Module Information
Course Delivery
Delivery Type | Delivery length / details |
---|---|
Lecture | 5 x 2 Hour Lectures |
Workshop | 20 x 2 Hour Workshops |
Assessment
Assessment Type | Assessment length / details | Proportion |
---|---|---|
Semester Assessment | Performance Project and Process (20-30 mins). A formative assessment, assessing students’ practical contribution throughout the project, both during the devising and rehearsal process as well as during the final performance. | 50% |
Semester Assessment | Critical Portfolio (2,500 words). A portfolio of 3 written tasks that reflects on and critically contextualizes the group project within a wider field of performance practices. It may also include supplementary material, exercises and documentation that participants will have been encouraged to create and collect throughout the process. | 50% |
Supplementary Assessment | Solo Performance (5-10 mins). Solo Performance (5-10 mins) A brief solo performance in which the student will be required to demonstrate some of the approaches to devising explored during the module. | 50% |
Supplementary Assessment | Critical Essay (2,500 words). An essay that reflects on and critically contextualizes the etude within a wider field of performance practices. It may also include supplementary material, exercises and documentation that participants will have been encouraged to create and collect throughout the process of creating the etude. | 50% |
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module students should be able to:
1. Identify and employ conceptual and practical procedures appropriate for conceiving and generating devised theatre and performance.
2. Demonstrate an awareness and critical understanding of various theories and practices of dramaturgy.
3. Demonstrate an awareness and critical understanding of devising and compositional procedures involved in performance-making.
4. Critically reflect on their devising processes and compositional strategies within a contemporary performing-making context.
Brief description
This module provides an exploration of principles, processes and methodologies for devising theatre and performance. It addresses the generation, composition, juxtaposition, dramaturgy, placing and exposition of physical, visual, aural, and textual performative material. Working under the guidance of a member of staff students will generate an original piece of devised performance of 20-30 minutes in duration.
Content
Lectures: 1 x 2 hour introductory lecture
Practicals: 10 x 2 hour workshops x 2 per week
3 x 2 hour technical production workshops
Seminar/ Tutorials: 1 x 2 hour feedback forum
Other teaching methods: 2 hours of peer viewing of other projects
12 hours production/ performance preparation
Working in small groups in response to a project brief provided by a member of staff, students will generate a short devised performance (20-30 minutes in duration) to be performed at the end of the semester. The first four weeks of the module will focus on performer training, selected theories and principles of devising and processes for generating, ordering and structuring material. The remaining six weeks of the module will focus on the devising and rehearsal of the final performance. Throughout the module students will be encouraged to contextualize their project in relation to the wider field of devised theatre and performance making. Each group will be supplied with a selected range of scenographic and technical elements and 3 x 2 hour workshops in the latter weeks of the semester will be focused on the development and application of technical theatre skills.
Module Skills
Skills Type | Skills details |
---|---|
Application of Number | |
Communication | The individual student’s ability to articulate and communicate their ideas and opinions is developed and encouraged across all aspects of the module, and the assessment forms recognise effective communication across written, verbal and performative material. |
Improving own Learning and Performance | Self-regulation, motivation and time- management are demanded to maintain engagement with the development of the course and the completion of its concomitant assessed assignments. Assessment procedures recognise effective self-management and self- motivation. |
Information Technology | Skills of information handling are exercised through the conduct of research, presentation processes, and the collation of materials, within assessed submissions, and writing assignments, and are recognised in the assessment of those submissions. |
Personal Development and Career planning | The module encourages the initial development of skills directly applicable to careers within cultural (particularly theatre/performance) industries. Further transferable skills (project planning and execution, the development of personal creative initiatives) are also developed through the completion of assessment tasks, though careers need awareness does not of itself constitute an assessed element. |
Problem solving | Creative problem solving, outcome recognition, and the identification of appropriate strategies and procedures, are encouraged and assessed across the duration of the module. |
Research skills | Appropriate personal research and the development of effective personal and group research practices, are implicitly encouraged throughout the module, and are assessed through their impact on the development and presentation of the assessed submissions. |
Subject Specific Skills | See QAA Dance, Drama and Performance Subject Benchmark Statement (Version 2015). The following subject specific skills are developed and partly assessed: I. engaging in performance and production, based on acquisition and understanding of appropriate performance and production vocabularies, skills, structures, working methods and research paradigms II. developing a repertoire of interpretative skills, practices and making techniques (physical/aural/spatial) and applying them effectively to engage with an audience/performance III. contributing to the production of performance, for example through direction, choreography, dramaturgy, stage management, scenography, sound and lighting production, media, promotion, administration and funding IV. realising the performance possibilities of a script, score and other textual and documentary sources and/or creating new work using the skills and crafts of performance making/writing |
Team work | Practical classes demand the application of skills necessary to conduct successful collaborative activity. The assessed group project relates directly to the development and employment of such skills. |
Notes
This module is at CQFW Level 5