Drama (Joint Honours) BA (Hons) year two modules
The Drama (Joint Honours) BA (Hons) modules listed below give you a flavour of what is available during your second year of study.
Year two (Level 5)
Performance in Context: culture and theory
Building on Performance in Context: history and analysis, this module provides an opportunity for you to develop your understanding of theatre history further, while simultaneously allowing you to access some more advanced key critical theories. Moving more conclusively into the modern and contemporary period, the module seeks to unpack the relationship between performance and politics (identity, positionality and framework) to contextualise the history of criticism, as well as discuss ideas such as intermediality and the site-specific. This module provides a key link between Level 5 and the larger projects at Level 6, preparing you by advancing your writing, reading, analytical and presentation skills.
You will take the above module and choose from:
Curve Company 1
Curve Company 1 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 dependant on a successful audition that will take place towards the end of your first year.
Popular Performance
This module runs throughout the academic year and introduces you to a range of popular performance traditions. While commedia dell’ arte and clown are typical examples of these traditions, the module could focus equally on a number of other forms including pantomime, melodrama, farce, stand-up comedy or even Shakespeare. The histories of these modes of performance and their conceptual contexts serve as a foundation for the exploration of methods, techniques and concepts that arguably are common to all forms of popular performance. While these might include performance strategies that enable the performer to demonstrate a specific skill or skills in novel ways; establish a direct relationship with the spectator or create and perform a persona or role that is informed by the performer’s own personality, they might also comprise the broader concepts of presence, play and the integral role of the spectator in the creation of meaning. The practical exploration of key techniques and conventions will provide you with a reliable basis on which to build your own original performance material in response to the forms studied.
Devised Theatre and Performance
This module will provide the main rudiments of devised theatre and performance through a series of workshops and ongoing support towards the development of your own practice. Drawing on a range of case studies from theatre and contemporary performance more widely, you will explore the processes, shared languages and methodologies that underpin devised work. Over the duration of module, you will focus on two devised projects, one solo and one collaborative or solo, generated from your own material and research, in a climate of ongoing support and critical consideration.
Drama and the Community
This module will introduce you to the realm of applied and community practices and the way in which drama has a function outside formal theatrical settings as a means of engagement and communication within society. You will start by exploring some of the theories which underpin community practice and the cultural, social and political history which has informed its development. Having examined theory, the module will move on to look at case studies (both national and international) allowing you to understand a diversity of practice. You will research and reflect on the work of influential companies and practitioners in the fields of community theatre, theatre with young people, theatre in prisons and theatre with marginalised communities and groups. The module will also examine questions of ethics. Having undertaken practical exploration of the methodologies used by key practitioners, you will be able to develop your own practical skills as facilitators/devisers within a structured framework. This will include the opportunity for you to work with other students in a small group to make a link with an external organisation in Leicester such as a school or charity. This community partner will be the focus of the workshop assignment and you will be able to carry out research and active experimentation with their community partner in preparation for the workshop assessment.
Directing
This module will provide the main rudiments of theatre direction through practical workshops and ongoing support towards the development of your own directing project. Building on the knowledge gained your first year, specifically in both ‘Acting and Performing’ and ‘Drama Performance Project: Collaboration’, you will explore the essential skills, working processes and shared languages of direction. The module will invite you to look at a range of approaches to directing from both Western and non-Western practitioners, with a view to helping you to find your own directorial style. A feature of this module is its willingness to prepare you for employment; therefore, it will introduce you to the entrepreneurial, leadership, and practical skills necessary to lead your own theatre projects on graduation.
Performance Writing
The aim of this module is to introduce writing methodologies in the field of performance by exploring creative approaches and practices drawn from different theoretical, cultural and methodological contexts. The module will introduce critical awareness and understanding of key contemporary practitioners and of the creative and cultural influences on their practices. You will be introduced to specific approaches through analysis of key texts or performance extracts and develop your own performance writing portfolio in response to these key texts and/or practice-based examples. The module will explore four introductory elements of performance-writing practice: Language, Voice/Character, Space/Place and Storytelling in order to give a foundation and stimuli.
Understanding the Theatre and Performance Industry
This module provides you with an understanding of how the theatre and live performance industry works by exploring the structures in use across the UK in a range of theatres and theatre companies. The module will increase your critical awareness and understanding of how performance work is created and programmed in a range of settings. You will benefit from the module’s clear connection to and exploration of current industry practices and a number of guest speakers will support this connection to industry.
Adaptation
This module develops your understanding of the concept of adaptation. Placing an emphasis on the way in which theatre provides access to events, perspectives, and lived experiences, this module will encourage you to consider how historical plays might be reconceptualised to speak to contemporary audiences about contemporary issues. It will increase your ability to think critically about events and actions, and how creativity might support a more critical analysis of current issues. You will also benefit from a detailed exploration of issues relating equality, diversity and inclusivity within current and historical theatrical works.
Technical Stage Production
This module will introduce the knowledge of technical stage production skills such as lighting design, sound design, stage design, events management, stage electrics, set build, technical operation and production management. You will be introduced to these skills through practical workshops, and apply them in the production of student performances and professional visiting companies. This module will deepen an understanding of the creative skills required to technically design performance work, and the production skills apply this creativity into practice.
Note: All modules are subject to change in order to keep content current.