanding of their own identity and practice.