Teaching performance studies: communicating contemporary curricular practice in the United States

ABSTRACT

How do performance studies scholars communicate the field to and for students, scholars, and stakeholders? Through an analysis of online data gathered from institutions of higher education in the United States, we investigated how educators narrate performance studies in curricular descriptions. We detail the stated characteristics of performance studies and its object of study; the theories and sources referenced by scholars; and the methodologies, approaches, and techniques educators use and teach (to which ends). These findings and the collective picture they paint provide a guide for current and future scholars and students interested in performance studies praxis.

KEYWORDS:

• Performance studies
• teaching
• curriculum
• communication

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Bahn and Bahn’s text is an excellent history of Oral Interpretation from Ancient Greece to the mid-twentieth century. For more about oral performance in Ancient Greece and Rome, see Robert P. Sonkowsky’s chapters in Performance of Literature in Historical Perspectives, edited by Thompson.

2 Thompson’s edited collection features chapters detailing Latin history (Paden), Anglo-Saxon England (Conquergood), Medieval English Literature (Regan), Bardic poetry in the Middle Ages (Loesch), and the Oral Traditions of Renaissance Italy (di Tommaso) before continuing through to the twentieth century in a fashion similar to Bahn and Bahn. Furthermore, while we are working from within the “Northwestern”/“NCA” performance studies tradition, the “NYU” tradition forges a different, more anthropological and theatrical, path through history. Schechner has detailed this history in much of his work; in particular see his essays in Performance Theory, Performance Studies: An Introduction, and other essays cited here.

3 For more about the evolution of elocution and expression in the United States, see Robb.

4 As we have argued previously (MacDonald and Riga), this “two-pronged” story is, itself, contested and incomplete. PS scholars may not all agree with this narration, as it simplifies the history of the field while excluding key institutions, particularly those in the Southern states. Our data features institutions from 32 states and districts (including Hawaii and D.C.), as can be seen in Figure 1. Thus, our data and findings go beyond the institutions and regions included in this dual origin story.