Bringing Students into the Picture: Teaching with Tableaux Vivants

This article explores a recent experiment in implementing tableaux vivants as a college-level art history assignment, in which students researched works of art and also assumed the pose, posture, and attributes of the work; students were also invited to reconceptualize and think transformatively about these historical works. Drawing upon the principles of Universal Design for Learning, the assignment offers an impetus for close looking, research, critical thinking, interpretation and creativity, and an engagement in metacognitive and embodied experiences, as will be demonstrated by the resulting assignments and students' written self-reflections. While the assignment was originally designed for a course focused on American culture prior to 1830, this approach could apply to a broad chronological and geographical range to encompass nearly any figurative art.