Performance Studies students are creative, smart, inquisitive, independent. In their coursework and creative practice they seek difficult questions, examine society closely and critically, and produce innovative approaches to analysis and representation. Their inspiration materializes when they work with literary texts and with real-world events; when they write papers and perform for audiences; and when they work in traditional arts venues, experiment with media, and engage with public spaces.
Performance studies majors are performers, directors, writers, visual artists, musicians. They are scholars of creative work and socially conscious artists take aesthetic risks and play with big ideas.
Each year the department invites its undergraduate and graduate students to create and direct performance events for each term’s Performance Hour series. Students submit applications outlining their proposed projects, and the faculty selects the projects to be produced.
Each year the department invites its undergraduate and graduate students to create and direct performance events for each term’s Performance Hour series. Students submit applications outlining their proposed projects, and the faculty selects the projects to be produced.
Our faculty bring to Northwestern a global perspective gained thought their award-winning research in sites and spaces situated worldwide. Several of our faculty are experts in Africana studies, while others specialize in Middle East studies, Latin American studies, and migration and diasporic cultures. Our perspective enables students to explore, analyze, and make connections between performance cultures in places and sites that reach from student protests in Chile to underground music scenes in Syria (and its diaspora); from gospel choirs in Australia to an experimental dance across the irradiated landscape of Fukushima, Japan; and from Afrobeats legacy-making to queer performance art in Nigeria.
The intercultural and international component of the Performance Studies Department makes study abroad an appealing and beneficial pursuit for students in the program. Working with Northwestern’s Global Learning Office, students have pursued summer and semester abroad programs.