Performance Studies

专业详情

The Department of Performance Studies explores performance in all its forms, extending and deepening the understanding of performance as central to the human condition. Students majoring in performance studies engage performance both as an object of study—something to be documented and analyzed—and as a method of study—something to be experienced and enacted. From the adaptation and staging of texts, to the exploration of rituals and festivals, to the study of performance in everyday life, students in the department enter the world of performance and performance theory as an important and emerging field of study.

Specific courses in the Department of Performance Studies focus on the study of literature through solo performance; the ensemble adaptation and staging of poetic, narrative, and nonfictional texts; intercultural performance; cultural studies and performance ethnography; performance theory and criticism; and performance art. Outside the classroom, additional performance opportunities enable students to develop further their performance work and bring it to a wider audience.

Studying and Performing

Students majoring in Performance Studies take classes in the department, in Theatre (though typically not the sequence of acting classes), and across the university, in such areas as English, anthropology, history, gender studies, African-American studies, Latin-American Studies, and radio-television-film.

Outside the classroom, students have the opportunity to participate in a wide range of performance projects, including those sponsored by the Performances Studies Department as well as those sponsored by the Theatre Department and by different student groups on campus.

Each year the department sponsors a public performance series consisting of one or two major productions; three or four “performance hours” featuring faculty- or student-directed work; and three “performance hours” developed by students in the freshman-level introductory course.