Introduction to Performance Studies

Catalog description

The field of Performance Studies, as embedded in Feminist and Gender Studies, forwards an expansive sense of the stage that engages performers from a variety of media, performances in and of everyday life, and rituals through and beyond cultural institutions. Theater, visual art, music, dance, film, and the media are not divided into separate areas of study but necessarily tied all together. Our axis of inquiry is the question, what does performance do? And how does performance help us to ask questions about aesthetics, politics, and the social world? To disrupt the line between theory and practice which falsely separates the performer from the critic, we will engage theories of the field as they emerge from/through performances themselves, including the process of production, reception, and its larger social implications. In addition to deepening an understanding Performance Studies as both a field and an analytical lens, students read texts that vitalize critical thinking in the humanities, and draw from the robust creative repertoires of New York City.