Interdisciplinary research and practices blur boundaries. While the premodern approach to research distils areas into fine categories and certainties, interdisciplinary ideas spread across different fields. Performance is charged with interdisciplinarity.

The University of Malta’s School of Performing Arts conducts interdisciplinary research that connects the performing arts with various disciplines in the Sciences and Humanities. This year’s school annual conference focused on this, in particular on eight overlapping performance categories: everyday life, the arts, sports, business, technology, sex, ritual, and play. The performing arts can endlessly combine these groupings in ways that range from theatre, dance, and music, drawing material from—but also impinging upon—everyday life, to training in performance and in sports. These arts share the drive for efficacy and efficiency with business, besides witnessing an increasing use of technological innovation.Continue reading