Alternative Perspectives: Interdisciplinary Ideas about Performance - MUS00040C

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Module summary

This module will explore how music performance relates to other forms of performance. Music performance will be set in context as part of a wider phenomenon of performance in everyday life.

Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Autumn Term 2022-23

Module aims

This project will explore how music performance is part of a wider phenomenon of performance in everyday life and ritual. It will draw on theories that originated outside musicology, and will focus on key ideas from performance studies, a discipline that grew out of a combination of theatre studies and anthropology. Selected theatre theory will also be examined and applied to performances involving music. In this way, students will be encouraged to

• consider performance from new angles
• think about the wider social contexts of music performance
• examine their own modes of performance critically

Module learning outcomes

On completion of the project, all students should

• understand how music studies can intersect with interdisciplinary performance theory
• demonstrate familiarity with a number of performance studies theories
• have acquired the knowledge to apply performance theory to music
• have gained the critical distance necessary to reflect on their own performance of music

In their independent work, first-year students should demonstrate Learning Outcomes A1-6

Indicative assessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100

Module feedback

Report form, with marks to student no later than 6 weeks from submission of assessment

Indicative reading

Schechner, Richard. Performance Studies: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge, 2002.

Cook, Nicholas. Between Process and Product: Music and/as Performance, Music Theory Online 7/2 (April 2001).



Auslander, Philip. Musical Personae, The Drama Review 50/1 (Spring 2006), 100-119.

Auslander, Philip. Liveness. Performance in a Mediatized Culture. London and New York: Routledge, 1999.

Davis, Tracy C. The Cambridge Companion to Performance Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Counsell, Colin and Laurie Wolf, eds. Performance Analysis. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2001.