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Popular Entertainment and Performance Documentation

Module description

This module will introduce you to the study of popular performance through a series of case studies of popular entertainment forms such as circus, music hall, spectacle, and vaudeville. You will work with the collections in the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, as well as other archival materials available locally, to learn the basic principles of archival research. By looking at historical popular entertainments and their modern-day counterparts, you will also learn about sources and performance documentation. You will consider the ways in which performances of the past can be reconstructed, and consider how you might document current performances. How can an understanding of performance documentation help us tell stories about performances from the past, and how might this influence contemporary performance practitioners who want to creatively document their work? 

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module aims to give you a broad understanding of what popular entertainments are and asks you to question the term ‘popular’. Through thinking about historical and current practice it aims to give you a deeper understanding of how an archive is formed, how the experience of handling physical objects affects the researcher, and how an archive can be engaged with as a creative practice.

 The module is intended to develop your critical thinking, essay, presentation and collaborative working skills.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

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

• 1. Analyse archival primary sources about popular performance
• 2. Critically reflect on how a researcher responds to archival materials
• 3. Document performance effectively

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

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

• 4. Contribute research to small groups in effective presentations, to evaluate visual evidence and analyse, critique and manipulate complex material
• 5. Utilise research tools effectively and to translate theory into practice
• 6. Apply library and IT skills in independent additional research

ILO: Personal and key skills

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

• 7. Express and communicate creative ideas and images; ability to initiate and sustain creative work, both group and solo
• 8. Balance between self-direction and collaborative work; self-management, collaborative working skills, problem solving, critical analysis and valuing own and others’ ideas and beliefs

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

Teaching will take the form of tutor-led seminars on topics connected to the module. The assigned reading for each week will typically include several items of scholarship and/or video. You will work in groups on research connected to archival object(s) you have encountered in the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. A group presentation will critically explore how you would document a contemporary event effectively. You will also write an essay which will require you to draw upon primary and secondary sources to write about a past event. You will be offered an individual tutorial near the end of term to discuss your work on the module.

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

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Basic reading:

• Clarke, Paul & Warren, Julian (2009). ‘Ephemera: Between Archival Objects and Events’, Journal of the Society of Archivists 30:1, pp45-66.
• Chow, Broderick DV (2015) ‘A Professional Body – Remembering, repeating and working out masculinities in fin-de-siècle physical culture,’ Performance Research 20(5), pp30-41.
• Double, Oliver (2017) ‘Introduction: What is Popular Performance?’ in Ainsworth, Adam, Double, Oliver & Peacock, Louise (eds), Popular Performance, London and New York: Methuen, pp1-24.
• Double, Oliver (2012) Britain Had Talent: A History of Variety Theatre, Palgrave Macmillan.
• Fern, Annette (2004) ‘What Have They Done with the Evidence?’, Theatre Survey 45:2, pp195-201.
• Nead, Lynda (2000) Victorian Babylon: People, Streets and Images in Nineteenth Century London, London and New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Schneider, Rebecca (2001) ‘Archives: Performance Remains,’ Performance Research, 6(2), pp100-08.
• Tait, Peta & Lavers, Katie (2016) ‘Introduction: Circus perspectives, precedents and presents’ in Tait, Peta & Lavers, Katie, The Routledge Circus Studies Reader, London & New York: Routledge, pp1-6.
• Wood, Elizabeth & Latham, Kiersten F (2011). ‘The Thickness of Things – Exploring the Curriculum of Museums through Phenomenological Touch’, Journal of Curriculum Theorizing 27: 2, pp51-65.

Key words search

performance, archives, curation, popular entertainment