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| Unit name |
Performance Forms and Analysis |
| Unit code |
DRAM11004 |
| Credit points |
20 |
| Level of study |
C/4
|
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
|
| Unit director |
Professor. Hindson |
| Open unit status |
Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None
|
| Co-requisites |
None
|
| School/department |
Department of Theatre |
| Faculty |
Faculty of Arts |
Description including Unit Aims
Year 1 of the course is designed to lay foundations in performance and screen studies, introducing key concepts, theories and approaches. These are supplemented by seminars to focus on critical and textual analysis. In this unit students are introduced to a range of performance forms and methods of analysis. This unit will develop close analytical skills by considering topics including but not limited to:
- Definitions: what is performance and what is theatre?
- Defintions: who is the performer and who is the actor?
- Defintions: what is the play text?
- Definitions: performance spaces and spectatorship.
- Definitions: what are the contexts of performance?
- Liveness: performance in a mediatized age.
- Semiotics of performance and theatre.
- Analyzing performance: reading the signs and analyzing events.
- How does critical theory help us to analyze performance?
- Why does theatre history matter?
Lectures, seminars, screenings and online discussions will explore contrasting ways in which elements of performance forms have been configured in different periods and cultural contexts, in order to establish conceptual vocabularies and theoretical frameworks, which students can use to analyse creatively the complexities of performance in practice.
- to introduce students to key areas in the study and analysis of performance forms;
- to undertake a close investigation of selected historical and contemporary performance forms;
- to encourage critical understandings of the crucial components of performance forms;
- to explore how elements of performance forms have been configured in different periods and cultural contexts;
- to establish conceptual vocabularies and theoretical frameworks for the creative analysis of the complexities of performance forms in practice;
- to introduce a range of approaches to the teaching and learning of performance analysis.
Intended Learning Outcomes
- students will be able to identify key areas in the study and analysis of performance forms;
- students will demonstrate an understanding the issues involved in a close investigation of selected historical and contemporary performance forms;
- students will demonstrate developing critical understandings of the crucial components of performance forms;
- students will demonstrate effective exploration of how elements of performance forms have been configured in different periods and cultural contexts;
- students will deploy conceptual vocabularies and theoretical frameworks in their creative analyses of the dynamics of performance forms;
- students will demonstrate a developing understanding of the range of approaches to the teaching and learning of performance analysis.
Teaching Information
Blended teaching: 10 x 1hr lectures 10 x 1hr seminars 10 x 2hr screenings Blackboard discussion board exercises, as appropriate.
Assessment Information
1,000-word written exercise (25%); 1,000-word written exercise (25%); 2,000-word essay (50%).
Participation in Blackboard seminar discussion (P/F)
Reading and References
- Campbell, Patrick ed. (1996) Analysing Performance: a critical reader, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
- Carlson, Marvin (1996) Performance: a critical introduction, London: Routledge.
- Davis, T. and Postlewaite, T (eds) (2003) Theatricality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Pavis, P (2003) Analyzing Performance, Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
- Postlewaite, T and McConachie, B (eds) (1989) Interpreting the Theatrical Past, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.
- Shepherd, Simon and Mick Wallis (2004) Drama / Theatre / Performance. London: Routledge, New Critical Idiom
