A person submerged in blankets reaches their hand out

Andy Giovale BFA 23 Title: Sandtimer Photo Credit: Ruby Que

Performance

Undergraduate Overview

Undergraduate Overview

Fall 2026 Application Deadline: March 1

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago's (SAIC) Performance department is one of the only undergraduate contemporary performance departments in the country. We are known nationally and internationally as a center for engagement, research, and experimentation of body-focused performance art practice in an art-and-design school context.

We put a strong emphasis on contemporary art with practices and theories including:

  • Live actions
  • Interactive digital technologies
  • Movement research
  • Tactical and site performance
  • Performance installation
  • Abandoned practices
  • Re-enactment/Reperformance
  • Archiving the document
  • Performance writing

The Performance program's distinguished and professionally active faculty represent a broad range of experimental performance approaches ranging from solo performance and material actions to activist participatory theater, gender performance, experimental movement performance, performance lectures, re-enactment, networked virtual performance/mixed reality, and curating.

Possible Performance Paths

Undergraduate students concentrating their BFA in Performance are encouraged to consider their art-making process as a interdisciplinary practice that can range across various departments including, but not limited to, Fiber and Material Studies; Sculpture; Performance; Fashion Design; Art and Technology / Sound Practices; Film, Video, New Media, and Animation; and Ceramics. Students are encouraged to confer with faculty to map a course of interdisciplinary study that reflects the latest developments in contemporary practices in these fields.

Below are some pathway suggestions to consider:

  • Body/Performance: Intro to Performance; The Performing Body; Performing Next Feminisms; Movement Research/Improvisation; Bodies in Motion; Durations: Long, Medium, Short; and Movement/Presence: Body as Site
  • Object Performance: Material Actions, Puppetry, and Performance and Event Production
  • Media Performance: Performance Media; Mixed Reality Performance; Performance and Video; Live Presence/Virtual Spaces; Performing for the Camera; and Fusions: Film, Video, Performance
  • Installation/Site-specific Performance: Site Practice; Tactical Performance; Event Production; and Performance Installation
  • Collaborative Performance: Systems, structures: Methods of creation; Make it Strange; Collaboration/Directing for Performance; Group Work; and Between Theatre and Performance.
  • Critical/Activist Social and Political Performance: Extreme bodies in Performance; Border Crossing; Performing Next Feminisms; and Tactical Performance
  • Performance Writing: Body/Text; Performative Writing; Scripting/Acting for Performance; and Narrative in Performance
  • Re-enactment/Reperformance: Parasitic Practices; Performing the Document; Performing Fictions; and Performance Documentation

Undergraduate Admissions Requirements & Curriculum Overview

  • To apply to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), you will need to fill out an application and submit your transcripts, artist's statement, and letters of recommendation. And most importantly, we require a portfolio of your best and most recent work—work that will give us a sense of you, your interests, and your willingness to explore, experiment, and think beyond technical art, design, and writing skills.

    In order to apply, please submit the following items:  

    Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Portfolio

    Submit 10–15 pieces of your best and most recent work. We will review your portfolio and application materials for merit scholarship once you have been admitted to SAIC.

    When compiling a portfolio, you may concentrate your work in a single discipline or show work in a breadth of media. The portfolio may include drawings, prints, photographs, paintings, film, video, audio recordings, sculpture, ceramics, fashion designs, graphic design, furniture, objects, architectural designs, websites, video games, sketchbooks, scripts, storyboards, screenplays, zines, or any combination of the above.

    Learn more about applying to SAIC's Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio, or view our portfolio preparation guide for more information.

