Performance Studies examines the participants, contexts, and mechanisms by which performance is created. Borrowing from Anthropology, Sociology, and bodies of theory including those concerned with space, gender, race, class, and nation, Performance Studies takes up those performances generally located outside the theater or beyond the traditional performance spaces. Ritual, myth, and oral traditions as well as parades, festivals, and even sporting events are analyzed through the lens of Performance Studies. What unites the objects of study are “twice-behaved behaviors”—those behaviors that are rehearsed and presented before an audience that are concerned with making human action worth watching in a measured time and space.
GEP, Major/Minor & Elective Credit