Theatre and Performance Studies: What's in a name?

I check my course website every other hour. It's become a kind of obsession, and I almost enjoy everything that I do with it: Browsing through the next semester's course offerings, transplanting all of that information over to that little document in my Google Drive, constantly arranging and rearranging the modules until everything falls into place. It's therapeutic - cathartic even, and college is messy. Dealing with the plan ahead every so often helps me to keep my mind clear and to make sure that I'm doing everything right, especially when I have so much to do.

So one lovely day I hopped into the course website as usual, which had by now been visited so many times that it simply has already been logged into my browser history. I got an error message - the page you're trying to access no longer exists.

Alarm bells were ringing in my head. They didn't just boot the major that I worked my guts out for, did they? I checked the main department website, and relief flooded back in. They didn't, thank goodness. Theatre Studies has simply been renamed as Theatre and Performance Studies.

My first thought was - oh, interesting, so now I'm not a "TS" major, I'm a "TAPS" major - kind of like how colleges in the USA does it. I could think of a few high profile programs in the States which uses the same acronym: Yale, Stanford, Berkeley, Chicago. Based on my research and knowledge about those programs, that's a very good sign for us as it means that we are now aligned with the general direction of Ivy League schools. Adopting a recognized identifier that has its brand name counterparts sets up a highway for cross-university module listings and thus facilitates exchange programs. 

However, whether that is a good thing in context is an entirely different matter. From its earliest days, the NUS Theatre major had been criticized for being too theoretical and academic in nature. Many derided its name - Theatre Studies, alleging that true to its chosen moniker, the program was more "Studies" than "Theatre". While the program is steadily moving away from its theoretical and traditional focus to explore more practical and experimental forms of theatre, the old stigma remains, and plenty of young theatre practitioners choose to pursue their craft in arts institutions or overseas. However, that name change shakes things up a little - what changed? What stays the same? 

We start by analyzing the linguistics of the new name: Is Theatre and Performance Studies supposed to mean Theatre, and Performance Studies, or Theatre and Performance Studies? Two different things here. The first refers to an increased focus on theatre-making and acting, plus a theoretical component on how performance is created. The second refers to a combination of two very academic fields - still lots of theoretical theatre studies, but now on top of that we add performance studies into the picture too. The two possible meanings hold very different repercussions for the future of the program, and naturally - as the pioneer batch of the renamed major running under the new umbrella of the NUS College of Humanities and Sciences - I have a ton of interest in what this might mean for incoming students.

The updated module list for the academic year of 2021 and 2022 shows that courses like Applied Theatre and Singapore English-Language Theatre are not offered this year. Also conspicuously absent is the Theatre Criticism course, presumably due to the lack of theatre to watch or criticize after a year of absolute chaos. Interestingly, some practice-intensive modules such as Making Contemporary Theatre and Playwrighting: Practice and Production made a comeback. Compared to last year where FASS moved online, this Semester 1 promises to be held face to face on campus, which makes the changes in course offerings a logical one. Nevertheless, we definitely need a longer period of comparison to establish if those changes were made based on the major's new designation, or if they were an effect of the current circumstances.

The new name definitely came as a surprise since no one even mentioned it. Even during Camp Elysian, the professors and student leaders referred to the major by its old name, so the ramifications of it all clearly hasn't hit home. For better or for worse, as the Shakespeare saying goes, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." TAPS sounds catchier too, so if that turns out to be the reason for the name change, I'd gladly take it any day.

Source for module list AY21/22: NUSMods