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ACADEMIC PROGRAM

At Berkeley, we understand performance as a mode of critical inquiry and creative expression. Set within the intellectual resources of one of the world's great universities, faculty and students in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies pursue a wide spectrum of research and production activities, in the broader context of a wide-ranging and critical education in the arts and humanities. The faculty is nationally and internationally known both for its scholarly research--ranging from Sophocles and Shakespeare to performance art, postcolonial theater, and contemporary dance--and for creative work in acting, design, directing, choreography, and performing. The Department administers several exciting undergraduate major and minor programs; an innovative interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in theater, dance and performance studies (The Graduate Group in Performance Studies); and sponsors the Bay Area Repertory Dance Company (BARD), a resident touring ensemble that tours and performs throughout the year.

UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMS
Undergraduate education in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies participates in the strongest traditions of arts and humanities education at Berkeley. Students pursue intensive work in acting, critical studies, design, directing, technical production, choreography, and modern dance technique in two majors that emphasizes the methodological rigor of the study of performance, and that set the literary, historical, theoretical, and cultural traditions of performance in dialogue with other arts and humanities disciplines. The faculty teach at all levels, and undergraduate students have ample opportunity to study with major scholars and practitioners in theater, dance, and performance studies. Students have significant opportunities to participate in all aspects of performance, both in the formal season offered by the Department and in smaller productions.

Separate major/degree programs are offered in Theater and Performance Studies and in Dance and Performance Studies, and students are encouraged to specialize within each program. Although all students fulfill general requirements in all areas of theater or dance practice and performance studies, they may specialize in one of several areas: acting, contemporary dance and choreography, directing, design, technical production, or performance studies. All students at Berkeley are required to fulfill an extensive range of requirements outside their major, and students majoring in Theater or in Dance are strongly encouraged to seek out courses in dramatic literature, visual arts, and performance history, and culture and performance offered by other departments in the College of Letters and Science.

Undergraduate majors and minors in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies are well-prepared for the future; the flexibility and integration with the humanities characteristic of the major makes them excellent candidates for graduate and professional schools, as well as for continued work and education in theater and dance. Several students have recently been honored by the American College Theater Festival and one of our students won Outstanding Student Choreogrpher at the American College Dance Festival (Southwest Region).

THE Ph.D. PROGRAM: The Graduate Group in Performance Studies
In the past decade, graduate studies in the field of drama, theater, and performance studies has undergone an energetic renovation, and "performance" itself has become critical to scholarship and research across the humanities. At the same time, this disciplinary ferment has demanded a much higher degree of specialization, and of scholarly rigor from Ph.D. candidates seeking academic careers at the college and university level. The Graduate Group Ph.D. in Performance Studies at Berkeley is at the cutting edge of this epistemic shift. Centered in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, it is composed of an unrivalled faculty drawn from across the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Doctoral students have the opportunity to engage in performance activities that complement dissertation research, which itself ranges across the contemporary horizon of drama, theater, and performance studies. Currently, Ph.D. students are working on subjects that range from postcolonial theatricality to the performance of medicine; from puppets and performing objects to contemporary Shakespearean acting; from the discourses of Latino/a theater to feminist geography in contemporary drama. Students admitted to the Ph.D. program are offered a full package of support, including fellowship and teaching assistantships.

PERFORMANCE AND PRODUCTION
The Department produces its own dance and theater, as well as reaching out to sponsor performances by a range of individuals, companies, and organizations. The production season at once serves the curricular demands of the Department, providing important opportunities for students and faculty to bring performance to the public, and creates a forum where the larger Berkeley community--on-campus and off-campus--use performance to interrogate, reflect on, and conceptualize contemporary culture. Both in the main season and in collateral events--such as recent performances by Theater Rice, The Chicano/Latino Theater Workshop, The Black Theater Workshop--the Department sees performance as part of the larger discourse of the university. It works closely with Cal Performances to bring artists into dialogue and workshops with students (such as workshops by the Mark Morris Dance Company, Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, San Francisco Ballet, American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, California Shakespeare Festival); it sponsors a "Making Theater" series of informal conversations with important voices in the field of contemporary arts and humanities; it sponsors the production of innovative new performance work (such as John Fisher's Partisans, Rhodessa Jones's Past Time Paradise: Nobody Gets Out Alive!, Stan Lai's Dream Like a Dream, and Joe Goode's The Leavers, as well as collaborating with the Consortium for the Arts on events like the residency of performance artist Tim Miller; it participates in the Artsbridge outreach program, which facilitates university students' teaching of the arts in public schools. The annual season sponsored by the Department includes both new works, and critical productions of classic theater, directed both by UC faculty and students as well as by invited directors; auditions are open to the entire Berkeley community.