Working Together: Performer Training for Collective Creation (DRA3087)

30 credits

This module will help you to identify, understand, and develop key skills involved in collaboration and adaptation, and to recognise their applicability to a variety of social and cultural contexts. You will primarily learn through practical research and the development of your own emotional and critical responses to a source material. You will work together as performers, directors, dramaturgs, and scenographers to create a new performance piece from source material other than a play script, e.g. a novel/novella, essays, etc. This source material will be chosen by the module convenor. You will learn about, and put into practice, ensemble creation techniques drawn from numerous interdisciplinary performance makers including ARTEL (American Russian Theatre Ensemble Laboratory), the Laboratory of Dmitry Krymov, Mabou Mines, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Phantom Limb, the Polish Laboratory Theatre, and Theatre du Soleil; these involve strategies for creating performance material (e.g. solo/group composition, chance, games, active analysis) and working with others (including feedback, managing dissent, celebration, etc.).

Prior studio-based coursework is essential.

The module is relevant for students wanting to make theatre, start their own theatre company, and/or learn more about the practicalities of collaboration for transference to any creative situation.