The University of New South Wales

go to UNSW home page

Handbook Home

PRINT THIS PAGE
Reading Performance - ARTS1121
 quad

   
   
   
 
Campus: Kensington Campus
 
 
Career: Undergraduate
 
 
Units of Credit: 6
 
 
EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)
 
 
Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 3
 
 
Excluded: MEFT1300, THFI1002
 
 
Fee Band: 1 (more info)
 
 
Further Information: See Class Timetable
 
 
Available for General Education: Yes (more info)
 
  

Description

Subject Area: Theatre & Performance Studies
This course can also be studied in the following specialisation: Media, Culture and Technology



'Reading Performance', one of the two core Level 1 courses in the Theatre and Performance Studies Major, offers an introduction to the exciting emergent discipline of Performance Studies. This course looks at a wide range of human activities through the idea of 'performance', from mundane everyday rituals to extra-ordinary theatre, film, video and dance practices. It presents different ways of theorising, analysing and interpreting a broad spectrum of cultural behaviours - whether they occur on the stage or on the street.

Performance Studies is a contemporary discipline that has most often been described as being 'between theatre and anthropology'. It embraces the study of both the 'everyday' category of cultural performance, and the 'aesthetic' category of contemporary theatre-making. This course addresses both realms of Performance Studies and how they interconnect. It focuses on how behaviour can be read as a text - whether the behaviour be the awkwardly staged gestures of a politican, the rituals of a bride and groom, the fluid movements of a dancer or the warm-up routine of a footballer. It also demonstrates how a heightened attention to the multiple performances around us, through methods such as ethnographic fieldwork, helps us to read the values, beliefs and politics of both local and global cultures.

URL for this page:

© The University of New South Wales (CRICOS Provider No.: 00098G), 2004-2011. The information contained in this Handbook is indicative only. While every effort is made to keep this information up-to-date, the University reserves the right to discontinue or vary arrangements, programs and courses at any time without notice and at its discretion. While the University will try to avoid or minimise any inconvenience, changes may also be made to programs, courses and staff after enrolment. The University may also set limits on the number of students in a course.