BA (Hons) Drama & Theatre Arts

This module introduces a range of theoretical perspectives that can be used to analyse diverse forms of performance including theatre, live art, play texts, dance, and performance in the expanded field. The module also examines historical and contemporary contexts and issues to shed light on creative and theoretical developments and the work of specific playwrights, performance makers and theorists. You'll be asked to engage in analysis of individual plays and performances, considering the contextual influences of history and culture as well as genre and form. A variety of approaches are covered, which can be used either individually or in conjunction, with the intention of providing you with the tools necessary for rigorous critical and conceptual interpretation. This module will provide the conceptual basis for further and more detailed study in Years Two and Three of the degree programme. This module also introduces you to a range of academic study skills through a series of special classes as well as an essay sample submitted to your personal tutor. 

 The module will:

• Encourage the ability to think critically about performance (on page and stage), and spectatorship
• Identify cultural influences as they relate to theatre production
• Promote critical evaluation of diverse forms of performance
• Provide an analytical and comparative approach to evaluating critical theories

In this module, you'll explore key issues in community, applied, and political drama and performance through a focus on critical analysis of case studies. Weekly topics will address a wide range of forms and genres. The plays, companies, and performances discussed will be evaluated through the application of relevant theoretical frameworks, with an emphasis on influential philosophical and ideological trends of the 20^th and 21^st century.

You'll consider a thematic topic each week through the study of a related performance and will analyse the work with reference to assigned critical readings. Topics will include, for example, theatre for development, postcolonial theatres, youth theatre, feminist and queer performance, and others, and these will be contextualised within an exploration of post-structuralism, globalisation, neoliberalism, post-Cold War international relations, and other global political issues. This module will provide broad subject knowledge alongside fundamental skills in research and critical reflection, and will prepare students for further and more detailed study in subsequent years.

This module continues to embed study skills introduced in Critical Dialogues A with the integration of an introductory session on research and writing methodologies.

This module introduces the concept of 'dramaturgy' as the process of thinking about all the different elements that constitute a theatre experience: the composition of performance. It also looks at different 'dramaturgies', that is, different ways of telling stories through performance, exploring a range of methodologies post Stanislavski and integrating a diverse range of texts.

The module will encourage you to understand the different roles in creating work, and to start putting ideas on their feet; introduce you to different ways of decoding a play, discovering its embedded clues and meanings and exploring how writing is composed; encouraging you to consider carefully how rehearsal and preparation processes can lead to creating 'in the moment' live performance in front of an audience; explore how ethics and politics inform dramaturgical decisions, particularly with regard to issues of representation; and examine how harnessing the creativity of individual members of a theatre-making team, facilitating new collaborative theatremakers.

Therefore, the module is primarily concerned with interpretation and collaboration.  We will work both analytically and practically, exploring the necessary constant dynamic between the two (praxis), and students will be expected to read a range of theoretical texts, experience live performance and undertake other appropriate research (e.g. online) to provide context to their studies, and put this into action in a practical presentation. 

It will be taught by experienced theatre-makers, mainly in seminar-workshops involving analysis of text, practical exercises, lecture inputs and discussion.

This module aims to introduce you to the fundamental principles of Scenography. The term Scenography derives from the Greek sceno-grafika and can be understood as 'writing in space'. The practice of Scenography is concerned with the dramaturgical exploration of space, the parameters of which might be described as all that exists in the performance space pertaining to the senses, for example, the visual/aural language of the performance. Scenography can be understood as a relational practice that occurs between/betwixt the design(ed) elements. This module will allow you to explore Scenography as a complex system of signs by which we can both examine and imagine the potential of space, through decoding/encoding the performative space.

This module will allow you to explore Scenography as a complex system of signs by which we can both examine and imagine the potential of space, through decoding/encoding the performative space.

You'll practically explore and critically examine Scenography as a dramaturgical system through 5 Scenographic Disciplines:

1. Costume
2. Lighting
3. Set and Object
4. Sound
5. Stage Management

Through these disciplines, you'll be introduced to a range of key concepts, practitioners, and practical processes relating to Scenography.

Theatre Making 1 is the culmination of the first year's work for BA Drama and Theatre Arts and Performance, Politics and Society and draws on the experiences in the other first-year units.

