syllabus

WEEK 1: The Body as Canvas and Statement
Intro to performance art and its dialogue with fashion

Example: Leigh Bowery – radical body modification, DIY costume as identity performance

Activity: Self-portrait through styled or costumed pose performed live

WEEK 2: Fashion as Spectacle, Performing Identity: Gender, Race, Resistance
The runway as performance space

Examples:
Alexander McQueen – No. 13 (1999): Robotic spray paint choreography
Rick Owens – SS14: Step-dance performance with non-model dancers
Activity: Design a fashion action gesture/movement that activates a garment
Grace Jones – body, fashion, and sound as unified aesthetic rebellion
Nick Cave – Soundsuits: Wearable sculptures masking identity, loaded with cultural meaning

Reading: bell hooks on the oppositional gaze + excerpts from José Esteban Muñoz

WEEK 3: Collaboration & Curation
Example: Marina Abramović x Givenchy (2015): Ritual slow-walk in fashion context
Example: Lucy + Jorge Orta – Refuge Wear: Performative design for social justice
Activity: Pair up to conceptualize a site-specific or studio-based performative fashion intervention

WEEK 4: 
Final Performances