Course detail
Performance Theory – Performance Analysis
FaVU-4PT-PAAcad. year: 2024/2025
The course Performance Theory – Performance Analysis is best understood as a collective inquiry in performance theory. Each class is divided into two parts: lecture and seminar. In the lectures, key issues of performance theory, as discussed in Carlson, Howell, and Fischer-Lichte, are introduced. In the seminars students are presenting their papers based on reading of selected chapters of the study literature. Students are encouraged to choose topics / chapters for their presentations in accordance with their own creative interests.
Language of instruction
Number of ECTS credits
Mode of study
Guarantor
Entry knowledge
Rules for evaluation and completion of the course
Compulsory attendance of at least 70%. Lower attendance, when explained reasonably, can be replaced with an additional seminar paper upon the agreement with the lecturer.
Aims
Upon completion of the course student will be able to:
- identify and summarize the important features of performance theory within performative practices (both within and outside of the field of contemporary art);
- to identify and analyze current performative art practices;
- to apply the key terminology of performance theory in writing about their own creative practice.
Study aids
Prerequisites and corequisites
Basic literature
FISCHER-LICHTE, Erika. The transformative power of performance: a new aesthetics. New York: Routledge, 2008. ISBN 978-0415458566. (EN)
HOWELL, Anthony. The analysis of performance art: a guide to its theory and practice. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1999. Contemporary theatre studies. ISBN 9057550865. (EN)
WOLF, Laurie, COUNSELL, Colin. Performance Analysis: An Introductory Coursebook. Routledge; 1st edition, 2005. ISBN 978-0415224079 (EN)
Recommended reading
GOLDBERG, RoseLee. Performance: live art since 1960. New York: Harry N. Abrams Publishers, 1998. ISBN 9780810943605. (EN)
HENRI, Adrian. Total art: environments, happenings, and performance. New York: Praeger, 1974. ISBN 978-0275435400. (EN)
MCEVILLEY, Thomas. The triumph of anti-art: conceptual and performance art in the formation of post-modernism. Kingston, N.Y: McPherson & Co, 2012. ISBN 0929701925. (EN)
Classification of course in study plans
Type of course unit
Lecture
Teacher / Lecturer
Syllabus
2. Politics of Performance
3. Gender and Sexual Identity
4. Performing Ethnicity
5. Performing Body
6. Time and Space of Performance
7. Audience and Spectatorship
8. Stillness – Repetition – Inconsistency
9. Drive – Transitions – Presence
10. Image – Mimicry – Other
11. Chaos – Desire – Vision
12. Borders of Performance