English and drama

Approaches to Contemporary Performance

Module code: Q3107
Level 5
30 credits in autumn semester
Teaching method: Workshop, Seminar, Practical, Lecture
Assessment modes: Coursework

This module introduces you to a range of approaches that have developed in contemporary performance practice since the 1950s post-war period. You’ll consider some of the issues and challenges these new approaches raise.

You’ll look at the opportunities afforded by theatre and theatricality in an increasingly uncertain world – where destabilisation has become a way of life, and cross-disciplinarity has become a regular approach to making and performing theatre.

Through readings and discussions focused on groups and artists as case studies, you will investigate the ways theatre performance has responded to and accommodated (or resisted) certain cultural, social, ideological and artistic shifts.

You will engage with issues that arise in contemporary stagecraft on a practical and theoretical level. You will compare and contrast the working practices and productions of internationally acclaimed groups and artists, from the late 70s to the present day.

Your understanding of contemporary performance will develop through a combination of reading, researching attending performances. Topics will include:

  • new strategies in composition and devising
  • the treatment of character (acting, non-acting, performing)
  • "decentering" and development of non-linear or "multiplicity" plot
  • the role of the spectator/audience
  • task and process
  • durational vs. fictional time
  • collaborative methodologies
  • the use of "off-stage"
  • low-fi aesthetic strategies.

Module learning outcomes

  • To demonstrate an understanding of developments in contemporary performance through practice and research.
  • To apply an enhanced critical vocabulary to the discussion of shifts in contemporary history, culture and politics and how these have affected performance.
  • To demonstrate an ability to articulate, analyse and apply material studied together through both theory and practice.