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Theatre for Environmental Change

Module description

In response to the current climate emergency and biodiversity crisis, this module asks, “What can theatre do?” Dramatists and theatre-makers are increasingly exploring ecological themes and ways of using theatre to raise environmental awareness. Furthermore, a growing number of artists are collaborating with experts from different disciplines to explore ways of using theatre in non-traditional settings to revitalise human-nature connectedness to support both human wellbeing and environmental health. These interventions demonstrate the important and varied roles theatre practitioners have to play in encouraging pro-environmental behaviour and nurturing sustainable performance practices.

In this module, you will study how artists and activists enact these roles through an analysis of a range of performance practices in a variety of contexts, including playwriting, site-specific theatre and outdoor immersive interventions, collaborating with scientists, using participatory arts in community and environmental education settings, street performances and environmental protests. As part of the module, you will collaborate with your peers to develop your own theatrical experience in response to the question, “What can theatre do?”.

If you are interested in learning about contemporary eco-theatre, in analysing a range of play, theatre and performance texts, and in imagining how you might employ theatrical strategies to encourage pro-environmental behaviour in your own work, then this module will have a lot to offer you.

Module aims - intentions of the module

The module aims:

• to introduce you to a range of contemporary approaches to making eco-theatre and performance
• to examine a variety of strategies used by eco-theatre-makers to engage audiences in environmental debates and raise environmental awareness
• to enable you to practically explore eco-theatre strategies
• to introduce you to a range of theoretical debates from different disciplines about the relationship between humans and the natural world and enable you to use this scholarship to analyse dramatic texts and theatrical performance

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

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

• 1. Identify and explain key strategies of eco-theatre and eco-performance.
• 2. Analyse contemporary eco-theatre or performance using eco-critical theory
• 3. Apply principles of eco-theatre and performance through reflective practice.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

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

• 4. Engage critically and analytically from different theoretical perspectives; explore theoretical concerns through practice, and vice versa, and synthesise findings in practical and written tasks.
• 5. Contribute research to small groups in effective presentations; evaluate visual evidence and analyse, critique and manipulate complex material.

ILO: Personal and key skills

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

• 6. Demonstrate advanced research skills using personal initiative.
• 7. Demonstrate advanced communication skills and analytic abilities in discussions; give and receive constructive critical feedback;
• 8. Demonstrate advanced group cooperation skills and confidence in public presentation and performance skills.

Syllabus plan

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

• Anthropocentric and eco-centric perspectives and approaches to theatre-making in the UK and internationally
• Ethical and pragmatic challenges of an ecological approach to theatre-making
• Facilitating human-nature connectedness through theatre and performance
• Theatre and performance with non-human animals (aquaria, circuses, safaris and zoos)
• Applied and community-based performance
• Theatre in educational settings
• Environmental justice and eco-activist interventions

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

• Arons, W. (2010). ‘Beyond the Nature/Culture Divide.’ Theatre Historiography: Critical Interventions. Bial, H. and Magelssen, S. (Eds). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010. 148-161.
• Baratay, E. et al. (2002). Zoo: A History of Zoological Gardens in the West. London: Reaktion Books.
• Baker, S. (2001). Picturing the Beast: Animals, Identity, and Representation. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
• Chaudhuri, U. (1994). “‘There Must Be a Lot of Fish in That Lake’: Toward an Ecological Theater.” Theater 25.1: 23–31.
• Chaudhuri, U. (1995). Staging Place: The Geography of Modern Drama. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• Chaudhuri, U. (2007). ‘Animal Rites: Performing beyond the Human.’ Critical Theory and Performance. Reinelt, J. G. and Roach, J. R. (Eds). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 506-520.
• Chaudhuri, U. and Hughes, H. (2014). Animal Acts: Performing Species Today. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• Chaudhuri, U. and Fuchs, E. (Eds.). (2002). Land/Scape/Theater. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• Dawes, B. and Maufort, M. (Eds.). (2014). Enacting Nature: Ecocritical Perspectives on Indigenous Performance. Peter Lang.
• Cless, D. (2010). Ecology and Environment in European Drama. New York, London: Routledge.
• Ellis, J. and Kisling, V. (2000). Zoo and Aquarium History: Ancient Animal Collections to Zoological Gardens. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
• Giannachi, G. and Nigel, Stewart. (Eds.). (2005). Performing Nature: Explorations in Ecology and the Arts. Berne: Peter Lang.
• Ingold, T. (2000). The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill, London: Routledge
• May, T. J. (1999). ‘Taking the Cage Out of the Gaze: Perception, Wilderness and the New Zoo.’ Theatre Insight. 10:2.
• May, T. J. (2005). ‘Greening the Theatre: Taking Ecocriticism from Page to Stage.’ Interdisciplinary Literary Studies: A Journal of Criticism and Theory. 7.1, 84–103.
• May, T. J. (2007). ‘Beyond Bambi: Toward a Dangerous Ecocriticism in Theatre Studies’. Theatre Topics, 17.2, 95-110.
• Orozco, L. (2013). Theatre & animals. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
• Orozco, L. (2018). Animals in Socially Engaged Performance Practice: Becomings on the Edges of Extinction. Studies in Theatre and Performance, 38:2, 176-189
• Parker-Starbuck, J. (2015). Performing Animality: Animals in Performance Practices. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Pearson, M. (2006). ‘In Comes I’: Performance, Memory and Landscape. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.
• Raber, K. and Mattfeld, M. (Eds.). (2017). Performing Animals: History, Agency, Theater. Pennsylvania State University Press.
• Rothfels, N. (Ed.). (2002). Representing Animals. Indiana: Indiana University Press.
• Szerszynski, B. Heim, W. and Waterton, C. (Eds.). (2004). Nature Performed: Environment, Culture and Performance. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Grant, T. Gay, I. R. and Recarte, C. A. (2018). Introduction: Real Animals on the Stage. Studies in Theatre and Performance, 38:2, 103-112.

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=7943

Key words search

Eco-theatre; eco-performance; human-nature connection; pro-environmental theatre; outdoor theatre.