It is an opportunity to explore theatre-making in a creative and inventive way, applying analytic and research skills to the practical realisation of performance pieces.  You'll build on your knowledge of different performance styles, approaches and traditions gained in the year: a presentation of exciting and innovative work, consolidating and building on the learning outcomes the first year of study. In this respect, it provides not only a culmination of the first year but a springboard for your next two years' work.

You'll gain practical experience of the relationship between the different roles that make up theatre-making teams, with an opportunity to share the demands of these roles as a collective. Team-working is at the heart of this project, exploring the dynamics of leadership, decision-making and the relationship between operational/organisational concerns and the realisation of an artistic vision. 

The module is based on mounting a programme of short `scratch' performances shared with peers.  Each performance will demonstrate a company's exploration of a set stimulus.  Although it is expected that performances are executed with polish and professionalism, they are also performative expressions of ideas that should have a further creative life.  Therefore, the presentations that accompany each performance are crucial in articulating each company's artistic vision and demonstrating an understanding of the processes that could realise that vision. 

Each student explores self-nominated roles within performance, direction, dramaturgy, scenography and stage management. It is expected that each performance group is assessed on its collective contribution and achievement in lighting/sound design, scenography, costumes and the devising process which can include the management of a basic script, from the stimulus provided. For Health and Safety reasons, all students operating any equipment or rigging set must have attended a relevant session with a qualified member of staff.

This module will focus on how performers and spectators socially and culturally encounter space. This includes exploration of space as a tangible entity, space as an internalised experience, and space as resonant with readings from different cultural, historical, political, psychological perspectives.

This module explores the process of creating site-specific ensemble performance in response to a chosen space and spectators. Your company is able to choose from a range of interesting spaces in which you can locate your performance and learn how to work creatively within, and in response to, your chosen environment and site.

Space generates its own narratives and meanings, and in both theory and practice, you explore different approaches to working with non-traditional theatre spaces or alternative spaces. You will consider how space impacts upon reception, our relationships to the audience, and on how it is integral to the making and meaning of a work.

Such work can be called environmental, site-specific or site-sensitive, but integral is an emphasis on the site as a prime location of material, process and engagement.

A series of five lectures and related film screenings at the start of the spring term will introduce various ways of interpreting spaces through different critical frames, practices and case studies, and this will be further explored in the practical/seminar sessions. The practical component of this module will develop imaginative, physical, and vocal skills along with further improvisational and devising strategies for ensemble group composition in a site-specific context. Physical training methodologies expand to include more internal ways of connecting to space, time, body, spaces and atmosphere, history and narrative, as well as techniques to encourage a playful, physical freedom in connection to surfaces, bodies and architectures. In addition methods of working with voice and text allied with physicality, within the context of the ensemble and site-specific practice, will be developed.

Students will also attend a set number of master classes during the term. These training methodologies assist in developing your approach to working environmentally and site-specifically, either indoors or out within the Goldsmiths campus.

There will be one departmental visit in the spring term to s show in a London site to see a company working in relation to site/space/place. Students will be asked to write a 1000-word essay analysing the show and drawing on the language of Performance Analysis and Site Specific Practice, which are introduced and explained on the course. This component enables you to begin to extend your critical vocabulary with which to ‘read’ the entirety of a performance in relation to site/space/place, and to articulate your responses accordingly. In the final post-show evaluation seminar, you will be guided to understand how to apply such a methodology to the development of your own company’s practical performance, and the critique of others’ work.

This module addresses various approaches to imaginative, physical, and vocal training of the actor drawing from a wide range of Twentieth Century key practitioners. You'll be introduced to a selection of approaches to ensemble training that will include the core skills and principles needed for this practice.  In tandem will explore key research strategies, and you will carry out your own experimentation and critical questioning.