  • Studio69
    • CP 1010 Core Studio Practice I (3)
    • CP 1011 Core Studio Practice II (3)
    • CP 1020 Research Studio I (3)
    • CP 1022 Research Studio II (3)
    • SOPHSEM 2900 (3)
    • PROFPRAC 39XX (3)
    • CAPSTONE 49XX (3)
    • Studio Electives (48)
    		 
    Art History15
    • ARTHI 1001 World Cultures/Civilizations: Pre-History—19th Century Art and Architecture (3)
    • Additional Art History Course at 1000-level (e.g., ARTHI 1002) (3)
    • Art History Electives at 2000-, 3000-, or 4000-level (9)
    		 
    Liberal Arts30
    • ENGLISH 1001 First Year Seminar I (3)
    • ENGLISH 1005 First Year Seminar II (3)
    • Natural Science (6)
    • Social Science (6)
    • Humanities (6)
    • Liberal Arts Electives (6)
      • Any of the above Liberal Arts or certain AAP or EIS
    		 
    General Electives6
    • Studio, Art History, Liberal Arts, AAP, or EIS
    		 
    Total Credit Hours120

    * BFA students must complete at least two classes designated as "off campus study." These classes can also fulfill any of the requirements listed above and be from any of the divisions (Art History, Studio, Liberal Arts, or General Electives).

    BFA in Studio with Thesis Option (Liberal Arts or Visual Critical Studies): Students interested in pursuing the BFA in Studio with the Thesis Option (Liberal Arts or Visual Critical Studies) should contact their academic advisor for details about eligibility, program requirements, and the application process.

    Total credits required for minimum residency66
    Minimum Studio credit42

Course Listing

Title Catalog Instructor Schedule

Description

This course introduces the student to basic elements of performance art; body and objects, form and content, space and time, and enactment and documentation. The exploration will be encouraged by visiting artists' workshops or field trips to performance events throughout the course. Students develop individual and collaborative projects infusing their own narratives and making real human connections. Primarily a beginner's course but open to all levels of students.

Class Number

1689

Credits

3

Department

Performance

Area of Study

Gender and Sexuality

Location

MacLean 2M

Description

This course examines a variety of conceptual approaches to the 'script' (liminally defined) as a performative tool. Students study and interpret many forms including plays, monologues, found narratives, instruction-based events and public actions. Working with audio, video and artists' books/writings, the class looks at the concept of 'scripted text' not only as a medium and inspiration but also as a means of documentation. Emphasis is on research, writing, and live presentation in producing original scripts both collaboratively and individually.

Class Number

2157

Credits

3

Department

Performance

Location

MacLean 2M

Description

This course will examine the miraculous and menacing faces of fantasy: from proms, propaganda, internet romance scams, science fiction and Caffeine Free Diet Coke, to transformative and even healing collective rituals. The body¿s vulnerability to awkwardness and fatigue often seem to contrast air brushed visions of the spectacular and miraculous. Art works that use live presence to address the imaginary can therefore encourage critical reflection about the nature of longing, even as they sweep us away. How does fantasy function for human beings? Discussions about belief, desire, nostalgia, fetishism and the sacred will be guided by readings from Slavoj Zizek, Byung-Chul Han and Hito Steyerl, and artwork by Frances Stark, Miranda July, Ligia Lewis and Jacolby Satterwhite. In this class a broad range of methods for performance practice will be considered, including those that incorporate media to access the fantastic, and those that re-invent the long history of art-as- ritual. Vocal and movement improvisation games, creative writing exercises, creative responses and small-scale assignments will support students to generate three, more substantial, projects that further their individual interests and goals.

Class Number

2286

Credits

3

Department

Performance

Location

Description

Combining both medieval and contemporary performance practices, this class probes the possibilities of object and figure theater performance in the outdoor setting. We will examine the Renaissance spectacles of Piero di Cosimo, the Eastern European Happenings, the public ceremonies of Welfare State International and the street protest of Bread & Puppet Theater. Exercises will explore the making of large-scale graphic image making, such as Cantastoria, Banners and Scrolls. Through group collaborations the class will learn giant puppet making techniques and construction. The class will culminate in an all class outdoor spectacle.

Class Number

1695

Credits

3

Department

Performance

Location

280 Building Rm 012

Description

This studio course examines concepts of time, duration and endurance in
performative acts and time-based art. It explores the materiality of time and its
surprising and sometimes unruly creativity in performance, in everyday life activities
and in mass geopolitical events. How does slowness, super-speed or arrested
movement alter perception? Is there a politics of resistance in durational persistence
and endurance? How does memory, history and the flooded simultaneity of the
present haunt our experience of time?

