Performance

Performance art is an aggregate term used to describe those works of art which, due to their interdisciplinary nature, their innovative structure, or their critical stance, are not able to situate themselves comfortably within the bounds of pre-existing artistic disciplines. While performance may include elements of theater, dance, music, the visual arts, or poetry, it transforms these traditional forms for some use we would not have otherwise assumed or expected. As a genre, performance resists formulas and defies categorization. Rather, it seeks integration and synthesis. Each new work confronts its thematic material and then draws freely from any media that will best serve its intention. As a result, performance works explore new ground and develop forms of art that might not otherwise exist. 

 

This class approaches performance from a theoretical and practical standpoint simultaneously. While students are assigned a sequence of exercises designed to allow them to experience various genres of recent performance history, they are concurrently assigned readings which will expose them to pertinent critical and theoretical issues.