Practical exploration of the ensemble is complimented by seminar discussions and film screenings that assist you in making links between historical, contemporary and cultural precedents and what you are discovering in your own training and experiments. The film screenings on the course provide an introduction to the type of work made by a range of ensemble practitioners during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.  Each practical session is framed thematically in relation to ensemble practice. The seminars focus on the investigation the work of a selection of key historical Twentieth Century pioneers of ensemble training and practice. Their work, and methodologies, will be examined within their respective historical, socio-political and cultural contexts. Practitioners include, for example, Eugenio Barba, Pina Bausch (Laban, Wigman and Jooss), Augusto Boal, Michael Chekhov, Jerzy Grotowski, and Jacques Lecoq (and Suzanne Bing), Konstantin Stanislavsky, SoulWork and Kristine Landon-Smith and their heritages in companies such as: Black Mime Theatre Company, Cardboard Citizens; Complicite; Forced Entertainment; Frantic Assembly; Improbable; Progress Theatre; Station House Opera; Sasha Waltz and Guests; Song of the Goat; Tamasha, and Ariane Mnouckhine. 

Through this symbiotic practical and theoretical work, you focus on how meaning is generated in performance, and begin to ask basic questions about Theatre Making, to explore further in your own work and your analysis of material created by other artists. 

One departmental visit will take place in the autumn term to a London venue to see the work of a company working integrally with the idea of the ensemble, or for whom ensemble training is a core process.  Students will be asked to write a 1000-word essay critically analysing the work of their ensemble company drawing on the texts studied on the module.  This component enables you to begin to acquire a critical vocabulary with which to discuss, and reflect on, your own performance-making and practice as research.  In the final post-show evaluation seminar, you will be guided to understand how to apply such a methodology to the development of your own company's practical performance, and the critique of others' work.

Theatre Making 2 sets students the task to put the skills and ideas introduced in Questions of s Performance into independent creative practice. Students develop practical and conceptual abilities and specialist skills in a chosen area of theatre making and work within companies to create and develop collaborative, research-led, full-fledged and fully-technical responses to set source material and given set restrictions.

This lecture/ seminar series introduces you to key aspects of modern and postmodern thought, culture and theatre. It aims a) to examine historical and cultural contexts, and b) to explore and analyse the theoretical and culture concerns and practices which have been understood as modernist and postmodern. It is interdisciplinary, considering not only practices in theatre but in other areas of cultural production. 

Our academic departments are developing exciting elective ideas to allow you to broaden your education, either to develop vocationally orientated experiences or to learn more about contemporary society, culture and politics. You’ll be able to choose safe in the knowledge that these modules have been designed for non-subject specialists and to bring students from different disciplines together. For example, you may want to take introductions to areas such as Law, Education, the digital industries, the creative industries,think like a designer or understand the history and politics behind our current affairs.

This module offers students the chance to go beyond 'soundbite' Brecht and study this key dramatist in more detail. This module will study the career of Brecht, including the political world his drama and drama theory evolved through. Placing his work in a philosophical, historical and artistic context, this module will look at Brecht's importance for his period, his influence in post-war theatre and relevance in contemporary practice. 

While the idea of 'postcolonial theatre' is problematic because of the imported discourses and terminology of postcolonial studies in general, the term postcolonial still provides a useful discursive framework for engaging with the drama, theatre and performance practices of the former colonies of Great Britain and other European countries. This course will introduce students to the debates and issues about the scope and frame of the postcolonial field and its critical theory. It will specifically look at the relationship between postcolonialism and postmodernism; the shifts and tensions in the centre-periphery relations; issues of cultural oppression and cultural imperialism; issues and strategies surrounding the politics of culture, identity and representation. Underpinning all our explorations will be the ideas of seminal thinkers such as Franz Fanon, Edward Said, Albert Memmi, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Homi bhabha and Gayatri Spivak.

This module addresses historical and contemporary links between avant garde theatre practices and political activism. It expands and deepens the study of artistic practices begun in Modernisms and Postmodernity A, with a focus on the activist elements of theatrical movements and parallel political organisations.

Through the critical analysis of 20th-century case studies, you will develop an understanding of the adoption of avant garde techniques from Dada to Live Art to 'In Yer Face' realism.

You will consider particular theatrical protest performances drawn from organisations including Bread and Puppet Theatre, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, El Teatro Campesino, Solidarity, Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, ACT-UP and more.

Through targeted critical readings, you will situate their analyses of these performances within recent scholarship on the efficacy of political performance in a globalised, postmodern world.