You¿ll consider the effects of different events where time unravels or remains
fundamental to the structure and potentiality of the event - from pilgrimage and
procession to enforced acts of migration and translocation, from 35 second to 24
hour and year-long performances. Choosing performance as our lens and object
of study we¿ll consider the way time alters our perception of experience and the
memory of events.

Students investigate propositions and ideas in a workshop situation. Course work
includes the creation of 3-5 individual works, weekly reading/viewing and writing
responses, as well as creative response to the work of others.

Class Number

2187

Credits

3

Department

Performance

Area of Study

Collaboration

Location

280 Building Rm 012

Description

From Ron Athey and Kira O¿Riley, to Gwendoline Robin and Stelarc, this class explores tactics and politics for using the `extreme body¿ in contemporary performance. Pop-culture, media, and contemporary politics are examined through the lens of performance, as well as contemporary performance practice. Performance experiments, group discussions, on-going critiques, and written work are engaged as a strategy to merge art practice and theory. This is a practice-based course with material driven by the subject matter and the students¿ own work. Artists and themes explored may include: The Technological Body, The Sexual, Erotic, Pornographic Body, The Altered/ Prosthetic body, The Religious/Ecstatic body, Deprivation/Endurance/Duration, among others. In this class you will: Connect with the artist¿s body (yours) as the raw material for performance. Explore various strategies for individual and collaborative performance. Learn to operate in `Performance mode¿ with exercises to heighten your awareness of present time paired with a sense of total body performativity, and consciousness of the viewer¿s presence. Develop a collective performance vocabulary.

Class Number

1688

Credits

3

Department

Performance

Location

280 Building Rm 012

Description

How do we observe seasonal rites, rituals, ceremonies and customs that perhaps are familiar and unfamiliar to us and in conversation with the rural? What is the rural and how can we research and look at it in the lens of living in the city of Chicago, the midwest through the body of performing and performance. How do we observe, embody and queer the rural we will be engaged with in workshop, seminar and presentation over the course of the semester. How do we encounter, engage, through the political, the economic, labour, landscape, communities, and history. We will look at a range of artists from a variety of media (performance, sculpture, fashion, video) who look at and work from the rural. These will include Marcus Coates, Fevered Sleep, Kira O?Reilly, Ralph Meatyard, Charles Freyer, British Folklore, Paul Wright, Queer Appalachia, Derek Jarman, Aine Phillips, Kathleen Stewart, Alex Hoedt, and Samantha Allen. How do you embody a field that sews in spring and harvest in fall? How do you perform time in isolation in smaller communities, away from urban centres? Where is the rural in you? Where is the ritual of home and landscape?

Class Number

2156

Credits

3

Department

Performance

Location

280 Building Rm 012

Description

A laboratory for experiment in terms of thought and action, this interdisciplinary critique seminar explores a series of key contemporary themes and issues in the area of live art. The course aims to be both topical and provocative, and as participants, you are invited to take a position (or play devil¿s advocate) in relation to a series of burgeoning topics and issues that are currently forming contemporary discourses concerning art and performance. In particular, this class will have a specific emphasis on interrogating presentational modes and discursive techniques. Through readings, discussion, and presentations, students will have an active stake in the form and nature of these discussions. The course is structured in two parts. In the first part, classes will focus on the activation and physicalization of what we have read. We will undertake practical workshops, embodied theory, provocations, and performance actions as a means of enacting the discourses we have explored. Students will examine their multidisciplinary work through the lens of performance. In the second part of the course, each student will present their current practice in the form of a performance, studio visit or other mode best suited for their work. Various guest artists, scholars and curators will be invited to participate in these final studio critiques.

Class Number

2069

Credits

3

Department

Performance

Location

MacLean 2M

Description

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.

Prerequisites

Open to MFA, MFAW and MAVCS students only

Class Number

1088

Credits

3 - 6

Department

Performance

Location

Description

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.

Prerequisites

Open to MFA, MFAW and MAVCS students only

Class Number

1087

Credits

3 - 6

Department

Performance

Location

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