The Performance Studio explores a wide range of approaches to art-making centred on the medium of performance. This includes practices of enactment, execution, live actions or events, the body as a medium, and language and gesture as culturally specific forms – each culminating in various manifestations of performance art. Through these lenses, students will engage with practical methodologies, techniques of presentation and representation, location, audience dynamics, duration, the body as a semiotic system, and the development of scores, scripts, notes, voice, movement, scenographic objects, installation, and documentation. The course integrates historical examples alongside the viewing of contemporary performance works. Through readings and critical discussions, students will acquire a new vocabulary to articulate and evaluate performance art in the context of current debates in contemporary art. The course aims to equip students with the technical skills, vocabulary, and a range of perspectives necessary for the creation of original performance-based artworks.

The course is conducted through a combination of studio work, individual tutorials, group critiques, assignments, exercises, collaborative experiments, group discussions, readings, and lectures that provide historical context. A series of visits will be organised, including live performance presentations, artist studios, as well as institutions and organisations dedicated to the presentation and archiving of performance art. Students will be assigned individual practical projects related to the themes explored in class. Throughout the semester, each student will develop a final project that engages with the perspectives and questions addressed during the course. The parameters for this final project and its presentation will be shaped over the duration of the studio sessions.

 Location: ASFA Underground Theatre (temporarily) 

Schedule: 

Monday (individual sessions by appointment) 

Wednesday and Friday 16:00 – 19:00