Reflections on teaching performance studies for community-based theatre in Portugal

Abstract

This paper presents a set of reflections made in relation to experiences that happened in the first year of the first course for the Masters Degree in Theatrical Activities in the Institute of Education, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal. It looks at the curricular structure of this course and focuses especially on the course backbone - Performance Studies. The text discusses the fundamental questions that guided the content framework of Performance Studies and the way that this course sought to articulate epistemological, teaching and learning concerns, while simultaneously meeting the inherent heterogeneous needs of the target audience; namely, in relation to the initial training of students, their different goals, as well as their degrees of theatrical literacy and experience. Finally, it reflects on the constituent modules of the curricular unit that best illustrates the goals of theatrical research opened up by the deconstruction and use of the concept of performance in a training context