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Site-Specific and Immersive Theatre

Module description

This module will build on your experiences of devised and physical theatre to think about the importance of space and place as a source of inspiration. The ways in which spaces are owned, occupied, accessed and imagined have enormous consequences for any community. You will asked to engage with and think about the following: How do the histories and uses of a given space inspire performance interventions? How can performance speak back to space in a critical way? How can we play with space and place? How does an audience become ‘immersed’ in a specific space?  How can performances take their audiences on a spatial narrative?

Module aims - intentions of the module

The module will introduce you to concepts of ‘site-specific’ and ‘immersive’ performance and key practitioners of both. In doing so it will further offer you:

• It will offer a model for ‘critical spatial practice’ (Rendell) in creating work that responds to the uses and hierarchies of site
• It will examine the role of the audience where the site becomes a stage that contains the spectators
• Various forms of performance, with different types of relationship to site will be considered, including some or all of the following: walking art, site-based performance, choreographic practices, technologically mediated performance, world-making
• It will introduce key practitioners and theorists concerned with making or theorising site-specific and immersive practices.
• Immersive theatre is a popular and often commercially successful form in the contemporary context, where companies such as Punchdrunk are able to attract sell-out audiences for their work. This module will engage with this practice, while also encouraging you to think critically about the placing of performance and its significance for everyday and found spaces.
• You will also be introduced to forms of performance that speak across media and geographies from and to their locations, thereby in conversation with related forms of cultural activity across film, audio, gaming, visual arts and others.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Respond to a given space/place through an imaginative and critically engaged performance practice
• 2. Identify, theorise and critique site-specific and immersive performance practices

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Contribute to a performance, demonstrating relevant skills, understanding and commitment
• 4. Demonstrate the ability to reflect critically on performance practice

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Demonstrate the ability to articulate an argument, informed by evidence
• 6. Collaborate with others to bring a project to a successful conclusion

Syllabus plan

• Formative individual and group work at sites identified by the module leader. These will include experimentation with a range of approaches to site-specific and immersive work.
• Research and workshops on techniques offered by key practitioners in the field
• Discussion of theories of key terms: place/space, site, immersion
• Introduction to scenographic methods, including the use of found spaces
• Introduction to methods of scoring, scripting and documenting site-specific performance

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

The Reflective Portfolio replacing the small group performance may contain reflection on practical process; documentation of process; creative script or score.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Alston, A. (2016). Beyond immersive theatre. Palgrave Macmillan..
• Biggin, R. (2017). Immersive Theatre and Audience Experience. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Birch A and Tompkins, J Eds, (2012), Performing Site-Specific Theatre: Politics, Place, Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Kaye, N. (2000), Site-Specific Art. London and New York: Routledge.
• Kwon, M (2004), One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity. Cambridge, Mass and London: MIT Press.
• Hill L and Paris, H Eds. (2006), Performance and Place. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Hunter, V (2021), Site, Dance and Body: Movement, Materials and Corporeal Engagement. London: Palgrave.
• Hunter V and Turner, C Eds (2024), The Routledge Companion to Site-Specific Performance. London:Routledge
• Ng?g? wa Thiong'o (1997), ‘Enactments of Power: The Politics of Performance Space’, TDR 41(3), 11–30.
• Pearson, M (2017), Site-Specific Performance. London: Bloomsbury.
• Smith, P. (2018), Making Site-Specific Theatre and Performance: A Handbook. London: Bloomsbury.
• Tolia-Kelly, D. (2016), Landscape, Race and Memory: Material Ecologies of Citizenship. London: Routledge.

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – Faculty to provide hyperlink to appropriate pages
• Digital Theatre+

Key words search

Site-specific; Immersive; Devising