What is Performance Criticism?

• Reframes the biblical materials in the context of oral/scribal cultures of Judaism and early Christianity, aspects of which include the performance event, performer, audience, context, and text.
• Embraces many methods, including Historical Criticism, Narrative Criticism, Form and Genre Criticism, Reader-Response Criticism, Rhetorical Criticism, Textual Criticism, Orality Criticism, Speech Act Theory, Social-Science Criticism, Linguistic Criticism, The Art of Translation, Ideological Criticism, Theater Studies, and Oral Interpretation Studies.
• Constructs scenarios of ancient performances.
• Learns from contemporary performances of these materials through the translation, preparation, and performance of a text for group discussion of the performance event.
• Reinterprets biblical materials accordingly.

For an overview of the history and the current state of the discipline see the full text article by Peter Perry

"What is Biblical Performance Criticism" 

Then for more information see the articles by David Rhoads:

pdf Performance Criticism: an Emerging Discipline, Part I (243 KB)

  pdf Performance Criticism: an Emerging Discipline, Part II (257 KB)

and the video by Eugene Botha:

Orality, Print Culture and Biblical Interpretation Video