This option focuses precisely on this dual nature of Beckett's work and offers students a chance to study and questions modern/ postmodern tensions with Beckett as a continuous and problematic case study. Students engage with the breadth of philosophical argument found in these readings: aesthetics, politics, philosophy of history, existential ontology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language. 

This module investigates the relationship between modern women playwrights (writing in English) and the ways in which their work intersects with the tenets of feminist thought. Each week two polemical pieces: one on social history or feminist theory, the other on drama or theatre will be analysed in tandem with the play under discussion. 

This option studies five key texts in the history of French Theatre from the point of view of genre and generic shift in time and space. The genres of greatest importance for the purposes of this course are tragedy, romantic drama and avant-garde anti-theatre. Examples are taken from the seventeenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and are analysed within the framework of the theoretical aspects most appropriate to them.

The approach taken here is specifically sociological, all issues to do with the relationship between a work and its context, which is the brief of the course Elements of Theatre History as a whole, being filtered through a social and societal understanding of both the theatre and history as such. This option explores how societal conditions, including those to do with audience expectations, affect a genre and its transformation into another genre. The case study for this particular aspect of the option is La Dame aux Camélias (The Lady of the Camelias) by Alexandre Dumas, whose novel and play versions appear closely together in time. The play is turned in the same historical period into another type of theatre, the opera La Traviata by Verdi. La Traviata is examined in a twentieth-century version as well as in a site-specific simulcast edition, the change of genre and historical space and time raising additional issues to do with genre and context. Pam Gems’ rewriting of the play as Camille provides an opportunity for reassessment of genre issues through the issue of gender.

The study of the history of theatre and performance in Africa requires the recognition that in dealing with theatre in Africa, one is dealing with a variety of traditions of performance. These traditions have developed mostly along parallel trajectories, and only sometimes intersecting each other’s paths. This course will therefore look at the major traditions of drama, theatre and performance in Africa; it will specifically look at the indigenous oral theatres and performances, the popular/ travelling theatre tradition, the Western-influenced and mainly university-based literary drama and theatre tradition, the interventionist theatre-for-development practice, and video drama genre. The course will look at these theatres and performances, both as products and shapers of their historical, social and cultural contexts and processes. It will examine the impact of colonialism on the development of theatre in Africa, as well as the responses of these theatres to key historical facts and events in Africa. Examples will be drawn mainly from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe.

Ancient Athenian drama lies at the roots of the Western dramatic tradition. This course explores Greek plays in their original performance context and in the context of modern theatre. It examines the social, political and religious role of theatre in ancient Athenian society, and reflects on some of the ways in which Greek theatre has been translated, adapted and re-imagined in later cultures.

Over the course of the module, we’ll study example by each ancient playwright whose works survive to the present day (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides), as well as exploring the satyr play, and Aristophanes’ comic reflections on tragic playwriting. We’ll also consider ideas of ‘performance reception’, comparing these ancient plays in their historical context with the ways in which modern theatre-makers have revised, contested and transformed ancient dramatic texts to address their own societies.

The following plays will be discussed: Aeschylus: Oresteia, Aristophanes: Frogs, Euripides:

The Bacchae, Cyclops, Sophocles: Women of Trachis, Oedipus Tyrannus

The following modern versions of ancient plays will also be studied: Martin Crimp: Cruel and Tender, Yael Farber: Molora, Tony Harrison: The Trackers of Oxyrhynchus, Neil LaBute: a gaggle of saints.

Contact between British and Polish theatres stretches back at least to Jacobean players performing in Gdansk (with Henry Chettle’s The Tragedy of Hoffmann [1631], for instance, partly set in “Dantzike”, after the city’s Prussian name of Danzig), through Edward Gordon Craig’s interest in the work of Stanislaw Wyspianski in the early twentieth century, to students participating in training workshops today with such companies as Teatr Zar or Song of the Goat.

