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Performance Practice Project

Module description

The module provides you with the opportunity to develop and extend your research-based practice over the term, leading to you sharing work appropriate to your chosen research topic (performance, work demonstration, or workshop) and to critically reflect on this process. This module builds on foundations of the performance practices and applied facilitation skills introduced in Term 1 module DRAM136 Contemporary Performance Practices, which is a pre-requisite.

In the first half of the module, you will participate in staff-led workshops, seminars and masterclasses with guest practitioners focusing on developing performance, composition, and devising skills. You will then work individually and collaboratively to develop your own project, under staff supervision. The module culminates with a performance/presentation of the research and a written critical reflection on the process.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module aims to:

• Provide a focused, structured atmosphere for the first phase in the development of quality performance practice in the designated area of theatrical/performance practice
• Provide the opportunity to apply principles and processes of performance practice to one's own creative work
• Facilitate the development of individual and collaborative creative work and reflection upon that work

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

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

• 1. Apply psychophysical process to specific texts and/or performance tasks
• 2. Demonstrate advanced understanding of frameworks and approaches to personal and collaborative creative project development

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

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

• 3. Demonstrate a detailed knowledge of the area under investigation, employing relevant conceptual frameworks and creative processes to the topic of investigation
• 4. Engage critically and analytically with selected approaches to acting or directing, and theoretical perspectives and thereby gain an overview of their chosen field through both practice and theory
• 5. Display an advanced understanding of the relationship between theatre research and theatre practice

ILO: Personal and key skills

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

• 6. Engage creatively and imaginatively with a range of materials and processes at the level of professional practice
• 7. Collaborate and negotiate as a member of a group to achieve advanced research or creative tasks
• 8. Improve and reflect on performance, presentation and facilitation skills

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:

• Development of performance practices introduced in Term One though tutor-led training, staff-led workshops and guided individual and small group task
• Planning, development and rehearsal of individual and/or small group practice projects. This phase includes individual and/or small group tutorials with the module tutor, taught sessions and a period of intense self-directed student work
• The module culminates with a set of performances/performed workshops either within the Department or within the local community

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 50%) you will be required to submit a further literature review. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of referral will count for 100% of the final mark and will be capped at 50%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Basic reading:

• Aronson, Arnold (2018) Routledge Companion to Scenography, London: Routledge.
• Colin, Noyale and Stefanie Sachsenmaier (eds.) (2016) Collaboration in performance practice: premises, workings and failures, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Crossley, Tracy and Niki Woods (2019) Making Postdramatic Theatre: A Handbook of Devising Exercises, Digital Theatre Plus
• Evans, M (2019) Performance, Movement and the Body, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Gomez-Pena, Guillermo and Sifuentes, Roberto (2011) Exercises for Rebel Artists: Radical Performance Pedagogy, London: Routledge.
• Heddon, Deirdre. and Milling, Jane. (2014) Devising Performance: A Critical History (2nd edition) Contemporary Devising and Physical Performance.
• Lavender, A. (2016). Performance in the Twenty-First Century: Theatres of Engagement. London & New York: Routledge.
• Margolies, Eleanor (2016) Props: Readings in Theatre Practice, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Martin, Carol (2012) Theatre of the Real, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Oram, Daron (2018) ‘Losing Sight of Land: Tales of Dyslexia and Dyspraxia in Psychophysical Actor Training’, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training.
• Romanska, Magda (2015) The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy, London: Routledge.
• Tufnell, M. and Crickmay, C (2014) Body space image: notes towards improvisation and performance (2nd edition) London: Dance Books..
• Young, Harvey (2013) Theatre and Race, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Zarrilli, Phillip B, Jerri Daboo and Rebecca Loukes (2013) Acting: Psychophysical Phenomenon and Process, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,
• Zarrilli, Phillip B, T. Sasitharan and Anuradha Kapur (2019) Intercultural Acting and Performer Training, London: Routledge.

Key words search

Performance Practice, Devising, Directing, Creativity, Collaboration