Introductory description

n/a.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

AUTUMN TERM: INTRODUCING THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE: KEY CONCEPTS AND PARADIGMS

This first term will seek to develop a varied conceptual framework through which students can begin to understand and contextualise theatre and performance practices and events

WEEK 1: What is theatre?
WEEK 2: What is performance?
WEEK 3: Challenging theatre and performance: ritual and non-European forms
WEEK 4: Modes of performance and representation
WEEK 5: Audiences and spectatorship
WEEK 6: READING WEEK

UNIT 1: PERFORMING IDENTITIES – This first block will engage with two key questions: how does theatre and performance respond to, and shape, understandings of identities? And how can theatre and performance studies help us to raise questions about identity, or to understand identities more fully?

WEEK 7: Performing identities 1: Race and ethnicity
WEEK 8: Performing identities 2: Social class, ideology and hegemony
WEEK 9: Performing identities 3: Gender and sexuality

WEEK 10: Summative written assessment feedback

SPRING TERM: SIGNIFICANT MOMENTS AND EVENTS IN THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE

Members of the Department will focus on a significant theatre or performance event, considering the sociopolitical and historical context against which this event emerged, investigating the aims and ambitions of the example they present but stopping short of performance analysis. Throughout this term, the seminar session will challenge students to engage with what the examples of theatre and performance tell us about the questions raised around identity covered in the previous term. Some seminar sessions will specifically reflect back on some of the themes raised in the previous term, as indicated below.

UNIT 2: THEN AND NOW – This first block considers historical examples of theatre and performance and how they relate to the contemporary context

WEEK 1: Greek Theatre: Then and now (e.g. Lysistrata and The Common Chorus with seminar focus on gender and sexuality)
WEEK 2: Elizabethan playhouses
WEEK 3: Performance, colonialism and postcolonialism (e.g. Ngugi wa Thiong’o: I will marry when I want and Decolonising the Mind with seminar focus on hegemony, race and ethnicity)

UNIT 3: RADICAL ACTS: This second block will focus more specifically on some of the contemporary radical moments in theatre and performance that have reshaped the field

WEEK 4: Community and participation (e.g. Joan Littlewood and Theatre Workshop with seminar focus on social class, ideology, hegemony)
WEEK 5: Revolt (e.g. French street theatre and/or US political theatre in the 70s with seminar focus on ideology and hegemony)
WEEK 6: READING WEEK
WEEK 7: Deconstructions (e.g. Wooster Group with seminar focus on modes of performance and spectatorship)

UNIT 3: FUTURE CONTEXTS: This final block offers a provocation of the future of theatre and performance.

WEEK 8: Performance and the digital revolution

WEEK 9: Emergent dramaturgies
WEEK 10: Plenary session: Where do we think theatre and performance studies will be in 10 years?

SUMMER TERM: OVER TO YOU

During this term, students will research the contexts that shaped one moment or event in theatre and performance. They will then share their research through a 10-minute poster presentation in their seminar groups during week

WEEK 1: Introducing the task
WEEK 2: Creating a research poster
WEEK 5: Research presentation skills
WEEK 8: Research poster presentations (assessed)

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• - Demonstrate an increased awareness of the sociopolitical and historical contexts against which key events, practices or movements in theatre and performance have taken place
• - Position their analyses of theatre and performance events in terms of their sociopolitical and historical contexts and significance
• - Utilise their increased understanding of how wider society shapes, and is shaped by, theatre and performance to consider the significance and value of art to society
• - Draw on a range of conceptual and artistic frameworks to interrogate theatre and performance
• - Independently draw on relevant theories to research theatre and performance, presenting their findings using appropriate academic conventions

Indicative reading list

Bial, H. (Ed.) (2007) The Performance Studies Reader, Abingdon, Routledge.

Fisher et al. (2016) Theatre Histories: An Introduction, London, Routledge.

Mangan, M. (2013) The Drama, Theatre and Performance Companion, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Reynolds, B. (2014) Performance Studies: Key Words, Concepts and Theories, Red Globe.

Schechner, R. (2013) Performance Studies: An Introduction, London, Routledge.

Shepherd, S. (2016) The Cambridge Introduction to Performance Theory, Cambridge, CUP.

Journals:

Contemporary Theatre Review, New Theatre Quarterly, Studies in Theatre and Performance, Performance Research

Subject specific skills

• Demonstrate an increased awareness of the sociopolitical and historical contexts against which key events, practices or movements in theatre and performance have taken place
• Position their analyses of theatre and performance event in terms of their sociopolitical and historical contexts and significance
• Utilise their increased understanding of how wider society shapes, and is shaped by, theatre and performance to consider the significance and value of art to society
• Draw on a range of conceptual and artistic frameworks to interrogate theatre and performance
• Independently draw on relevant theories to research theatre and performance, presenting their findings using appropriate academic conventions

Transferable skills

• Independent writing and research skills
• Skills in developing and presenting research and information