Drama (Joint Honours) BA (Hons) year three modules
The Drama (Joint Honours) BA (Hons) modules listed below give you a flavour of what is available during your third year of study.
Year three (Level 6)
Drama Research Project
This module develops individual research on a topic of your choice with a title negotiated with a supervisor. It will examine in depth an aspect of theatre or performance, and develop skills in research, planning, organisation and argument. The outcome of the research will be presented as a written dissertation 9,000 words.
Performance as Research
This module, or its companion module Drama Research Project, is compulsory for Level 6 Single Honours Drama students and optional for Joint Honours Drama students. It requires individual research on a topic negotiated with a member of staff pursued through performance and a written submission. The specific means of achieving the module learning outcomes will be established in a learning contract agreed with a member of staff. The project should examine in depth and using appropriate methodologies a specific area of study relevant to Drama. The performative element will consist of either a performance or workshop of 30- minutes duration. The written element, which will offer a critical analysis of the performance as research process, will be 3,500 words in length and its format will be determined during the negotiation of the learning contract with the project supervisor.
Live Art and Experimental Performance
This studio-based module is concerned with live art and experimental theatre as creative spaces that seek to break the rules and push the boundaries of performance. You will be introduced to a wide range of innovative, interdisciplinary and experiential practices from the mid-twentieth century to the present. These artistic experiments often function in between and at the edges of more conventional artistic forms.
Curve Company 2
Curve Company 2 offers you the opportunity to perform at Curve in a production as part of the theatre’s spring season. Working with the artistic team, you will, following a successful audition process, prepare, rehearse and perform in a public production as a member of the Curve Company. The module will enable you to develop your technical and creative skills in performance as well as your professional working skills in preparation, conduct and reflection.
The module requires a commitment to work in the evenings (production week) and includes intensive delivery (in week 22, for example). The module will be delivered on campus and at Curve. Enrolment onto the module is dependent on a successful audition that will take place towards the end of your second year.
Engaging with Creative Industries
This module enables you to develop their professional skills by undertaking a placement in the creative industries. After negotiating a rationale for securing a placement, you will devise, manage and evaluate a study with tutor guidance that seeks to demonstrate a knowledge and understanding of working practices in a professional and creative context. Examples of placements include: at Curve; with other professional arts organisations; in arts events and venues; Education in the Arts programmes; theatre companies; technical or stage management work; and related corporate industries, such as television or commercial enterprises.
Political Performance
The cultural impact of political performance in various forms has resonated throughout history and the legacies of these forms continue to influence a wide range of current performance practice. This year-long module, which is optional for all Drama students at Level 6, is an opportunity to study a range of different approaches to political performance from a practical perspective and to understand, through practice, ways in which theatre and performance has been, and can be, used as a vehicle to discuss politics, to emancipate individuals and communities, or as a weapon for intervention and liberation. As such, it not only builds on work exploring approaches to devising and experimental performance established at Level 5 but also offers a different perspective on concepts and methods associated with live art explored elsewhere at Level 6.
Education and the Performing Arts
This module will equip you with an understanding of performing arts education policy, pedagogy, curriculum design, and assessment in a time of educational, economic, technological and social change. We will explore the place of the performing arts in the evolving English education system and in the early years, informal, community and therapy settings. We will consider the various motivations for the inclusion of arts in education and key contemporary debates regarding intercultural and multicultural arts education, the nature of ‘creativity’ and the creative industries, the influence of technology, and access and equality of opportunity. We will also investigate life-long engagement with the performing arts via public spaces including museums, libraries, galleries and performance venues. Issues surrounding training for artists and arts educators will be explored, along with pertinent professional and workforce matters (e.g. professional development, ‘generalists’ vs ‘specialists’, safeguarding, health and safety, funding and employment opportunities). These will all be set in the context of the work of key theorists including Dewey, Read, Gardner, Reid and Abbs.
Staging Texts
The module asks you to engage in detail with decisions that might be (and have been) taken when staging plays. You will work practically on scenes and consider actively the relationship between staging choices and critical perspectives on individual texts. In examining decisions that have been taken in past productions you will identify and analyse the traces that theatrical performances leave (such as digital materials, interviews, photographs, programmes, prompt books, recordings, reviews, etc.). Consideration of the partial nature of this evidence will prompt engagement with historiographical approaches and raise broader questions about performance analysis.
One or two key texts will help draw together the range of approaches taken. The chosen texts would have been performed in distinct places and time-periods. Indicative texts are The Bacchae, Hamlet, Tartuffe, A Doll’s House, Waiting for Godot, Cloud Nine, random.
Drama Performance Project: Production
Drama Production Project enables you to gain valuable experience working as an ensemble and gives you the opportunity to stage a public production. You will undertake the realisation of a text or a devised performance using stimulus, from the initial research phase through to the final product. In doing so you will engage with a model of production process that aims to build on your understanding of theatre making, develop your performance skills and offer a further insight into textual analysis. You will engage with performance demands and the supportive tasks involved for a theatre company staging a work.
Note: All modules are subject to change in order to keep content current.