Performance and Theatre Making

Through weekly workshops you will study and practice a range of approaches to performance training, building your skills in movement, breath and vocal work, use of the imagination, and embodiment of character. You will explore, discuss and experiment with psychophysical performance techniques influenced by the legacy of, for example, Michael Chekhov, Suzanne Bing, Jacques Lecoq, Konstantin Stanislavski and Jerzy Grotowski.  

The module meets you where you are on your performance training journey. It invites you to bring your own background and previous training into dialogue with new approaches, and supports you to develop an independent way of working that suits your own creative voice. Practical workshops are integrated with reflection and discussion of related reading, and the module is assessed through a performance etude and a reflective learning portfolio. 

Whether your future aim is performance, writing, directing or facilitating, this module will provide you with key skills and understanding of how to prepare for and realise performance. It will also give you important transferable skills around confident and persuasive communication, which are highly valued in a range of industries.

This intensive module takes the shape of a theatre lab, in which you will experiment with various dramaturgical approaches to storytelling in order to create new performance. In doing so, you will explore different roles and develop your independent creative practice in the context of collaborative work with your peers.

From site-specific and pop-up performance to adaptation of texts, weekly workshops will introduce you to a range of different practices and methods and the key practitioners associated with them, and will support you in your performance making. Your experiments will be guided by creative commissions designed to prepare you for work in professional contexts, with real-world constraints of time and budget. You will undertake independent rehearsal and research to underpin your process, and test your final work in front of an audience.

By the end of the module, you will have strengthened your understanding of your own creative voice and trajectory, and have developed key vocabularies, collaborative skills and organisational experience that enable you to meet the needs of, and contribute creatively to, the theatre industry and a range of other professions.

Creative work does not exist in a vacuum — its creation, reception, and the way it produces meaning are always shaped by context. Because of this, it is important to ask yourself what contexts you should be aware of as an artist, professional, scholar and global citizen, and to develop an understanding of the lenses through which we might critically examine creative work.

Through a series of lectures, screenings and seminars, you will learn to examine performance in context by studying a series of case studies in relation to key theoretical frameworks. You will consider performance through lenses such as postcolonialism, feminism and disability studies; discuss the relevance of ideologies and belief-systems; broaden your knowledge of practitioners and performance; and develop your ability to analyse and articulate ideas around creative work.

This module, which runs across two terms and is assessed through written coursework, will equip you with the knowledge, independent critical thinking skills and intercultural awareness required to become a successful player in the creative industries. It will also provide valuable preparation for your dissertation project.

Whether in theatre or other professions, few things are more important than the ability to competently, inclusively and sensitively hold a space. Whatever your specific interests are in the performance, theatre making and arts industries, this module will support your career plans by equipping you with a repertoire of professional facilitation techniques that can be applied in a range of different theatre, community, participatory, educational or arts-based environments.

In weekly practical workshops and through accompanying reading and discussion, you will engage with current debates around participatory theatre and associated ethical considerations. You will reflect upon, test and interrogate the efficacy of different facilitation techniques used by practitioners in their respective fields of work, and related principles around access and inclusion. By taking inspiration from what you discover, and practically testing ideas in a studio setting, you will establish your individual facilitation approach and a range of working methods to suit different environments.

You will acquire a highly desirable set of transferable skills, including the ability to be flexible and think on your feet in complex circumstances, to prepare inclusive and accessible spaces and activities, and to communicate confidently and sensitively with a range of audiences.

In this module you will be supported in conceiving, developing and realising a pre-professional performance or creative project that will be presented as part of a public Creative Festival at the end of the term.

Through regular workshops, supervised rehearsals, tutorials and work-in-progress showings you will establish first ideas, explore suitable creative approaches, test your work with audiences, and develop and manage a coherent final production.

As a key aspect of your project you will also undertake the independent research and practice required to inform both the content of your project and the form, style and approach you have chosen to work in.

By the end of the module, you will have taken responsibility for all aspects of devising and managing a new project within constraints of time and budget, which is a key transferable skill desired by a whole range of industries. You will also have developed a deeper understanding of your own artistic language and aims, and by creating and documenting your project you will have begun to build your creative portfolio.

Pursuing a career in the arts not only requires creativity and talent but also a solid understanding of key approaches to working in the arts industry.

In this module you will gain a deeper insight into the workings and operation of an arts organisation or company. You will have the opportunity to explore industry-related questions through work-based learning on an industry placement, or through in-depth study of an individual or company’s working processes. By doing so, you will gain new knowledge, and observe, test and reflect on how your existing knowledge is put into practice within the business.

Alongside the above, you will be supported in learning fundamental skills to prepare you for the industry, typically including topics such as how to approach prospective employers, writing CVs and personal statements, understanding and approaching funding and funding structures, writing grant applications, casting mechanisms, and fundamentals of marketing, branding and networking.

As a whole, the module allows you to begin to develop a career portfolio and position yourself in relation to a professional context, preparing you for life after University.

If you were given free rein to design your own theatre experiment or research project, what would it be? In this module you will spend two terms investigating your core interests and making your ideas happen – while always keeping an eye on ethical, practical and budgetary constraints. You will be given support and guidance to pursue your own creative and/or academic endeavours, be they a written dissertation, a practice as research project or a dissertation by practice. 

You will develop an in-depth investigation into a specific topic, guided by research questions, establishing a dialogue with existing practices and debates. You will start by conceptualising your project and work with an assigned supervisor. You will present your work in progress to get feedback from your research community in Term 3, and then work on your final practice and/or written component, due in Term 4. 

By building on research undertaken during your postgraduate course, you will design and undertake a new and complex piece of research that will allow you to position yourself at the forefront of the discipline and continue your career as an artist, theatre professional or scholar.