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Working Together: Performer Training for Collective Creation

Module description

This module will help you to identify, understand, and develop key skills involved in collaboration and adaptation, and to recognise their applicability to a variety of social and cultural contexts. You will primarily learn through practical research and the development of your own emotional and critical responses to a source material. You will work together as performers, directors, dramaturgs, and scenographers to create a new performance piece from source material other than a play script, e.g. a novel/novella, essays, etc. This source material will be chosen by the module convenor. You will learn about, and put into practice, ensemble creation techniques drawn from numerous interdisciplinary performance makers including ARTEL (American Russian Theatre Ensemble Laboratory), the Laboratory of Dmitry Krymov, Mabou Mines, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Phantom Limb, the Polish Laboratory Theatre, and Theatre du Soleil; these involve strategies for creating performance material (e.g. solo/group composition, chance, games, active analysis) and working with others (including feedback, managing dissent, celebration, etc.).

Prior studio-based coursework is essential.

The module is relevant for students wanting to make theatre, start their own theatre company, and/or learn more about the practicalities of collaboration for transference to any creative situation. 

Module aims - intentions of the module

The module aims to provide in-depth learning in a range of forms of performer training for collective creation. This training aims to develop a strong foundation in strategies for collective creation and collaboration as well as psychophysical bodymind practices applied to acting/performance, scenography, dramaturgy, and/or directing. All of these skills are applicable in future performance work, as well as transferable to other employment opportunities. You will learn about the political and social ramifications of collaboration and thus will be more informed global citizens, capable of critical reflection, ethical engagement, and adaptable problem-finding and problem-solving. 

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

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

• 1. Demonstrate an advanced ability to collaborate with others in the creation of a new piece of theatre
• 2. Develop and execute an advanced level of individual practice within performance
• 3. Articulate a critical, self-reflexive understanding of the mechanisms that underpin successful creative collaboration

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

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

• 4. Relate to others in theatrical processes and performances; to work effectively with others in small task-orientated groups and to initiate and sustain creative, analytic and interpretative work within strict time limits and to solve a number of specific technical problems and apply that understanding to performance work
• 5. Demonstrate the advanced ability to utilise research tools and to translate theory into practice
• 6. Demonstrate the ability to engage critically and analytically with physical discipline; the development of thoughtful creative processes, understanding of physicalisation in performance and the capacity to articulate that understanding in appropriate ways.

ILO: Personal and key skills

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

• 7. Develop advanced personal research skills using personal initiative; to set personal objectives that are linked to a sense of challenge and extending boundaries and to identify and evaluate personal learning strategies that are self-critical as much as self-reflective
• 8. Develop group cooperation skills, including the ability to give and receive constructive critical feedback, and to improve communication skills and advanced analytic abilities in discussions
• 9. Demonstrate the ability to balance between self-direction and collaborative work; to adapt and design working methods for each new situation, 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 this module will develop along three strands:

• Individual and ensemble training based on psychophysical principles alongside the creation and refinement of group devising strategies from a variety of performance and interdisciplinary contexts and histories
• The creation of solo and group performances that adapt themes and ideas from a set source material
• Discussion around the principles of collaboration, collaboration skills and their role and value in society/culture at large.

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

• Britton, John (ed.)(2013) Encountering Ensemble,London: Methuen Drama
• Brown, Bryan and Petrakova, Olya (2018) “Educating the Director: Meyerhold’s pedagogy for a theatre of conventions” in The Great European Stage Directors edited by David Barnett, London: Bloomsbury Methuen
  • Brown, Bryan and Petrakova, Olya (2016) Devising a Playground: ARTEL's Strategies for Embodying Research and Text [unpublished conference paper]
• Catmull, Ed (2014) Creativity, Inc.: overcoming the unseen forces that stand in the way of true inspiration, London: Bantam Press.
• Fisher, Iris Smith (2015) Mabou Mines: making avantgarde theater in the 1970s, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press
• Goldberg, Natalie (2010) Writing down the bones: freeing the author within, Boston: Shambala.
• Hill, L, Brandeau, G, Truelove, E and Linebeck, K (2014) Collective Genius: the Art and Practice of Leading Innovation, Boston: Harvard Business Review Press
• Lerman, Liz and Borstel, John (2003) Critical Response Process: a method for getting useful feedback on anything you make from dance to dessert, Dance Exchange
• Nachmanovitch, Stephen(1990) Free Play: an improvisation in life and art, New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam
• Roznowksi, Rob and Domer, Kirk (2009) Collaboration in Theatre: a practical guide for designers and directors, New York: Palgrave Macmillan
• Syssoyeva, Kathryn Mederos and Scott Proudfit (eds) (2013) A History of Collective Creation, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
• Syssoyeva, Kathryn Mederos and Scott Proudfit (eds) (2013) Collective Creation in Contemporary Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
• Sennett, Richard (2013) Together: the rituals, pleasures and politics of co-operation, London: Penguin BooksWangh, Stephen (2000) An Acrobat of the Heart: a physical approach to acting inspired by the work of Jerzy Grotowski, New York: Vintage books
• Yorke, John (2014) Into the Woods: how stories work and why we tell them, London: Penguin Books

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE: https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=11176
  
• Exeter Digital Archive
• Digital Theatre Plus
• Kanopy
• On the Boards
• Liz Lerman’s Critical Response website
• Various practitioners’ websites and videos

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

• DVDs of collective creation performances or training, such as Theatre du Soleil’s 1789, Mabou Mines’ Dead End Kids and DollHouse

Key words search

Performer training, adaptation, collective creation, collaboration, ensemble, craft