CMPCP/IMR Performance Research Seminars are sponsored by the AHRC Research
Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice and the Institute of
Musical Research. For further information see www.cmpcp.ac.uk/imr2014.html.


 What might Schechner's Performance Studies and the emerging field of
performance philosophy mean for music?


Laura Cull (University of Surrey)

9 December 2013
17.00 - 18.30
Chancellor's Hall, Senate House, University of London, Malet Street, London
WC1

This paper will be in two parts. The first will start from the premise that
the term 'performance studies' means different things in different contexts.
Specifically, the paper will address the distinction between i) 'Performance
Studies' understood as a discipline that emerged largely as a challenge to
Theatre Studies in the US in the 1980s and 90s - thanks in large part to the
work of Richard Schechner, and ii) performance studies understood as 'the
scholarly study of musical performance' (Rink 2005: x) which, again since
the 1980s, has constituted a rapidly growing area of research within music
and musicology. Having outlined the distinction, but also areas of shared
concern, I will offer some preliminary observations as to what the value
might be of greater levels of communication between these two versions of
performance studies. The second part of the paper will introduce the
emerging field of Performance Philosophy as one site in which precisely
these kinds of interdisciplinary exchange might take place. Here, I will
focus on the concept of music performance as philosophy - drawing from
scholars such as Andrew Bowie to suggest that we need not think of
philosophy as simply one more source of methodologies which might be applied
to musical performance, but of music performance itself as the site of a
kind of philosophical thinking in its own right.

Laura Cull is Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies and Director of
Postgraduate Research in the School of Arts at the University of Surrey. She
is author of the book Theatres of Immanence: Deleuze and the Ethics of
Performance (Palgrave, 2012), editor of the volume Deleuze and Performance
(Edinburgh, 2009) and co-editor of the collection Manifesto Now!
Instructions for Performance, Philosophy, Politics (Intellect, 2013). Laura
is a founding, core convener of the research network and professional
association  <http://performancephilosophy.ning.com/> Performance
Philosophy, which includes a sub-group for those concerned with the
relationship between Music and Philosophy.