- "Performance studies is an interdisciplinary academic field that uses performance as a lens and a tool to study the world."
A field of study that examines the ways in which performance functions as a cultural and social practice. It includes theories of identity, performativity, and spectatorship.
Historical Context: Key historical developments in theatre that lead to the emergence of performance theory as a discipline. Understanding the political and social climate in which performance theory work was created and evolved.
Performance Studies: A multidisciplinary approach to the study of performance, including theatre, dance, music, and other forms of cultural expression. This field looks at the ways in which performance reflects and shapes social and cultural realities.
Body and Performance: The role of the body in performance, including discussions of bodily practices, gender, sexuality, and power. An Understanding of the relationship between performer and audience.
Theatrical Genres: The classification of theatrical genres, from tragedy to comedy, and their evolution over time. Understanding the influence that genre has on the creation and interpretation of performance.
Actor-Training Techniques and Methods: The various techniques and methods applied to achieve performances that capture and enhance the character's essence.
Staging Techniques: The different staging techniques used throughout history, including aspects of costumes, lighting, and sound among others.
Playwrights: Discussion on the contributions of influential playwrights throughout history and their plays. This includes a look at the diverse styles and techniques used in different time periods.
Critical Theory and Performance: The role of critical theory in performance, including approaches from feminism, postcolonialism, and queer theory. These theories help to offer alternative perspectives on how to interpret and analyze performances.
Spectatorship and Audience reception: The role of the audience in performance, exploring how they engage with the performance space and the performers themselves.
Global Perspectives: The cultural and historical contexts of performance in different parts of the world, with an emphasis on how performance is used to articulate cultural identities and practices.
Performance Collaboration: The art of collaboration in theatre production, from casting to developing a finished piece. Understanding how members of the production team, including actors and directors, contribute to the final product.
Theatrical Spaces: A study of the different types of performance spaces, from proscenium to immersive theatre, exploring how the audience's experience of a performance can be shaped by these different types of spaces.
Dramaturgy: The study of the craft of the stage play, including the theory and practice of constructing a dramatic script for a live performance.
Theatre Architecture: An Overview of different theatre architectures used over time, their distinct characteristics, and their contributions to the field of performance theory.
Performance Art: Definition of performance art as a form of theatrical expression that combines traditional forms of theatre with other elements such as visual art, video and interactive media. Understanding the history and development of Performance art as a movement.
Theatre and Society: The relationship between theatre and society, with a particular emphasis on the ways in which performance has been used throughout history to articulate social issues and political ideologies.
Directing and Performance: A comprehensive understanding of the different approaches to directing in theatre and how this art of guiding also involves the shaping of actors' performances.
Theatre and Technology: A study of the impact of technology on theatre production and performance and how advancements in technology have expanded and transformed the possibilities of theatrical expression.
Production Design: A discussion of the various aspects of production design in theatre, including scenic design, costume design, lighting design, and sound design.
Theatre of the Oppressed: The relevance of this theatrical form when it comes to examining the dynamism of power relations as inherent to societal inequalities, and the ways in which this form of theatre aims to empower communal participation and transformation.
Semiotics: Focuses on the way meanings are created through the use of signs and symbols in a performance.
Feminist Theory: Focuses on the role of gender in performance, seeking to illuminate how power and control operate along lines of gender.
Postcolonial Theory: Examines how the legacy of colonialism shapes performance and performance reception.
Marxist Theory: Analyzes theater as a product of capitalist society, seeking to expose the ways in which theater can reinforce or challenge oppressive power structures.
Queer Theory: Focuses on how sexuality and gender norms operate in performance and the ways in which non-normative identities are incorporated or excluded.
Cultural Studies: Approaches theater as a site of cultural production and consumption, examining how performance reflects and produces cultural values and identities.
Anthropological Theory: Examines theater as a cultural practice, seeking to understand how performances reflect and shape cultural beliefs, practices, and values.
Reader-Response Theory: Focuses on the audience's participation in the interpretation and meaning-making process of a performance.
Performance Studies: Encompasses a broad range of performance theories and approaches that prioritize the study of performance as a social, cultural, and political activity.
Psychoanalytic Theory: Examines the role of the unconscious in performance, exploring how performance can represent and produce psychological conflicts and tensions.
- "The term performance is broad, and can include artistic and aesthetic performances like concerts, theatrical events, and performance art; sporting events; social, political and religious events like rituals, ceremonies, proclamations and public decisions; certain kinds of language use; and those components of identity which require someone to do, rather than just be, something."
- "Performance studies draws from theories and methods of the performing arts, anthropology, sociology, literary theory, culture studies, communication, and others."
- "Performance studies tends to concentrate on a mix of research methods."
- "The application of practice-led or practice-based research methods has become a widespread phenomenon not just in the anglophone world."
- "The documentation of Practice-as-Research in Performance (PARIP), a devoted research project conducted at the University of Bristol between 2001 and 2006, offers a number of inspiring articles and portraits of such research projects."
- "Artistic auto-ethnographic approaches and verbatim theatre."
- "The documentation of Practice-as-Research in Performance (PARIP), a devoted research project conducted at the University of Bristol between 2001 and 2006... was key for a breakthrough of using creative thinking within this subject field."
- "Performance studies is an interdisciplinary academic field that uses performance as a lens and a tool to study the world."
- "The term performance is broad, and can include artistic and aesthetic performances like concerts, theatrical events, and performance art; sporting events; social, political and religious events like rituals, ceremonies, proclamations and public decisions; certain kinds of language use; and those components of identity which require someone to do, rather than just be, something."
- "Performance studies draws from theories and methods of the performing arts, anthropology, sociology, literary theory, culture studies, communication, and others."
- "Performance studies tends to concentrate on a mix of research methods."
- "The application of practice-led or practice-based research methods has become a widespread phenomenon not just in the anglophone world."
- "The documentation of Practice-as-Research in Performance (PARIP), a devoted research project conducted at the University of Bristol between 2001 and 2006... was key for a breakthrough of using creative thinking within this subject field."
- "Performance studies is an interdisciplinary academic field that uses performance as a lens and a tool to study the world."
- "The term performance is broad, and can include artistic and aesthetic performances like concerts, theatrical events, and performance art; sporting events; social, political and religious events like rituals, ceremonies, proclamations and public decisions; certain kinds of language use; and those components of identity which require someone to do, rather than just be, something."
- "The documentation of Practice-as-Research in Performance (PARIP), a devoted research project conducted at the University of Bristol between 2001 and 2006... offers a number of inspiring articles and portraits of such research projects."
- "Artistic auto-ethnographic approaches and verbatim theatre."
- "The documentation of Practice-as-Research in Performance (PARIP), a devoted research project conducted at the University of Bristol between 2001 and 2006... was key for a breakthrough of using creative thinking within this subject field."
- "Performance studies tends to concentrate on a mix of research methods."