Further information

Core courses

This course introduces you to notions and concepts of performance and theatre in Africa. It focuses on the various indigenous oral performances of Africa, such as the masquerades, rituals, trance and possession, musical performances, comic and satiric sketches, and dance theatre. The aim is to study each performance in relation to its cultural context. Emphasis will be on methods of production and reception, notions of space, performer & spectator relationship, theories and roles of dance and music in African performance. The course is based on the premise that performance is essentially a social and cultural practice; as such, it is to be analysed, understood, explained and questioned in terms commensurate with its composite nature and socio-cultural complexity. The terms of this analysis are provided by an interdisciplinary approach which will draw, notably, on theatre and performance studies, cultural theory, anthropology, ethnography, philosophy, and aesthetics, among others. The course is anchored on the idea that learning and critical inquiry are based on cross-referencing, cumulative and in-depth acquisition of knowledge. Its structure fosters initiative and independence in research and presentation of work, and collaborative effort in class discussion.

This course focuses on contemporary literary drama and dramatists from Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone language zones in Africa. Its major aim is to remove the tendency in African performance scholarship to study these theatre traditions and genres as separate, while in fact, the impulse behind them were essentially the same, and their hybridising strategies follow the same path. The course investigates the impact of different forms of colonisation on the creation and direction of the theatre. It also explores the influences of the indigenous traditions and the function of theatre within African societies & it especially looks at theatre and politics, the role of the dramatist in Africa, the playwright and the state, theatre under apartheid and totalitarian regimes, theatre and liberation struggles, theatre and the universities, African audiences, video drama/movie (theatre, technology and innovation). The course encourages you to explore and extend your perception and understanding of performance practice and cultural dynamics.

This third core course introduces you to the various theories and practices of theatre-for-development in Africa and the UK. It will particularly address the issue of the product versus process approaches to theatre-for-development. The course is designed to enable students to critically examine these approaches, as well as interrogate other predominant theories and practices, such as Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, applied theatre, interventionist theatre and theatre education. In the process it is hoped the course will enable the students to acquire intellectual, professional and personal skills for work with target groups and communities.

Dissertation

This mandatory course is intended to develop your research, knowledge, and understanding within a particular area under the rubric of African theatre, performance and culture. It may substantially develop work begun elsewhere on the course, or it may pursue suitable material not substantially addressed elsewhere on the course. In either case, it will extend learning and skills developed in the other MA Contemporary African Theatre and Performance courses that make up the programme. The purpose of the dissertation is: to enable you to pursue advanced extended research; to develop your skills in independent research and project co-ordination; to promote and develop skills in critical and independent thinking; and to enable you to participate in the direction and evolution of the discipline.

Options

You are able to take an option from a range available at Goldsmiths. Below are the possible options you could take:

Drama complementary/contextual courses

The course will provide an overview of theoretical concepts and practices of Applied Drama focusing on work in sites of conflict. We will consider Applied Drama practice in locations of war, with people who have been displaced by war and with people who are in conflict with the law.

Applied Drama practice purports to do something, to encourage social change. But what are the ethics and politics of drama practice which seeks to facilitate this change? How are these questions addressed in sites of conflict? What do these questions reveal about the possibilities and limitations of Applied Drama practice? What do they reveal of the contexts within which the work takes place? Over the course of ten weeks we will consider these questions with Applied Drama practitioners and academics who have been working to address issues raised by conflict in a range of sites including Rwanda, Brazil, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka and England.

This course will study the work of several major directors of the second half of the 20th century whose legacy has continued into the theatre practice of the twenty-first. The focus is on Giorgio Strehler and the Piccolo Teatro di Milano, Peter Brook and the CICT in Paris, Ariane Mnouchkine and the Theatre du Soleil, Lev Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre of St Petersburg, and Robert Wilson. The working methods and artistic principles of these directors and their companies/collaborators are situated in the socio-cultural and political context relevant to them. Reference will be made to other directors and performers according to specific questions to do with stage production or mise en scane, notably Jean Vilar, Peter Stein, Robert Lepage, Declan Donnellan and Deborah Warner. The availability of the productions by any of these directors will also determine the trajectory of the course. Where possible, the course will take into account aspects of the staging of opera.

This course will address a range of issues relevant to cultural policy and practice in the UK and other European countries. It will discuss the relationship between cultural production and policy. The course has two distinct elements. The first will deal with post-war arts policy and practice within the UK, exploring the main developments that have contributed to the evolution of current policy. It will examine the inter-relationship of the many functions and responsibilities of the DCMS, the Arts Council and how policy is managed at a national, regional and city level. This section of the course will also map the relationship of the 'cultural industries' to the economy of subsidised and private arts sectors. Key areas of policy in relation to access, accountability and cultural/national identity will be explored in relation to specific concerns of arts and tourism, arts and redevelopment, arts and education. In general, the course will concentrate on policy in relation to the performing arts, although reference will be made to visual arts and the heritage sector.

The second section of the course will provide an introduction to cultural policies in other European countries, and the structures and priorities that govern arts support. It will look in particular at the situation in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland as well as on the specific issues facing arts policymakers in Central and Eastern Europe. Reference will also be made to the role of the European Union in cultural policy development.

This course will examine the diverse kinds of new performance writing being generated in the UK today, and the contexts (cultural, theatrical and economic) in which they are being created. It will examine process as well as product. It will focus on the work of individual playwrights, the policies and practices of organisations dedicated to the development and support of new writing (including theatre companies and funding bodies). It will examine new writing in experimental and non-traditional (eg. educational or community-based) contexts, and focus on issues relating to authorship in collaborative and cross-art-form work. The option will also examine research methods appropriate to an area of enquiry where there are often limited existing critical materials: including interviews with practitioners, dramatic text analysis, live workshop/performance analysis, and use of theory as a tool for analysis. You will be encouraged to investigate areas of personal interest for your individual assessed written projects.

The course introduces the formative methodologies of performance practice in the West, focusing on key models of praxis that provide the vocabulary of contemporary theatre-making and performer training. The course positions itself in the gap between the actualities of practice and the conceptual abstractions of contemporary performance theory.

The course structure is designed in such a way as to identify the dialectical relationship of key categories of performance praxis, and to allow you to explore the arguments generated by the differences among them through viewing performances, reading, and seminar discussion.

This course will look at musicals' explicitly reflexive relationship with the societies from which they stem. As well as reflecting the historical and cultural character of society, they also voice society's own sense of its life and values.

The course will look at the context of American society, where the musical has been a primary and widely accessible voice through which the American way of life has expressed itself to people in the USA and to the rest of the world. And further, how the combination of song, dance and drama that is the musical is linked both to historical circumstances and ideological beliefs.

The course will also look at how the musical has spread beyond America internationally to continue to develop within the frameworks of these traditions and to construct contemporary alternatives to them. The course will provide a theoretical and methodological framework for the socio-cultural analysis of the musical; establish the nature of the musical as a popular cultural genre of music theatre and consider its status as popular entertainment and art; examine the emergence and development of the musical primarily in terms of its reflexive relationship with the historical transformation of American society and its popular culture; consider the nature and future of the contemporary musical as it has been transformed into international and global popular music theatre.