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2011/2 Provisional Module Catalogue - UNDER CONSTRUCTION & SUBJECT TO CHANGE
 Module Code: DANM030 Module Title: THEATRE RESEARCH: METHODOLOGISE & DOCUMENTATION
Module Provider: Dance,Film & Theatre Short Name: DANM030
Level: M Module Co-ordinator:
Number of credits: 15 Number of ECTS credits: 7.5
 
Module Availability
Semester 1.
Assessment Pattern

Unit(s) of Assessment (SITS MAB)

 

Weighting Towards Module Mark( %)

 

Formative Assessment:

 

Essay Draft with Bibliography

 

 

Summative Assessment:

 

Essay (3000 Words)

 

 

100%

 

Module Overview
This module aims to embed some key methods and strategies for performance research, and to build a keen understanding of academic rigour in writing and in creative practice.  The module will introduce students to effective strategies for originating research and for pursuing that research through both performative and traditional academic avenues.  Students will gain experience in theoretical and archival research, in the formation and structure of critical writing, and in prevalent questions regarding the ways in the scholarship of performance is undertaken today.  Topics will vary yearly, but students can expect an overview of four to five theoretical approaches to the study of the performing arts; additionally, as this module is designed to be taken in conjunction with DANM031 Performing Theories, students can expect a particular focus on practice-as-research as a critical tool for performance scholarship.  Taken together, these two modules encourage students to see both artistic work and scholarship as grounded in a spirit of investigation.   
Prerequisites/Co-requisites
DANM031 Performing Theories.
Module Aims

·        To understand the use and application of a range of critical and theoretical methods to research in the performing arts.

 

·        To demonstrate knowledge of theoretical and critical issues relevant to the study of performance in a globalised world.

 

·        To develop an understanding of processes of documentation, data collection and analysis that are relevant to advanced theatre research projects.

 

·        To enhance abilities of critical writing.

 

·        To facilitate a sophisticated analysis of the varying relationships between theory and practice

 

·        To convincingly organize and present conceptual ideas for culturally appropriate, critical and practical study of performance at the postgraduate level.

 

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding:

 

·        An enhanced critical awareness of a range of practice/theory relationships in current scholarship and professional practice.

 

·        An in-depth exploration of performative practices in writing and performance.

 

·        A detailed knowledge of the norms of advanced academic writing.

 

 

Cognitive/Intellectual Skills:

 

·        Ability to engage critically with and synthesise complex theories, methodologies and independent research and articulate findings orally and in performed and written outcomes.

 

·        Ability to appraise and debate projects that engage in creative and intellectual interchange between theory and practice.

 

 

Practical/Key Skills:

 

·        Ability to interrogate ideas and concepts through oral and written projects, interpret them through theoretical constructs and debate the implications for practice.

 

·        Ability to critique own and others’ work in a constructive and incisive way.

 

·        The ability to create writing that investigates advanced concepts and practice and is evidence of intellectual rigour.

 

Module Content
The module considers a selection of strategies for initiating and pursuing performance research.  These strategies may include effective use of library and archival resources, good practice in critical writing (including the structuring of essays, the synthesis of ideas, and proper referencing techniques), practice-as-research, and other means of data-collection and recording (such as the observation of rehearsal processes, interviews, and/or the recoding of performance work).  The module will also introduce selected theories of performance, potentially including structuralism and semiotics, phenomenology, cultural materialism, feminisms and gender studies, post colonialism, postmodernism, and/or others to be determined on a year-to-year basis.  Students will study these in both primary sources and in performative application, through the study of selected play texts and live performances. 
Methods of Teaching/Learning
Practical workshops, lectures, seminar discussions, performance analysis, self directed research.
Selected Texts/Journals

Plays:

 

Barker, H. Scenes From an Execution

 

 

Becket, S. Waiting for Godot.

 

 

Brecht, B.  Mother Courage and Her Children

 

Churchill, C.  Cloud Nine.

 

Euripides, Medea.

