DANCE AND PERFORMANCE ART HISTORY

The course is part of two different Master’s Degree Courses: the Master's Degree Course in History of the Arts and Conservation of the Artistic Heritage (which aims to provide a broad and in-depth knowledge of artistic phenomena with a view to their full understanding and valorisation) and the Master's Degree Course in Economics and Management of the Arts and Cultural Activities (EGArt) (which provides an understanding of the nature and processes of cultural productions in order to connect the professional worlds of management and culture and to activate marketing processes).
The course provides a specialised knowledge of contemporary dance and performance, introducing students to the main theories governing their creation, production and reception.

Students will be able to contextualize a choreographic work and a performance in the field of contemporary arts and cultural heritage. They will also be able to apply some key management concepts to these artistic fields. During the course, students will learn to take notes from lectures and reference texts to identify and make the main concepts their own, developing analytical and synthesis skills and critical thinking. Finally, students will know how to use specialist vocabulary. The final paper and the related oral interview or the written assignment allow students to test the knowledge acquired during the course and relate it to what they have learnt throughout their entire study curriculum.

It is necessary to read English in order to understand some of the texts in the bibliography and to understand the videos of the performances / documentaries screened and discussed in class.

The course presents and analyses a selection of 20th and 21st-century choreographic and performance works by placing them in a historical context. The explanation and discussion of theoretical issues are based on the analysis of several texts on performance practices and the projection of video recordings of shows and performances. Discussing the characteristics of the different genres and creative and production processes is intertwined with the analysis mechanisms governing audience reception and the specific terminology indispensable for understanding the texts under examination. The course includes two focuses: the first on the documentation of performance and dance and the second on the analysis of the increasing presence of performance and choreographic exhibitions in museums and art galleries. For non-attending students there is an additional text in the syllabus (see section "testi di riferimento").

C. Wood, Performance in Contemporary Art, London, Tate Publishing, 2018.

L. Vergine, L'arte in trincea. Lessico delle tendenze artistiche 1960-1990, Milano, Skira, 1996.
(chapters: Happening; Fluxus; Arte Concettuale; Body Art).

Moving Spaces. Enacting Dance, Performance, and the Digital in the Museum, edited by Susanne Franco and Gabriella Giannachi, Edizioni Ca' Foscari, Venezia, 2021 (open access).

A selection of essays and videos is listed on the moodle platform (ask the professor for the access password)

For non-attending students
Performance + curatela, edited by Piersandra Di Matteo, Luca Sossella Editore, Roma, 2021.

The learning assessment is carried out through a test chosen by the student from among:

1) a written paper on a topic (and related bibliography) agreed in advance with the professor; the paper, approximately 15 pages long (corresponding to about 30,000 characters including spaces) is then presented and discussed during an oral interview of 15/20 minutes. The paper must be sent in word format in an intermediate form (with the complete bibliography and an outline of the structure) about 10 days before the roll call to be reviewed and approved by the professor and in final form one week before the roll call. For the paper drafting, the student must have read the file "Standards for the drafting of the thesis" available on the university's e-learning platform (moodle.unive.it) relating to the course.
or
2) a written open book examination based on 2 open questions. The examination lasts 2 hours, and the student must answer both questions with 5000 characters per answer by referring to the bibliographic and video materials on the syllabus. Both questions must be answered to pass the exam.

Lecture course using image and video screenings. On the course page (moodle.unive.it) you can find information on the texts and videos discussed in class (the password is provided in class by the professor).

Italian

written and oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Climate change and energy" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development