The Master of Fine Arts (MFA) or Master of Arts (MA), European Devised Performance Practice, offers training in contemporary acting and performance making, focusing on learning multiple media skills and creating one's own original material. Study includes movement, improvisation, acrobatics, voice, and various performance techniques.
The two year MFA requires one year of work in Chicago, Illinois and one year of instruction in Berlin, Germany at the Arthaus Berlin International School and study in three cities: London, Chicago, and Berlin.
The one year MA degree, Devised Performance Practice, develops skills in staging productions and acquiring professional business. MA students do not participate in European training, however, an intensive course in London, England is offered. Study includes movement, improvisation, acrobatics, voice, and various performance techniques.
The thesis work featured here includes original work by the author and a practice-based research film for the original work project.
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Queer Makishi: a short devised film
Johann Robert Wood
Statement from the artist:
Queer Makishi – is a triple-conscious journey through morning rituals of awakening. This black, mixed, and queer performance activates auto-ethnographic memory, absurd fantasy, and spiritual contemplation through music, language, movement, and visual montage.
Queer Makishi wrestles with divergent masks from the traditions of clowning, minstrelsy, drag, camp, and absurdism in an attempt to reconcile these multiple selves in relationship to the Mother-Goddess, Oshun, and the trickster god, Legba. This piece seeks to explore the fragmented self of triple-consciousness as represented through the author’s persona. Finally, Queer Makishi celebrates the simultaneity and complexity these multiple selves bring to the crossroads of transformation.
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Queer Makishi: Black Son Devising Project Research Presentation
Johann Robert Wood
Johann (Yo) Wood is a performance artist-scholar, vocalist, and painter. As both an MA and MFA candidate in theatre and devised performance, Johann’s interests are at the intersection of blackness, queer theory, mix & (re)remixing, and jazz aesthetics through embodied, auto-ethnographic research. He speaks about the process of creating the work, Queer Makishi -a short devised film, his performance thesis produced for his MFA in European Devised Performance Practice at Columbia College Chicago.