Once part of the “other Europe” during the Cold War, Poland is now at the heart of the EU, with Polish one of the major “second languages” of the UK also. Cultural dialogue depends on a shared awareness of key points of reference and this module will offer an introduction to aspects
of Polish theatre history, not least as part of a history of translation into English. Each week, in both tutor- and student-led presentations, different themes will be considered, such as: repertory and “alternative” approaches to literary theatre; ensemblebased, physical or visual theatres; forms of actor training and the diversity of playwriting; individual directors’ “visions” and themes from the “national canon”; the Polish-Jewish heritage; the interplay of aesthetics and politics, of Romanticism and avant-garde, of past and present.

As the module material is in English, we will be considering what a theatre history beyond “national” borders means, through the example of the different artists whose work will be considered (from Mickiewicz to Staniewski; or between Kantor and the Theatre of the Eighth Day).

This module looks at the role and development of major early modern thinkers and writers within the context of Shakespeare’s plays and poems. Drawing on a range of philosophy, literature, religious writing and political thought, we explore the ways in which Shakespeare stages some of the major concerns of his day within the context of intellectual innovations across Europe c1400-1600.

This module is designed to give students a detailed overview of American Theatre in the 20th Century- its texts and contexts. By looking in depth at nine plays alongside a number of key groups and movements such as the Provincetown Players, the Black Arts Movement and the American Avant Garde, and through student led presentations, we will gain a sense of the diversity and development of American Theatre throughout the century. 

Three seminal figures in the Russian theatre of the first half of the twentieth century have had an extraordinary impact on the development of world theatre to this day: Konstantin Stanislavsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold and Evgeny Vakhtangov. This course focuses on their different views of the theatre, their directorial principles and their collaboration with actors, playwrights and designers in the context of unprecedented political and social upheaval. The plays selected here were indicative of the changes taking place, and of fundamental importance to the revaluation of theatre practice during this time.

British Theatre since the end of the Second World War has undergone a series of profound changes. From the abolition of censorship on the stage in 1968, through to the explosion of information brought on by the technological age, and the changing role of women in society, theatre has remained consistently relevant, engaging blatantly with social and political commentary. This option considers the relationship between post-war drama and the cultural, political and social milieu in which it has been situated. It explores the social history and creation of ‘In-Yer-Face’ theatre and its relationship to class. It also examines the theatre as an arena for engagement with political dialogue in the guise of verbatim theatre, which presents its own unique challenge to authority. It considers a contemporary understanding of 'Britishness', looking at Black and Asian playwrights as well as the new generation of young female playwrights and what they have to say about the state of the nation in a fragmentary, ‘post-modern’ Britain. The course culminates by looking at the relatively new discourse of eco-criticism and what the theatre has to say around issues of climate change. We will attempt a theatre visit if a relevant production is playing and if enough students wish to attend.

This module asks the question: how does an actor approach, construct or otherwise create a realistic human being on stage? We will begin at the beginning, with the father of modern acting theory and practice- Konstantin Stanislavsky. 

This option introduces a range of practical skills for exploring autobiography as a starting point for writing monologues and plays, story telling, devising, creating theatre and performing. 

This option questions received definitions of gender, and considers gender as a mode of performance which is primarily unstable and capable of change. Throughout the module, students begin to contextualise their own gender performativity and explore new ways of creating performance practice, leading to a group presentation. 

In this option students explore the different acting approaches to emotion working on specific body posture, facial expressions, breathing patterns, physical actions, psychological gestures, singing, image-scoring and examines how emotion can be used as a means to create a role. 

On this module, students explore the development of voice and text work as used by major theatre companies in the UK, beginning with the mid 20th century methods of Clifford Turner and Greta Colson. Workshops address relaxation, posture, breath, voice and articulation, and then apply this experience to the performance of text using monologues, duologues and small scene work. 

In the Culture and Performance modules, you will investigate contemporary notions of identity and culture in the UK and around the world in relation to an increasingly globalised world. Contemporary Britain is perceived as progressively more multicultural; at the same time, there is an evolving awareness of the impact of global trends in society and culture. These and other factors are challenging our extant notions of individual and collective identity and culture, as well as community.

Culture and Performance begins with a single module taken by all students in the Autumn term – 'Culture and Performance: Critical Cultural Theory'. This 10-week module introduces students to key theoretical perspectives on the function of performance for the negotiation and perpetuation of cultures and societies. Students will become familiar with current debates on interculturalism, multiculturalism, nationalism, and the globalisation of cultures, through a diverse range of historical and contemporary case studies.

