Your Extended Performance Analysis Post (EPAP) Paper will count for 25 % of your overall course grade. This paper is a chance to extend the performance analysis skills you’ve been practicing all semester to a live black performance in the Boston area.
Choose from the list of contemporary black performance texts in the Boston area. Students may choose an event not on the list as long as they receive prior approval from the professor.
Write an extended post on this text (700-950 words), to be posted on an official online arts magazine, blog, or other appropriate social media forum.
This extended post essay will consists of three Sections. (Please note that sections may consist of more than one section. While I provide detail instructions for each section, and I will primarily assess the post based on these categories, the best essays will not read as essays or fill in the blank exercises. The best essays will read as an essay in its own right, one you could publish on Facebook or to a Arts Blog reflecting on that performance.)
25% CONTEXTUALIZING INTRO
Date, Time, Duration, Venue, Director, Artists and/or other contributing authors. General Medium. Specific Genre within the Medium. Setting, Background, Overarching concept, or any other information a reader who has not seen or witnessed this performance might need to understand the performance and particularly to understand the particular performance elements your essay will focus on.
Explanation of the part(s) of the performance your extended post essay will focus on.
Brief overview of what your interpretation (claim) is about those parts.
Statement about why your essay is focusing on this element and why your interpretation matters (aka. How your interpretation affects the way we might consider some overarching aspect of the performance)
25% ANALYSES OF YOUR SPECIFIC OBJECTS (PERFORMANCE ELEMENTS) OF STUDY
Object of Study: Analysis of Performance Element 1
Object of Study: Analysis of Performance Element 2
Object of Study: Analysis of Performance Element 3 [Optional]
25% CONCLUDING CONNECTIONS:
In this section you will reflect on how your performance elements and your claims about them work together (ESPECIALLY IF NOT ALREADY APPARENT IN YOUR ANALYSES]
Reflection on why your claims matter. How do the interpretative analyses you put forward affect the way we understand the performance as a whole and/or its overarching themes.
Some discussion about how the performance and particularly the elements you analyze are in conversation with the larger tradition of black performance in America. (Meaning you will bring the performance text and your analysis of the performance text into conversation with one of the major questions and themes we have discussed throughout the class).
25% LANGUAGE & STYLE
The remaining 25% of your grade will be determined based on language mechanics; clarity of language; appropriateness of style for your chosen audience; accuracy of citation and formatting.
Just Playin' 