Histories of Performance: Performance and Globalization

4 credits · Undergraduate

This history survey course examines different performance traditions from across the globe as they depart from, challenge, and influence each other. How did peoples on each continent theorize the role of performance in their society, and what did these theories look like when they were put into practice on the stage, in the temple, or in the town square? How did the forces of trade, migration, settler-colonialism, and tourism influence the sharing (and stealing) of these traditions across cultures and continents? And how do these different views of performance challenge our understandings of what truth is and how the theater can or should represent it? (Students do not need to have taken TDPS 151a to enroll in this class.)