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The study of performance is central to our understanding of modern society. In this module we ask a wide range of questions about the role of performing, performance and performativity. These questions build on, and extend, our understanding of key debates and issues explored within the field of Performance Studies. In particular, we situate discussion at the intersection between performance and culture – understood in terms of our systems of value recognition. Introducing key issues, debates and possibilities, the module will provide a broadly contextualised understanding of how local and global social and economic conditions inform specific performative practices and the performing arts. The curriculum unpacks and explores the significance of 'performing culture' in terms of a distinctive set of key tensions or dualisms – including between the everyday and stage, restoration and novelty, authenticity and inauthenticity, the participatory versus the presentational, and dis-enchantment versus re-enchantment. Advancing enquiry in relation to spontaneity, improvisation, play, the embodied nature of performance and more besides, the module encourages and enables a reflexive understanding of what performing, performance, and performativity constitute in our own lives, and how we might learn to develop them in creative ways for the benefit of ourselves and our communities.
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