Participatory performance practices

Overview

This practice-as-research module will introduce students to the different methods employed by contemporary theatre makers to position the audience as participants in performance. The module provides students with the opportunity to explore the political effects of audience participation, and to examine audience relationship and the use of space, including non-traditional performance spaces.

Examples of methods that will be explored include: site-specific work, audio performance/tours, artivism, digital dances. Consideration will be given to how these participatory methods move us individually, but also socially and collectively.
In weekly workshops and seminars students will explore these practices through discussion and practical experimentation. Seminar discussions will explore relevant critical and theoretical texts, and consider socio-political, cultural and historical contexts. Workshop group exercises will introduce students to the methodologies of key practitioners and will prepare students for the creation of their own studio-based participatory performance. Workshop discussions will connect relevant critical and theoretical texts to practice and will consider developments in participatory theatre within their socio-political and historical contexts.

In one session, there will be a guest lecture/ workshop by a Northern Ireland-based practitioner.

Learning Objectives

On completion of this module students should have developed:

- an experiential and theoretical comprehension of participatory methodologies

- an awareness of key practitioners that engage with participatory methodologies and the cultural and historical contexts of their work

- the ability to present research in the form of devised participatory performance and both oral and written presentation - the ability to work creatively and imaginatively in a group

Skills

- the ability to present research in the form of devised participatory performance and both oral and written presentation

- the ability to work creatively and imaginatively in a group

- the creative skills necessary for the realisation of studio-based work that interweaves theory and practice

- skills of observation and the ability to critically evaluate their own and others’ practice

- visual, aural and spatial awareness

Assessment