Bertha C. Ferdman
Professor
Speech, Communications and Theatre Arts
EMAIL: bferdman@bmcc.cuny.edu
Office: S-628L
Office Hours:
Phone: +1 (212) 220-8000;ext=5340
Ferdman (she/her) was born and raised in Puerto Rico to Argentinian parents and now calls Brooklyn home. She is professor of Theatre at BMCC and at The Graduate Center, CUNY.
Her research interests are in contemporary performance and curating practices, in particular immersive, participatory, site based performance, and urban dramaturgies. She is interested in live art practices that engage spectators in challenging preconceived notions of what theatre is and can be, as well as in interdisciplinary performance historiographies. Ferdman’s most current research focuses on the relationship between the concept of authenticity and the actor’s work.
Her book Off Sites: Contemporary Performance beyond Site-Specific (SIU Press, 2018) won the honorable mention for ATHE’s best book award. Off Sites rethinks current definitions of site-specific performance, a genre of theatre that adopts spaces outside of traditional theatre buildings and uses the experience of space, place, and situation as an integral component to the structure and content of a theatrical work. Contextualizing site-specific practices in both visual and performing arts discourses, the book traces the evolution of the term from an experimental staging practice to an engaged situational event. Her recent books center on performance art and performance curating, with a special focus on how institutional models of art production shape these aesthetic forms. The Methuen Drama Companion to Performance Art (Bloomsbury Press, 2020), co-edited with Jovana Stokic, addresses how the mainstreaming of performance art and Eurocentric performance historiographies of theatre and visual art have come to shape the performance art narrative. Curating Dramaturgies, co-edited with Peter Eckersall,is a collection of interviews with leading arts professionals around the world on the relationship between dramaturgy and curating.
Bertie’s essays and reviews have appeared in Theater, TDR, PAJ, Performance Research, Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, and HowlRound. She is co-editor of a special issue of Theater titled “Performance Curators” (44:2, May 2014), as well as editor of a special section of PAJ titled “Urban Dramaturgies” (37:2, May 2015). Book chapters include “From Content to Context: The Emergence of the Performance Curator” in Curating Live Arts: Critical Perspectives, Essays, and Conversations on Theory and Practice, eds. Dena Davida, Jane Gabriels, Véronique Hudon, and Marc Pronovost (Berghahn Books, 2018).
She is Chair of the Performing Arts Panel for the PSC-CUNY Research Awards and has served as a peer reviewer for books and journal articles, as well as served as a theatre panelist for the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts (2018), the Royal Café Royal Foundation (2021), and ASTR’s Awards Selection Committee. She has been invited to present her work, among others, at Simon Fraser University, Paris-Sorbonne University, Festival de Buenos Aires, University of Montreal, and Festival Internacional de Artes Escenicas de Bahia (FIAC) in Brazil.
Bertie received her Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance from The Graduate Center (CUNY), an M.A. in Performance Studies from the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, a B.A. in Theatre from Yale University, and attended the Jacques Lecoq International Theatre School in Paris from 1996-1997. Bertie has taught at City College, College of Staten Island, and Columbia University School of the Arts Theatre Program, where she teaches the MFA Acting Cohort.
Expertise
Theatre Studies and Performance Studies
Degrees
- B.A. Yale University, Theatre Studies,1996
- Lecoq School of Physical Theatre, ,1997
- M.A. New York University, Performance Studies,1999
- Ph.D. The Graduate Center, CUNY, Theatre Studies,2010
Courses Taught
- The aim of this course is to develop effective skills in speech communication. The student examines how to generate topics and organized ideas, masters elements of audience psychology and practices techniques of speech presentation in a public forum. All elements of speech production and presentation are considered.
- The collaborative nature of the theatrical event will be explored in readings, presentations, play attendance, papers and creative projects. Contributions of the playwright, actor, director, designer, architect, critic, producer and audience will be investigated through selected periods, genres, theatre spaces and styles of production. The student's potential roles and responsibilities in creating theatre will be emphasized.
- This survey course will look at major trends and directions in Latin American theatre by drawing on plays and performance ensembles of the mid-twentieth century to the present. We will look at the work of some of the most influential playwrights, directors, and ensembles as they grapple with their political, national, and cultural contexts, and discuss these artists? dual commitment to social conscience and artistic expression. We will read manifestoes and plays by many of Latin America?s major playwrights and performing artists, as well as critical writing by scholars and historians. We will also engage with documentary films and videos of performances.
Prerequisite: SPE 100 or THE 100 or LAT 100 - A survey of theatre of the world from its ritual origins to Jacobean England. Major periods explored through reading and viewing significant plays, studying the sociological forces that led to different theatrical forms, theatre architecture, methods of production, playwrights and the relevance of these plays and theatrical forms today.
Prerequisite: THE 100 and ENG 201 or ENG 121 - This studio course is designed to provide students with advanced creative techniques to deepen their skills as performers. Topics are presented by visiting theatre practitioners in a workshop series. Focus is on creating original work in the following areas: devised work, dance and movement for actors, and solo work. Exercises and improvisation are designed to enhance concentration, imagination, resonance, movement and will culminate into performances after each section. Students will create and workshop performances with a focus on learning new approaches to language, structure and movement. The course emphasizes the collaborative nature of theatre. Appropriate research and reading will be required in addition to artistic assignments. Prerequisite: THE 110, THE 121 and audition or departmental permission
Research and Projects
Publications
Books:
- Off Sites: Contemporary Performance beyond Site-Specific 2018, SIU Press
- Curating Dramaturgies, 2021, Routledge (co-edited with Peter Eckersall)
- Methuen Drama Companion to Performance Art, 2020, Bloomsbury Press (co-edited with Jovana Stokic)
Edited Journals:
- “Urban Dramaturgy: The Global Art Project of JR.” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 34, no. 3 (2012): 12-26.2012, PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, MIT Press
- Urgent Realities at Festival d’Avignon 2012: Ten Billion and The Animals and the Children Took to the Streets 2013, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts
- A New Journey through Other Spaces: Contemporary Performance beyond Site-Specific2013, Theater 43.2, Duke University Press
- “Performance and the City,” Interview with Gulgun Kayim 2015, PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 37.2 (2015): 42-49.
- From Content to Context: The Emergence of the Performance Curator2014, Theater 44.2, Duke University Press
- The Work of Art is a Parasite, an interview with Lola Arias2014, Theater Magazine: Duke University Press
- Sleeping Our Way to Consciousness: Jim Findlay’s Dream of the Red Chamber2015, TDR/The Drama Review, 59.2
- “Off the Grid: New York City Landmark Performance.” 2015, PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 37.2 (May 2015): 13-29.
- “Role Inversion: The Curator Takes the Stage”2014, PAJ: Journal of Performance and Art 36.1 (2014): 53-58.
- Trespass Theatre, Interview with Jeff Stark, HowlRound2014, Theater Commons, Emerson University, December 18, 2014.
- “Careful of Fireworks,Interview with Helen Cole”2014, Theater 44.2, May 2014, 63-71.
- “Reverberating Acts.” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 33, no. 3 (2011): 72-81.2011, PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, MIT Press
Honors, Awards and Affiliations
- MAGNET Dissertation Award
- Franklin Furnace Award for Performance Art
- NYSCA
- DCA
- BMCC Faculty Award
