TDPS performs at Cal Performances’ Fall Free For All
Eucalyptus Grove
September 25, 2011
10:50am, 12:50pm, 3:50pm, and 5:20pm
Free

TDPS will present a strong showing at Cal Peformances’ annual Fall Free For All this September, with a slate of student performances ranging from the traditional to the experimental. Set throughout the majestic Eucalyptus Grove, the department will perform six pieces in succession, creating an enchanting, interwoven world in which you can wander and experience live performance at its most magical. There are four chances to see these pieces, including dance works by students Nitipat Ong Pholchai and Natalie Marsh as well as alumni Brian Batugo and James Graham, and theater by Iris Kokish, William Shakespeare and Anton Chekhov.

Jared Sexton, UC Irvine
“People-of-Color-Blindness”
Dwinelle Hall, Room 370
October 13, 2011, 5pm
Free

Jared Sexton, Associate Professor and Director of the Program in African American Studies at UC Irvine, will discuss the concept of “people of color,” highlighting a form of blindness to the singularity of racial slavery internal to its articulation. The first section of the talk charts briefly a theoretical itinerary that reads the radical black feminism of Saidiya Hartman and Hortense Spillers and the political ontology of Frank B. Wilderson against the prevarication regarding slavery and its afterlife in prominent strains of critical theory. The second section attempts to situate Wilderson’s formulation of “afro-pessimism” with respect to the “black optimism” articulated by Fred Moten and other theorists of black performance.

Ciré Béye and Khadim Niang, Compagnie Jant-Bi
“Sabar in the Studio”
Bancroft Studio
Workshop: October 23, 2011, 1pm
Demonstration: October 27, 2011, 4pm
Free

Join Ciré Béye, expert in the Senegalese communal dance form known as Sabar, and Khadim Niang, noted Sabar drummer, in two unique events: Learn Sabar through a three-hour dance & drumming public workshop on October 23, then join Ciré Béye on October 27 as he demonstrates and discusses this unique and beautiful collaboration between the dancer, the drummer, and the audience.

Workshop participants limited to 40. Reserve space by email.
Participants under 18 years of age need to bring a completed risk waiver form.

Demonstration seating is first-come, first serve at the door. Be sure to arrive at least 1/2 hour in advance of the demonstration.

5th Annual Performance Studies Speaker Series:
Break/ing Ground: Critical Dialogues in Sound and Motion
Banatao Auditorium, Sutardja Dai Hall
March 15, 2012, 4pm
Free

Join TDPS in conversation with Dr. Thomas DeFrantz, MIT, author of Dancing Revelations, and Dr. Fred Moten, Duke University, author of In the Break in a lecture-performance outlining critical conversations between sound and motion and the context of the black performance tradition.

Special Performance Events

All Atheists Are Muslim
By Zahra Noorbakhsh
Durham Studio Theater
February 10, 2012, 8pm
$20 General Admission, $10 UC affiliates (UC Students, faculty and staff)
Fresh from successful runs in San Francisco and New York, TDPS alumna Zahra Noorbakhsh performs her smartly comic one-woman show, telling your regular, every-day story of “boy meets girl meets thousands of years of cultural tradition and religious doctrine.”
Purchase tickets

Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts with John Crawford
otherworld (machine)
L@TE: Friday Nights @ BAM/PFA
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way
December 2, 2011, 7:30pm
$7 general admission; Free for Cal students and BAM/PFA members
Tickets available at the door
As part of the Berkeley Art Museum’s L@TE: Friday Nights, TDPS’ own Lisa Wymore directs a performance involving layered real-time and pre-recorded video captured from across BAM/PFA and mixed live! Music by Ryan Smith.