Unit 1 - Critical and creative methods
In this unit you will engage with the critical and creative practices of performance research and theatre making. You will also look at transdisciplinary methods of artistic enquiry. This will enable you to develop a deeper understanding of contemporary theatre and performance-making as a field of professional and scholarly practice.
You will investigate performance research and transdisciplinary methods to form a distinctive practice-based view of the discipline. You will develop your area of critical and creative enquiry.
You will work with, and through, the compositional practices of making contemporary theatre and the methodological practices of conducting performance research.
Research methods will be introduced through practical workshops, lectures and seminars. They will set out the processes of contemporary theatre making and the dynamics of performance research.
Workshops will develop the performance skills and dramaturgical methods required to produce artistic projects and develop artistic proposals.
You will develop a festival frame for ensemble projects within the peer group. This will culminate in a group critical reflective activity addressing the viability of the ensemble project and the establishment of productive ways of working.
You will be able to explore and develop various forms of ideas generation, problem solving, compositional development, communication and dissemination, and the development of communities of practice.
Unit 2 - Performance practice
The unit will enhance the development of your creative research and compositional methods. This will enable you to focus on the modes of practice required to facilitate your theatre and performance making.
You will focus on acquiring, advancing and refining the practical skills and performance competencies required to develop and deliver your dramaturgical framework. You will hone the essential dynamics of ensemble and collaborative practice.
You will bring your developmental project to realisation. At the same time, you will reflect upon and analyse relevant case studies. You will response to, and challenge established modes of practice.
Unit 3 - Collaboration
This unit will require you to extend your collaborative, compositional and research skills. You will engage in a cross-, inter- or trans-disciplinary enquiry with peer colleagues on other MA Performance courses, on the MA Theatre and Production Design, or outside your discipline.
This will enable you to look outwards from, and across, the broad spectrum of theatre making practices. You will address a key question in the wide range of topics of primary concern to performance as a critical cultural practice.
The unit will enhance and augment your understanding of the collaborative nature of theatre practice. You will be able to build ideas, proposals and events with other theatre and performance makers and practitioners.
All students on the MA Performance will engage in cross-course, multi-disciplinary project(s) with peers on other MA courses and programmes. Outcomes will be presented in the form of performances, performed lectures, live interventions and visual and written evidence showing the final project.
You will be encouraged to engage with a community of practice. This will allow you to explore the graduate attributes needed to negotiate, collaborate and communicate through dialogue at an advanced level.
Periodic critiques, peer review and active discussion will monitor the development of practice and research throughout the unit.
Unit 4 - Research and realisation
In the final unit you will complete a self-directed individual, collaborative or ensemble project. This will have been developed out of the critical and creative practices explored during previous units.
You will refine a research question within your principal area of exploration that motivates the final project. You will then construct appropriate ways to present it. The final project will be shown in a public performance platform that may also include other work produced throughout the year.
Students will produce an accompanying piece of scholarly work addressing the questions, methods and modes of practice investigated by the performance research project.
Note: 120 Credits must be passed before the final unit is undertaken.