Foundations in Performance History

4 credits · Undergraduate

This course examines a breadth of performance traditions from across the globe and from across the ages as they depart from, challenge, and influence each other as well as helping to shape the performances of today. How did religious beliefs, economic structures, social and kinship relations, or political histories produce the different shapes that performances have taken over the years and around the world? How did different communities and individuals understand performance as a way to remember, reflect, or change their societies? Students will learn how various performance forms responded to and were in dialogue with particular historical events. They will also develop historical and critical approaches to performance traditions.