Rate My Professor Ryan Platt

Ryan Platt is an Associate Professor of Performance Studies in the Department of Theatre & Dance at Colorado College. He holds a B.A. from Amherst College (2001), an M.A. from Cornell University (2007), and a Ph.D. from Cornell University (2010). Platt's scholarship centers on performance studies, emphasizing performances on and beyond the stage, such as performance art, new plays, contemporary dance, festivals, protests, sports, and games. Central concepts in his work include ritual, play, and performance. He explores contemporary dance through the practices of choreographers like Yvonne Rainer, William Forsythe, and Trajal Harrell, who interrogate the premium on immediacy in live performance via philosophy and media theory. Platt investigates movement categories, such as walking, that short-circuit progressive, goal-oriented impulses of high modernism to foster new forms of presence and visibility. His research addresses broader questions about the status of life and liveness in the biopolitical era, performance amid advanced capitalism—including themes of debt, precarity, and failure—and the financialization of daily life. Additionally, he examines cultures of cheap, lowbrow performance, including stunts, tricks, pranks, and jokes, as vital strategies for survival and transformation under capitalism.

In his teaching, Platt employs artistic exercises that integrate theory with creative practice, moving away from traditional long-form essays. He regularly teaches courses such as CC 120 Playing & Plays, TH/DA 107 Art, Spectacle, and Society, DA/TH 204 Feminist & Queer Performance, DA/TH 224 Contemporary Performance, and DA/TH 303 Creative Research Seminar. He is a founding member of the interdisciplinary science-arts course MB 100/TH 200 Experimenting with Biotechnology in the Lab and Gallery, developed with Molecular Biology Professor Sara Hanson and visiting artist Sister Sylvester. Platt is also developing a new course on comedy encompassing new plays, performance art, standup, and improv. His publications on dance and performance appear in Dance Research Journal, PAJ: A Journal of Art and Performance, Theatre Journal, Performance Research, and The Routledge Anthology of Women’s Theatre Theory and Dramatic Criticism; a notable article is “Ralph Lemon and the Language of Loss” in PAJ (2012). Joining Colorado College as an Instructor of Drama and Dance in 2010, he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2016 and has served as chair of the Theatre & Dance department. Platt has contributed to faculty committees, including Phi Beta Kappa.