STAV MARIN & NETA WEINER TEACHINGS
Course Proposals for Discussion
The courses offer training in performance, language as a political tool and construct, and theoretical perspectives on how performance intersects with the politics of migration, majority/minority relations, issues of language and expression, the making of place, and the right to the public sphere.
• Developing language(s) of performance: speech, voice, body
This course will offer a channel for developing a performance language specific to each performer and exploring each subject’s relationship to their language, vocal production, and movement. Students will examine repositories of language memory in their bodies as propulsive engines for their bodies and performance languages. Attention will be dedicated to spoken language's creative and destructive potential by exploring various expressive practices and techniques, including martial arts, improvisational techniques, modern dance, free-styling, and beatboxing.
• Mixed Martial Arts for Performers
The course explores interconnections of martial arts and performance through comprehensive training in three traditions: Wing-Tsun Kung Fu, BJJ, and Muay Thai. Through training, readings, videos, reflections, group discussions, and written assignments, the course emphasizes self-expression, critical engagement, dialogue, and individual movement vocabulary. It encourages a creative approach to integrating elements from traditional movement techniques to develop creative agency and a personal creative voice.
• Creative writing, spoken word, and beyond
The workshop will start with language as the essential raw material for the creative process, use techniques of language improvisation, association, and creative writing, and focus on the voice as an expressive tool. The students will specifically focus on their backgrounds' sonic, verbal, and performative language to develop their creative voice. The course will also provide training in dealing with unexpected situations, such as being on stage and facing an audience in the experiential moment. The focus on text and language provides opportunities to investigate multi-languaging and the politicization of the linguistic public sphere(s) we live in. Whenever possible, local creators in non-majority languages will be invited to participate in the workshops to open up questions of identity and struggles for social justice.
• System Ali: Hip hop from Jaffa
The course focuses on the story of a Jaffan hip-hop collective. The band features multiple subjectivities, languages, backgrounds, and narratives as a platform for creating channels of personal and communal development and, ultimately, social change. It also provides a platform for investigating cultural interventions in a particular geographical and social space: in this case, the mixed (Jewish/Palestinian) city of Jaffa. The band features tensions between citizenship and nation, veterans and newcomers, religious vs. secular. In this portion, we will discuss how all these tensions are linguistically and performatively negotiated to create a new platform for cultural work education and activism.