Hansel Tan is a current MFA student.
What are you studying at Pitt?
I am studying Performance Pedagogy, researching and provoking new inroads in actor training and theatre-making. I’m especially interested blending elements such as cognitive neuroscience, somatic intelligence, and the kinesthetic imagination with inherited traditions of pedagogy to ascertain what kinds of knowing they might engender. Think of it as a Theatrical Supercollider: We’re slamming particles of culture, science, and dramatic convention together in the crucible of the studio to catalyze alternative forms of artistic praxis. We won’t know for sure what the results of this alchemy would be until it aggregates in the collective bodies of performers, but the resulting chemistry could even be the DNA for a new social aesthetic. I’m a bit of a mad scientist.
How has the MFA program helped you move towards your personal and professional goals?
The MFA Program at Pitt has thrown me into conversation with a lot of exciting established and upcoming scholars uniformly passionate about the legacy and future of performativity. It’s forced me to fundamentally rethink what performance does, and what performers do, which has been extremely humbling! At the same time, our program is anchored on a strong teaching practice, and I’ve had the remarkable opportunity to share my existing knowledge of the craft and new directions in research with my students, sometimes even using the classroom as a laboratory to stress-test more out-of-the-box directions (sorry not sorry). As a result, it has helped me to focus my ideas, and identify research domains I would otherwise have never imagined, devising unique methodologies that have real impact for actors and non-actors alike. Most importantly, the program has reignited my love for scholarship-in-practice and practice-in-scholarship, pushing me to be thoughtful, intentional, and vigilant with my pedagogy, while also making space in my praxis for scholarly mischief and artistic audacity.
Is there a research opportunity, production, internship, class, etc. that has been instrumental to your time at Pitt or in helping you form your post-graduation goals?
I particularly enjoyed last semester’s course “Techniques in Performance Pedagogy” led by the beloved artist and Pittsburgh mainstay Kelly Trumbull! Over 15 weeks, my program-mate Karim Chelbi and myself were tasked to research, organize, and conduct 5 hour-and-a-half student workshops in major acting and performance traditions of our own choosing. I thought it was a fantastic way to really nail down the demands and logistics of the workshop format, while giving us free reins to run with our topics of interest. A few weeks into the course, the workshops were also opened to the general student body, so we got to work with undergraduates of every stripe. I especially loved observing how Karim structured his workshops against mine, and it also exposed me to less familiar methodologies: a win-win situation for all. Most of all, I cherished the opportunity to engage with techniques that were unavailable to me as a young actor. I felt like I was tending to the voracious curiosity of my inner child. What a gift! What do you hope to do when you graduate? I’ve always had a Bohemianesque “choose your own adventure” approach to life, preferring to careen through serendipitous doors that mysteriously appear. As long as I can keep researching, learning, performing, and sharing the joys of the ever-evolving craft with a community of students and makers, I’ll be quite contented. There is also the option of traveling the world as an itinerant bartender, which, at some point in my career, I might finally entertain!
What do you enjoy doing outside of academics?
As a card-carrying Gemini, I love all kinds of new experiences, and will try anything once just for bragging rights. While I’m rather agnostic where recreation is concerned, when not studying, teaching, or performing, I do enjoy any social ritual that promises engaging conversation. Top picks: working out, hiking, traveling, living-room movie nights, esoteric museums, beach-bumming, dinner with friends, learning an obscure skill, singing in the shower, binge-watching TED talks, dance parties, plotting to overthrow the neoliberal capitalist agenda, incessantly sending insider-joke memes to my coterie of weird humans, watching cute dog videos.
Is there something you would like to share that you wish we asked you about?
Ask me about the one time I was directed by Morgan Freeman. If you take my class, I’ll divulge.