In weekly seminars students will be encouraged to interrogate and debate their own creative and political relationships to performance cultures of various kinds. This module will equip students with the necessary theoretical tools to effectively position themselves as artists within global, postcolonial, multicultural, and/or intercultural communities.

The Dissertation is an opportunity to extend your abilities as scholars by looking at a single research subject of your own choosing. Supported by appropriate instruction from lectures and tutorials, it provides a chance to engage with material of personal interest, and offers the possibility of laying claim to a specific area of study. This is a chance to delve in detail into a subject which has excited your enthusiasm and curiosity. That chosen subject may build upon skills and knowledge gained during the degree or it may pursue suitable material not substantially addressed elsewhere on the course (DTA students wishing to write a practice-led study may use the Level 3 Theatre Making Project 3 as the basis for their written dissertation). The dissertation requires a more sustained and focused application of the skills acquired in the writing of shorter essays, developing techniques of organisation, analysis and argumentation. 

The Dissertation is also a course of independent study. The onus is on you to motivate yourself, to organise your studies, to contact your tutors to arrange meetings, and to write the dissertation. In doing so you will develop a new sense of your capacities; seeking out subject matter for yourself and investigating it, and developing an informed critical opinion in your subject area.

To support your endeavours, there will be three lecture-seminars giving guidance on research methods and dissertation writing, two in Autumn term and one in Spring. In addition to this, you will be allotted a personal tutor who will guide you in your choice of subject matter and your progress. It is crucial that you make contact with your tutor as soon as possible in the autumn term, and arrange to meet with them. Two hours of supervision are available for each student to develop their Dissertation in consultation with an assigned tutor: please see the section below for details. 

More information about this module will be published soon

This module explores art-making as a philosophical practice with particular reference to art that has been created in Japan, created by those of Japanese origin, or inspired by Japanese culture. The particular perspectives investigated cover art practice that engages with aesthetic and philosophic notions such as an 'art of spectatorship', the notion of 'daily life as art', the concept of emptiness and the concept of 'void'; and art that engages with 'nature'. 

This module examines the theory and practice of harnessing theatre for pedagogical purposes. Focusing particularly on work with young people in schools and other settings, we study the history and current practices of educational theatre practitioners, assessing their efficacy in delivering learning outcomes for young people. As well as studying significant practitioner such as Augusto Boal and Dorothy Heathcote, we also study key play texts and case studies of leading theatre companies. 

This module takes up the two strands introduced in Culture and Performance in Term one, namely black American and British drama from the twentieth century to the present. The texts studied investigate points of convergence and divergence in representing blackness and black people’s experiences on both sides of the Atlantic. From the American perspective the chronological starting point is Angelina Weld Grimke’s legacy and how the drama produced throughout the 1920s prefigures the later influential cultural activism of the 1960s Black Arts Movement and continues women playwrights’ longstanding associations with experimental writing. In the British context, the initial investigations reside imperfectly in white writers’ representations and the dominance of black performers from abroad due to the absence of any plays penned by a black writer in Britain before the 1930s.

The module initially creates a broad contextual and generic scope which is narrowed to single-authored studies in the latter half. This enables students to access key informing debates as historically specific, but also to inter-weave these in order to construct a continuum in theatre histories which have been characterised by absence, sporadic inclusion or distortion. Attention to single authors enables detailed application of these ideas to a body of the dramatists’ work and requires the reading of no fewer than two of their plays each week. From time-to-time, there will be comparative analyses of plays by white peers bearing in mind the dominance of white-centred experience in both nations’ artistic contexts and theatre complexes. Theorisation models will expose students to Afro-centric and Euro-centric examples. By virtue of the newness discursively of the field of Black British writing and drama in particular, the module is to be viewed as a series of incisive snapshots aimed to facilitate student interest with the expectation that further research will add to the emerging critical mass. In particular, the historical dominance of Caribbean-derived experiential models from the 1970s-2000s is later contoured by the increased Nigerian-centring theatrical presence of neo-millennial playwrights which, although beyond the scope of the module in any detail, students are welcome to pursue this as a research area for the assessed essay.

