Rupturing the contract: Performative pedagogy, power relations and interruption

This article contributes to the field of critical performative pedagogy by presenting an example project which conceived performance as pedagogy. It considers interruptions to performance experiences as an immediate call for reflection (Savin-Baden, 2007) and ultimately, a ‘critical thinking tool’ (Meller, 2017). By employing a writing strategy that echoes a reflective model for undertaking practice-as-research designed by the author, entitled Anticipation, Action, Analysis, the article provides a framework in which to situate a discursive description of how interruption as a form of rupture or ‘disturbance’ (Vale, 2017) complicates the implicit contract between student and tutor in terms of the exchange of power in the relationship.