 

 

Fornes, F.  Fefu and Her Friends.

 

Gambaro, G.  Information for Foreigners

 

Kane, S.  Blasted

 

Lepage, Robert. Seven Streams of the River Ota.

 

Müller, H.  Hamletmachine

 

 

Rame, F. Medea

 

Shakespeare, W.  Hamlet.

 

 

 

Theory/Criticism:

 

Artaud, Antonin.  The Theatre and Its Double.  Trans. Mary Caroline Richards. New York : Grove Press, 1994.

 

 

Aston, Elaine and Savona , G.  Theatre as Sign System: A Semiotics of Text and

 

            Performance, London : Routledge, 1991.

 

 

Barthes, Roland.   ‘The World of Wrestling’, in Mythologies, London : Vintage, 1993.

 

 

-----.  ‘The Death of the Author.’ In Image-Music-Text.  Trans Stephen Heath.  Galsgow: William Collins Sons & Co, 1977 (pp 142-148).

 

 

Birch, A.  Sighting / Citing  History through Performance: The Wollstonecraft

 

      Live Experience! in Alison Oddey and Christine White (ed) Modes of

 

      Spectating, Intellect, 2008.

 

 

Birch, A.  Staging and Citing Gendered Meanings: A practice-based study of

 

      representational strategies in live and mediated performance in Birgit Haas

 

      (Hg.): Der postfeministische Diskurs.pp 79-100, Würzburg: Königshausen &

 

      Neumann, 2006.

 

 

Bogart, Anne.  And Then You Act: Making Art in an Unpredictable World.  New York : Routledge, 2007.

 

Counsell, Colin. Performance Analysis: an Introductory Casebook. London :

 

            Routledge, 2001.

 

 

De Certeau, Michel.  The Writing of History.  Trans. Tom Conley.  New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.

 

Fortier, Mark.  Theory/Theatre: An Introduction (2nd Edition).  London : Routledge, 2002.

 

Foucault, Michel.  The Archaeology of Knowledge, and the Discourse on Language.  Trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith.  New York : Pantheon Books, 1972.

 

Grotowski, Jerzy.  Towards a Poor Theatre. London: Methuen , 1969.

 

Haseman, B. Rupture and Recognition: Identifying the Performative research

            Paradigm in Barrett, E. and Bolt, B. (eds) Practice as Research: Approaches

 

            to Creative Arts Enquiry London: I. B. Tauris, 2007.

 

Kershaw, B.  Performance, memory, heritage, history, spectacle – The Iron Ship. 

      Studies in  Theatre and Performance 21 (3), pp 132-149.

 

Knorr-Cetina, K.  Objectual Relations in: Schatzki, T, Knorr-Cetina, K and

      von Savigny, E (eds) The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. London and

New York : Routledge, 2001 (pp 175-188).

 

Lansdale Janet.  Decentring Dance Texts. Basingstoke : Palgrave, 2001.

 

 

Lawrence K.  (2007).  St. Catherine’s Chapel Pilgrimage: a guide in About

 

            Performance No. 7, Local Acts: Site-based Performance Practice, pp165 - 179

 

Lyotard, Jean-Francios.  The Postmodern Explained.  Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992 (pp 1-16).

 

Pavis, P (1996)  ‘The Actors’ Score and Underscore’ through to end of chapter

 

            on ‘The Actor’ in Performance Analysis: Theater, Dance, Film, Ann Arbor :

 

            University of Michigan Press.

 

 

Pearson, M. and Shanks, M.  (2001)  Theatre/Archaeology.  London : Routledge, 2001.

 

 

States, Bert O.  Great Reckonings in Little Rooms. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985 (pp 1-47).

 

 

Thomson, Peter (compiler).  Practice as research.  Studies in Theatre and

 

            Performance 22, 3, 2003, (pp 159–180).

 

 

Wilshire, Bruce.  Role Playing and Identity: The Limits of Theatre as Metaphor.  Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1982.

 

Last Updated
14/04/11.