Given the political and ideological conditions of enslavement and colonisation heritages, the module acknowledges the shared ground of racial oppression (amongst other inhibitors) but aims to explore the nuanced and distinctive politicised aesthetics which have emerged across the century as responsive to the very different locations of the United States and the United Kingdom.

The new ecology emphasizes indeterminism, instability and constant change. This module examines the ways in which theatre, and performance more broadly, responds to, and leads the way in thinking about climate breakdown and the impact of anthropogenic climate chaos. We consider a range of play texts that engage with the relationship between the human and natural world. These range from Shakespeare’s work, that engenders both harmony and disorder in the relationships between human and non-human worlds, through to nineteenth –century Romanticism. We look at ways in which the theatre engages with the scientific community to present facts and statistics about climate breakdown through performance. We ask questions about the ethics of the theatre as a carbon neutral medium, and explore site-specific audio tours. We visit the Arcola Theatre, whose radical sustainability policy begins with the aim to become the world’s first carbon neutral theatre. We end by considering performative responses to the climate crisis through, for example, Extinction Rebellion, and the activists from Liberate Tate who protested against BP’s sponsorship of the gallery.

This module will take the shape of a highly experimental performance testing ground. Students will be encouraged to explore, take risks, be self-reflexive and critically engaged. They will engage in depth with the specialist option area through a series of workshops/seminars, related self-led, option-based learning exercises and critical reading/ viewing. The option aims to provide the space for students to build on their previous learning, as well as to broaden their understanding of contemporary devising practices, to develop a critical and practical understanding of embodied knowledge.

Each week will be dedicated to exploring a keyword in Devised Performance. By the end of the module students will have developed their performance skills and created a tool kit, experimented with performance-making strategies, investigated different ways of conceptualizing and composing performance, and started generating material as devising practitioners. We will examine a variety of experimental devising processes through keywords that interrogate e.g. collaboration, adaptation, participation, play, music and performing objects. 

will take the shape of a highly experimental performance-making testing ground. You'll be encouraged to explore, take risks, be self-reflexive and critically engaged. They will engage in depth with critical Live Art practice through a series of workshops/seminars, related self-led learning exercises and critical reading/viewing.

Each week will be dedicated to exploring a keyword in Live Art / Performance Art and by the end of the module you'll have developed your performance skills, experimented with performance-making strategies, investigated different ways of conceptualising and composing performance, and started generating material as Live Art practitioners. You'll be drawing on the artist's body as a resource and as a site for performance; and exploring different encounters between the audience and the artist. You'll experiment with e.g. instruction and material, and think about documentation not just as a record of performance, but as a creative resource and outcome of performance events.

Alongside tutor-led sessions, you'll be encouraged to attend Live Art, performance art and devised performance events, installations, exhibitions and collections. You'll actively engage in independent research, exploration and experimentation, documentation and self/group reflection.

This module will take the shape of a highly experimental performance testing ground. You'll be encouraged to explore, take risks, be self-reflexive and critically engaged. You'll engage in depth with the specialist option area through a series of workshops/seminars, related self-led, option-based learning exercises and critical reading/ viewing. The option aims to provide the space for you to build on your previous learning, as well as to broaden your understanding of contemporary devising practices, to develop a critical and practical understanding of embodied knowledge.

Each week will be dedicated to exploring a keyword in Acting and Solo Performance and by the end of the module you will have developed your performance skills, started generating material as solo performers, investigated different ways of devising, scoring and composing solo performances, as well as exploring different solo training models, including actor's self-pedagogy and clown.  You'll be encouraged to research different models of solo performance and the appropriate and/or relevant models of training and to experiment with developing your own ways of training, rehearsing, and documentation.

This module aims to provide experiential learning opportunities that will enhance your academic studies and offer the opportunity for personal development. It will allow you to:

• Learn skills relevant both to academic achievement and to discipline-related career opportunities
• Gain effective personal development programmes
• Experience life in the workplace and gain valuable employment experience

An advantage of this model is that it draws on the expertise of the department of Theatre and Performance in facilitating students’ academic development and of the Work Placement Manager in working on their personal development.