A Virtual Performance: Black Performance as Social Protest

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A Virtual Performance: Black Performance as Social Protest

Together with faculty and staff from the University of Michigan, Georgetown University is creating a virtual performance as part of the Black Performance as Social Protest MOOC. In an effort to make visible the creative and collaborative nature of this work, CNDLS is using interactive timeline to document the design thinking process for developing the virtual performance.

Together with faculty and staff from the University of Michigan, Georgetown University is creating a virtual performance as part of the Black Performance as Social Protest MOOC, first developed in 2020 by the University of Michigan. The virtual performance explores the forms of music and theater of the Civil Rights movement and Black Revolutionary Arts. In an effort to make visible the creative and collaborative nature of this work, this interactive timeline documents our design thinking process for the virtual performance. This timeline is a living dashboard, being updated as we develop the design elements of the virtual performance project. So far, these elements include creating meta-humans, designing period costumes, and creating the 3-D environments.

From Georgetown, this project is led by Anita Gonzalez, professor of performing arts and African American studies and co-Founder of the Racial Justice Institute, in collaboration with the Center for New Designs in Learning & Scholarship (CNDLS). Faculty members from the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance supported by Michigan’s Center for Academic Innovation are also hard at work on this project.

Filming of the performance will take place in December 2022 at the University of Michigan where staff from both teaching centers (the Center for Academic Innovation and CNDLS) will be present to support the production in person!

View the Timeline

If you’re interested in learning more about the project, the project timeline, or how you could use this approach in designing your own project, please reach out to us at cndls@georgetown.edu.