Shifting Perspectives and Collapsing Binaries: Critical Performative Pedagogy in the Performance Studies Classroom

Abstract

Much as performance comes into being by the bodily co-presence of performers and audience, so teaching comes into being by the bodily co-presence of teachers and learners, by their encounters and interactions – their relationship. This paper traverses the process dimension of performative teaching and learning by exploring the productive intersections between critical performative pedagogy (CPP) and performance within the performance studies classroom. It does so by examining the power of performativity in the teaching-learning context where, it is claimed, its major characteristic lies in its ability to destabilise and even collapse the inhibitive binary oppositions evident in classrooms purveying a more traditional, conservative culture of the teaching-learning process.