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Eco-Theatre: Outdoor and Immersive Performance

Module description

This module explores theatre-making as a response to environmental sustainability. You will encounter a range of forms of eco-theatre and performance and explore how to create original theatre and performance pieces to enhance environmental awareness and facilitate human-nature connectedness. You will develop practical skills in making outdoor site-specific performances and creating immersive and interactive experiences to help build new relationships with nature for audiences in response to scientific evidence and real-world briefs. You will also consider ways of making work that is environmentally sustainable, ethical and inclusive. If you are interested in honing your group devising and performance skills, working outdoors, creating site-specific and immersive experiences for audiences and exploring interdisciplinary strategies to encourage pro-environmental behaviour through theatre then this module will have much to offer you.

Module aims - intentions of the module

The module aims:

• to explore eco-theatre through a practical examination of site-specific and immersive outdoor performance strategies and through research into relevant arts practitioners, scientific knowledge and local environmental challenges.
• to develop interdisciplinary research skills and capabilities in outdoor, site-specific and immersive eco- devising and staging practices.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

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

• 1. Practically apply your knowledge and understanding of eco-theatre, site-specific and immersive theatre and performance techniques in the creation of quality individual and group performances.
• 2. Critically reflect on and evaluate your own nature-based practice and locate and analyse it in relation to the wider fields of eco-theatre, site-specific and immersive theatre and performance theory and practice.
• 3. Demonstrate an understanding of how body, space and place inform site-specific and immersive theatre creation and the logistics of making outdoor site-specific and immersive theatre, including carrying out risk assessments, environmental audits and contingency planning, in practical and written tasks

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

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

• 4. Work effectively with others in task-orientated groups and initiate and sustain creative, analytic and interpretative work within strict time limits and basic technical competence.
• 5. Explore theoretical concerns through practice, and vice versa, and synthesise findings in practical and written tasks.

ILO: Personal and key skills

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

• 6. Demonstrate confidence in performance skills and public presentation, both of dramatic practice and researched material.
• 7. Manage your time effectively, problem solve, critical analyse a range of theoretical and performance texts.
• 8. Demonstrate group cooperation skills and value your own and others’ ideas and beliefs; give and receive constructive critical feedback..

Syllabus plan

The module will:

• Introduce you to a range of relevant eco-theatre, site-specific and immersive theatre approaches.
• Research and practice will develop together through a series of staff-led studio and outdoor workshops and via self-directed individual and group research tasks and practical experiments.
• You will work in groups to devise a piece of theatre for performance at the end of the module. You will be supported in the creation of this work via structured seminars, feedback on a proposal, and one-to-one tutorials.
• You will document your progress throughout the module and reflect on your learning and creative practice through a final written piece of work.  

The content may vary from year to year.

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

• Angelacki, V. (2019) Theatre & Environment. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
• Beer, T. (2021) Ecoscenography: An Introduction to Ecological Design for Performance. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
• Besel, R. D. and J. A. Blau, (eds). (2014) Performance on Behalf of the Environment. Lanham: Lexington.
• Bishop, C. (2012). Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship. London: Verso.
• Däwes, B. and Maufort, M. (eds.) (2014). Enacting Nature: Ecocritical Perspectives on Indigenous Performance. Peter Lang. 
• Glassner, A, (2019). Interactive Storytelling: Techniques for 21st Century Fiction. London: Routledge.
• Gröppel-Wegener, A and Kidd, J. (2019). Critical Encounters with Immersive Storytelling. London: Routledge.
• Hughes, C. (1998). Museum theatre communicating with visitors through drama. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
• Kastner, J. (ed.). (2012) Nature (Documents of Contemporary Art). Massachusetts, MIT Press.
• Lavery, C. (2016) Introduction: performance and ecology – what can theatre do? Green Letters, 20 (3), 229-23.
• Lichtenfels and Rouse (2013). Performance, Politics and Activism. Basingstoke:  Palgrave.
• Machon, J. (2013). Immersive theatres: Intimacy and immediacy in contemporary performance: Basingstoke: Palgrave.
• Pearson, M. (2010). Site-Specific Performance. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
• Wrights & Sites (2006). A Mis-Guide To Anywhere. Exeter, Arts Council England/CCEP.
• Yorke, J. (2014). Into the Woods: how stories work and why we tell them, London: Penguin.

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• Nature Connectedness: For a new relationship with nature [Online course]: https://www.derby.ac.uk/short-courses-cpd/online/free-courses/nature-connectedness-relationship-with-nature/
• Julie’s Bicycle: http://www.juliesbicycle.com/

Key words search

Eco-theatre, site-specific theatre, immersive theatre, nature-based theatre, outdoor theatre , environmentally engaged theatre, human-nature connection and theatre.