The document provides guidance on analyzing a performance work through a postmodern lens. It defines postmodernism and discusses several postmodern theorists including Lyotard, Baudrillard, and Barthes. Their key ideas around skepticism of absolute truths, simulation and reality construction, and culture as a tissue of quotations are outlined. The document then suggests ways these postmodern concepts may be applied to a performance work, such as by examining how it reinforces or challenges norms, uses technology or media, employs intertextuality, and recycles other cultural works. It concludes by proposing a possible structure for analyzing and interpreting a work through postmodern concepts in 2 paragraphs of 200 words each.

1. Interpretation
by Louise Douse
Week
3
Analysing
Performance

2. The Essay
In what ways can your chosen practitioners work be
considered postmodern. You should discuss the
chosen work by paying particular attention to:
 The significant signs and key stylistic features of
the work
 The key postmodern concepts applied to the
performance
Week 3
Analysing Performance

3. Your
argument
[Insert name of work here]
can be considered
postmodern.
Analysing Performance Week 3

4. So, what do
you need to
do to
support this
argument?
Analysing Performance Week 3
Explain what postmodernism is
Articulate the key themes and ideas of
postmodernism
Identify a key theory/theorist/idea that might be
relevant to your work
Identify the key themes of the work
Draw parallels between the relevant postmodern
idea and the key themes of the performance

5. The Postmodern
Key terms associated with ‘the postmodern’ :
 Postmodernity – the historical, social, cultural,
political position and condition
 Postmodernism – the aesthetic, cultural
products and practices of this condition.

6. How has the
postmodern condition
been theorised?
Week 3
Analysing Performance
 Jean-Francois Lyotard
French Philosopher
“Simplifying to the
extreme, I define
postmodern as incredulity
toward metanarratives”.
The Postmodern Condition
(1979)

7. Meta-narratives
 Scepticism – no “absolute truth”
 Education
 Family
 Religion
 Moral relativism
 Values cultural diversity and
promotes tolerance
 Problematises moral objectivism
 Relative to a particular standpoint,
without privilege
 Marxism
 Scientific progress
 Mastery of craft
 Dismisses common or shared values
 Nihilism – extreme pessimism, value
destruction
 Implies obvious wrongs are
acceptable
Week 3
Analysing Performance

8. In
performance?
 Does the play/performance reinforce
or challenge any cultural stereotypes
(gender, class, race, disability)?
 Or comment on any particular form
of oppression?
 Does it challenge common
assumptions about
dance/theatre/performance?
 Or defy interpretation?
 Does it employ juxtaposition or irony?
Analysing Performance Week 3

9. How has the
postmodern condition
been theorised?
Week 3
Analysing Performance
 Jean Baudrillard French
Philosopher
“Disneyland is presented as
imaginary in order to make us
believe the rest is real, when in
fact all of Los Angeles and the
America surrounding it are no
longer real, but of the order of the
hyperreal and of simulation.”
Simulations (1983)

10. Simulation
 Mass media and popular culture are the most important cultural
institutions
 Media no longer holds a mirror to society
 Reality has become constructed by mass media – we are living in a post-
truth world
 Capitalism and the economy
 Establish production in the age of modernity – infrastructure, work ethic,
conditions
 Postmodernity sees the need for consumption and leisure
 Hence the need for media, advertising, mass communication
Week 3
Analysing Performance

11. In
performance?
 Does the play/performance make
use of technology?
 If so does this have an effect on the
representation of reality?
 Does it make a comment on the use
of social media or other forms of
media?
 Or allude to the construction of
reality?
 Does it employ non-linearity or
fragmentation?
Analysing Performance Week 3

12. How has the
postmodern condition
been theorised?
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Analysing Performance
Roland Barthes
French Philosopher
“[The text is a] multidimensional
space in which a variety of writings
none of them original, blend and
clash.The text is a tissue of
quotations drawn from the
innumerable centres of culture.”
Image-Music-Text (1977)

13. Originality
 Feeds vampirically on the past
 Nothing new
 Culture of quotations
 Other histories
 Other cultures (cultural appropriation)
Week 3
Analysing Performance

14. In
performance?
 Does the play/performance recycle
other cultural material – art, music,
costuming, cultural practices?
 Or draw on other performances,
genres, styles of performance?
 Does it focus on the ephemeral
experience of the ‘now’?
 Does it employ intertextuality, parody
or pastiche?
Analysing Performance Week 3

15. Possible
structure
1. Introduction
2. Practitioner info/ outline of work
3. Method
4. Interpretation
5. Impression
6. Analysis
7. Interpretation
8. Impression
9. Analysis
10. Conclusion
Practising Ideas Approaches to Theory Week 7
Idea 1
Idea 2

16. So, what do
you need to
do?
 One paragraph to define
postmodernism and explain the
key ideas (for intro/method) –
100 words
 POINT: Postmodernism is…
 EVIDENCE: Quote from
academically rigorous resource
 EXPLANATION: Explain in own words
Week
3
Analysing
Performance

17. Interpretation x2
- 2 x 200 words
- 2 x key ideas/
themes
Practising Ideas Approaches to Theory Week 7
• One of the key themes of the work…
• An interpretation of the work…
Point –What is the work about?
• One critic writes, “…” (Ref)
• This is supported by X who states… (Ref)
Evidence – How has it typically been
interpreted?
• This is a key concern of postmodernism because…
• This relates to X’s theory of … because…
Explanation – How do these ideas relate to
postmodernism?

18. Bibliography
 Elam, K. (2002) The semiotics of theatre and drama. London: Routledge.
 Pavis, P. (2003) Analyzing performance: theater, dance, and film. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press.
 Preson-Dunlop,V. & Sanchez-Colberg, A. (2010) Dance and the performative: a
choreological perspective: Laban and beyond. London: Dance Books.
 Storey, J. (2006) Cultural theory and popular culture: an introduction. Harlow: Pearson
Prentice Hall.
Week 3
Analysing Performance