MA Performance: Theatre Making
University of the Arts London
Key Information
Campus location
London, United Kingdom
Languages
English
Study format
On-Campus
Duration
18 months
Pace
Full time
Tuition fees
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Application deadline
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Earliest start date
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Introduction
MA Performance: Theatre Making
MA Performance: Theatre Making will enable you to develop your critical and creative practice. It will encourage you to become a confident and articulate theatre maker and researcher.
The course places importance on the development of innovative compositional strategies for performance making as a material practice. You will think critically about your theatre making and place it in the context of contemporary performance culture.
Theatre making at Wimbledon is approached through questions of ethics, politics and philosophy as well as aesthetics and practice. The course asks you to examine these questions through practical investigation and experimentation in a studio context.
The course has a distinct focus on collaboration and the development of multi-disciplinary practices in contemporary theatre making. It aims to provide fertile ground for the formation of new theatre companies and collectives.
Admissions
Scholarships and Funding
Several scholarship options are available. Please check the university website for more information.
Curriculum
Unit 1 - Critical and creative methods
In this unit you will engage with the critical and creative practices of performance research and theatre making. You will also look at transdisciplinary methods of artistic enquiry. This will enable you to develop a deeper understanding of contemporary theatre and performance-making as a field of professional and scholarly practice.
You will investigate performance research and transdisciplinary methods to form a distinctive practice-based view of the discipline. You will develop your area of critical and creative enquiry.
You will work with, and through, the compositional practices of making contemporary theatre and the methodological practices of conducting performance research.
Research methods will be introduced through practical workshops, lectures and seminars. They will set out the processes of contemporary theatre making and the dynamics of performance research.
Workshops will develop the performance skills and dramaturgical methods required to produce artistic projects and develop artistic proposals.
You will develop a festival frame for ensemble projects within the peer group. This will culminate in a group critical reflective activity addressing the viability of the ensemble project and the establishment of productive ways of working.
You will be able to explore and develop various forms of ideas generation, problem solving, compositional development, communication and dissemination, and the development of communities of practice.
Unit 2 - Performance practice
The unit will enhance the development of your creative research and compositional methods. This will enable you to focus on the modes of practice required to facilitate your theatre and performance making.
You will focus on acquiring, advancing and refining the practical skills and performance competencies required to develop and deliver your dramaturgical framework. You will hone the essential dynamics of ensemble and collaborative practice.
You will bring your developmental project to realisation. At the same time, you will reflect upon and analyse relevant case studies. You will response to, and challenge established modes of practice.
Unit 3 - Collaboration
This unit will require you to extend your collaborative, compositional and research skills. You will engage in a cross-, inter- or trans-disciplinary enquiry with peer colleagues on other MA Performance courses, on the MA Theatre and Production Design, or outside your discipline.
This will enable you to look outwards from, and across, the broad spectrum of theatre making practices. You will address a key question in the wide range of topics of primary concern to performance as a critical cultural practice.
The unit will enhance and augment your understanding of the collaborative nature of theatre practice. You will be able to build ideas, proposals and events with other theatre and performance makers and practitioners.
All students on the MA Performance will engage in cross-course, multi-disciplinary project(s) with peers on other MA courses and programs. Outcomes will be presented in the form of performances, performed lectures, live interventions and visual and written evidence showing the final project.
You will be encouraged to engage with a community of practice. This will allow you to explore the graduate attributes needed to negotiate, collaborate and communicate through dialogue at an advanced level.
Periodic critiques, peer review and active discussion will monitor the development of practice and research throughout the unit.
Unit 4 - Research and realisation
In the final unit you will complete a self-directed individual, collaborative or ensemble project. This will have been developed out of the critical and creative practices explored during previous units.
You will refine a research question within your principal area of exploration that motivates the final project. You will then construct appropriate ways to present it. The final project will be shown in a public performance platform that may also include other work produced throughout the year.
Students will produce an accompanying piece of scholarly work addressing the questions, methods and modes of practice investigated by the performance research project.
Note: 120 Credits must be passed before the final unit is undertaken.
Program Outcome
- Collaborative work
- Group and individual tutorials
- Ensemble projects
- Independent practice
- Introductions and inductions to university, college and course resources
- Investigative seminars
- Lectures and visiting speaker talks
- Performance skills training
- Performance studio practice
- Practical performance projects
- Practical workshops
- Performance analysis of live theatre and digital screenings
- Performance research labs
- Project based learning
- Staff and student led seminars and discussions
- Studio, external venue and other visits
- Use of resource venues and institutions
Program Tuition Fee
Program delivery
MA Performance: Theatre Making is offered in full-time mode and runs for 45 weeks over 15 months. You will be expected to commit an average of 40 hours per week to your course, including teaching hours and independent study.