Throughout the academic year, the Department of Theatre and Dance offers a diverse array of courses that explore cultures, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation through performance, dramatic literature and theatrical techniques. Here is a cross section of courses that challenge concepts of race and racial representation in theatre and dance.

DRA 155 Representing Race in Performance explores representation and performance of “race” in American culture featuring different subheadings such as “African American Theatre” or “Asian-Americans on Stage.”

DRA 144A Introduction to Traditional Chinese Embodied Culture examines traditional Chinese Wushu practices, explored through practical work in dance laboratory conditions. Integration of practice with conceptual analysis; contemporary social, educational and artistic applications.

DRA 254 Performing Identities/Personae researches historical and contemporary theories of constructing stage identities. Discussion and project collaborations based on theories. Questions of identity related to ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation.

DRA056B History of Theatre and Dance 2: Romance, Rebellion, and Revolution covers a selected history of English theatre and contemporary productions, from the period 1560-1840 CE. Theatre became a powerful agent for both change and the preservation of the status quo. Many of the issues around ‘race’ and ethnicity, sexual orientation and gendered activity, youth/age, poverty/privilege, leisure/work, and agency/slavery, were worked out, tried and tested, circulated and censored, and used to provoke toward and protect from rebellion and revolution – by means of the theatre stage.