Expanding Performance

Course goals

Learning outcomes:

• identify how performance knowledge can be applied to other fields;
• discover emerging practices at the intersection of the field of theatre, performance and dance (theory and practice) and other fields;
• conduct independent research in applied areas of performance knowledge;
• develop the skills of thinking and acting in dramaturgical capacities and practise writing for a non-academic audience.

Content

Each year, the course has a specific focus depending on research projects related to the field. Please inquire with the coordinator about this year’s theme.

Expanding Performance tracks a range of contemporary developments in which concepts or strategies from theatre, dance and dramaturgy are employed in (research) domains beyond the arts, and how in turn artists use the theatre to query societal phenomena through performative strategies. As such, theatre and choreography expand their sphere of engagement and relevance. We will explore how performance artists and scholars increasingly use theatrical and choreographic concepts, forms and formats in other fields such as healthcare, education, and activism. They employ artistic processes and scenographic or choreographic tools and apply them to other fields. Just to name a few examples—‘clown doctors’ are professionally trained to offer care in hospitals; artists and architects in Forensic Architecture investigate violations of human rights; dancers work with robot programmers to teach social robots better gestures. This course charts ways in which theatrical, choreographic and dramaturgical processes become research methods, and the fertile domain of artists, scholars, and cultural professionals engaging with social and political matters of concern.

We will investigate how concepts and practices of theatre, dance and performance intersect with other fields of knowledge and expertise, and how such transdisciplinary encounters help us both to gain insight into current transitions in the performing arts as well as offer ways to understand and research phenomena and developments in other fields.

Additional information

This course is an elective open to students in the MA Contemporary Theatre, Dance and Dramaturgy, MA Arts and Society, the MA Applied Musicology, the RMA Musicology and the RMA Media, Art and Performance Studies. Students from other MA programmes need to contact the course coordinator before enrolling. Only this way participation can be granted. The entrance requirements for Exchange Students will be checked by International Office and the Programme coordinator. You do not have to contact the Programme coordinator by yourself.

Career orientation
The course actively investigates the potential of knowledge and expertise from the artistic field for domains beyond the arts, and trains students to think as advisors and develop a project proposal. Researchers and artists are invited as guest speakers in the course, and their work forms the basis for weekly research assignments.