Programme Specifications
Theatre Practice: Performance and Scenography
Information provided by Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies:
N/A
Information provided by Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies:
Dance, Drama and Performance
Information provided by Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies:
September 2023
Information provided by Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies:
This MA has strong practical and theoretical aspects, combining elements of performance and scenographic practice in both modes of delivery and of assessment. The scheme bridges the gap between academic training and professional practice, offering opportunities for critical analysis and creative output in the academic study of theatre via practices of performance and scenography.
The programme aims:
• to enable personal and professional development through the sustained exercise of creative practice in performance and scenography, within contemporary contexts, most pressingly that of the Anthropocene.
• to identify and acknowledge theatre as a series of complex, dynamic and diverse practices, procedures, devices, methodologies and knowledges significant in the production and manifestation of social, cultural and political meaning.
• to encourage the advanced examination of contemporary performance forms and methodologies, including devised performance, physical theatre, site-specific work, relational and participatory performance, performance art, installation and object-theatre as they are manifest historically and culturally.
• to examine at a high level a range of theoretical and practical devices, tools and procedures appropriate to appreciation, analysis and creation of contemporary performance and scenography.
• to provide the advanced intellectual and creative frameworks for the informed description, creation, presentation, documentation and analysis of such forms of performance and scenography.
• to demonstrate sophisticated approaches to conception, design, rehearsal and manifestation, in relation to a specific context yet that are applicable in broader contexts of performance, presentation and representation
• to encourage practical initiatives in the area of conceiving and designing theatre and performance and the acquisition of embodied knowledge through experiential learning.
• to provide and equip students with a range of advanced theoretical, analytical and practical skills and forms of knowledge.
• to enhance the development of students’ communication, interpersonal and research skills in the field of ‘practice-as-research’.
• To provide students with a theoretical and practical understanding of interdisciplinary creative practice in the context of contemporary performance and scenography.
• to assist students in acquiring intellectual, methodological and practical skills.
• to provide students with a suitable foundation of theory and practice that can inform further pursuit of performance and scenography in academic research contexts and/or professional contexts.
• to enhance the development of advanced personal intellectual skills and of interpersonal and teamwork skills necessary for independent and collaborative practice in both critical and creative contexts.
Information provided by Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies:
Upon successful completion of the scheme students should be able:
• to demonstrate an advanced critical awareness of the nature of theatre, performance and scenography as aesthetic practices and an informed ability to engage in complex, critical analysis of theatre, performance and scenography, relating such analysis to contemporary knowledge and research traditions in the fields of theatre and performance studies and scenography.
• to demonstrate mastery of the intelligent application of strategies and operational procedures for making and presenting contemporary performance and scenography: the development of creative techniques of formulation, rehearsing, staging and exposition.
• to demonstrate successful project design in the field of practice-as-research: the development of concept, score, scenario and plan.
• to apply performative means in the exposition of intellectual argument.
• to demonstrate advanced skills - in a range of conceptual and representational strategies and techniques - to achieve well-defined and conceptualized creative outcomes.
• to evince responsibility for the implementation - in an ordered and meaningful way - of methodologies for making performance and scenography introduced in the modules, whilst researching and developing new advanced skills appropriate to the arena of exposition.
Information provided by Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies:
A1 Critical debates, concepts and discourses in contemporary performance and scenography
A2 Theoretical, critical, analytical and practical knowledge in depth across a spectrum of methodologies, particularly practice-as-research
A3 The ramifications of cultural, geographic, political and institutional context upon dramaturgy and techniques of exposition.
A4 Theoretical and applied understanding of interdisciplinarity in the context of contemporary performance and scenography.
A5 Effective project design and its practical implementation.
Learning and Teaching
Seminars, workshops and creative production projects.
Assessment Strategies and Methods
Essays, presentations, performances, and portfolios.
Information provided by Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies:
10.2.1 Intellectual Skills
By the end of their programme, all students are expected to be able to:
B1 Employ complex strategies and techniques in advanced creative production and in the exposition of embodied knowledge.
B2 Demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of creative practice through critical commentary, project design and exposition.
B3 Demonstrate mastery of theoretical and practical approaches to the analysis of performance and scenography to display requisite communication and presentation skills in examination of key issues in the field.
B4 Effectively employ advanced skills in differentiating between a variety of approaches to performance and scenographic practice.
B5 Demonstrate a critical understanding of the potential of performative presentation in an academic context in the live exposition of intellectual material and academic argument.
Learning and Teaching
Seminars, workshops and creative production projects
Assessment Strategies and Methods
Essays, presentations, performances, and portfolios
10.2.2 Professional practical skills / Discipline Specific Skills
By the end of their programme, all students are expected to be able to demonstrate:
C1 Advanced ability to participate effectively in the creation of a collaboratively devised performance under the facilitation of a member of staff and / or guest artist
C2 Responsibility for self and peer group management and functioning within a professional, creative situation
C3 The ability to reflect in an analytical manner upon a range of creative processes implicated in professional performance making and scenographic practice
C4 The ability to reflect effectively upon their contribution, making connections with personal experience and using developed skills, in advanced technical and professional activity
C5 The ability to observe and notate in a sophisticated, structured and informed manner the effectiveness of complex professional production methodologies
Learning and Teaching
Facilitated creative production project
Assessment Strategies and Methods
Participation in the creation and staging of a creative production project facilitated and monitored by a member of staff or professional performance artist
Information provided by Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies:
By the end of their programme, all students are expected to be able to demonstrate:
D1 Responsibility for self and peer group management and functioning within professional and creative situations, including working in a supervisory role and under the guidance of others.
D2 The ability to participate in, and to enact, conceptual and compositional strategies and techniques both personally and in group contexts.
D3 The ability to structure and communicate ideas effectively using a variety of means.
D4 The ability to apply compositional strategies and techniques to personal communication skills.
D5 The ability to apply compositional and structural strategies and techniques in the exposition of academic argument.
D6 The ability to utilise problem-solving skills in a variety of situations.
D7 The ability to design and carry out theoretically and methodologically-sound and clearly-defined research assignments and projects.
D8 The ability to manage time effectively and to operate within deadlines.
D9 The ability to develop transferable skills of reading, analysing and critical evaluation of sources.
D10 The ability to respond positively to constructive feedback and criticism and to be sensitive in offering feedback and criticism to others.
D11 The ability to utilise information technology skills.
D12 The ability to utilise bibliographic and research skills, including the use of libraries and archives.
Learning and Teaching
Staff and student-led seminars; practical, participatory classes; creative production project; practice-as-research project.
Assessment Strategies and Methods
Essays; academic presentations; practical group presentations; performance; practice-as-research project
MA Theatre Practice: Performance and Scenography [W461]
Academic Year: 2024/2025 scheme - available from 2020/2021
Duration (studying Full-Time): 1 yearsLast intake year: 2023/2024