| Unit name | Site-Specific and Immersive Performance |
|---|---|
| Unit code | DRAMM0020 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | M/7 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
| Unit director | Dr. Kate Elswit |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
Health and Safety Training |
| Co-requisites |
none |
| School/department | Department of Theatre |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
Site-specific and immersive performance strategies are increasingly prevalent in contemporary theatre. In this unit students will encounter forms of site-specific performance, such as environmental responses to landscape; community-focused urban interventions; and the staging of existing plays within found spaces. Students will develop an understanding of the role of space and place with regard to performance, which will inform their engagement with site-specific and immersive performance practices beyond traditional indoors theatre venues. These can range from medieval theatres in the round and heritage sites to contemporary installations and flash mobs. Students will further consider the ways in which bodies, in solo and group forms, can produce new meanings from sites. In this unit, site-specificity will be addressed through a combination of historical, theoretical, and practical approaches, such as ecofeminist criticism and heritage interpretation.
On successful completion of this course, students will have:
1) developed detailed knowledge and critical understanding of place, body, and space and how these inform site-specific and immersive performance, as well as their place within Theatre and Performance Studies (and related disciplines)
2) developed sophisticated awareness of, and the ability to apply at a postgraduate level the key theoretical and theatrical debates in both current and contemporaneous criticism of performance environments, and to consider them with a critical lens.
3) the ability to apply and evaluate a range of approaches to the viewing and interpreting of site-specific and immersive events, and explored their practical implications in public, including a wider range of secondary literature on site-specific and immersive performance than at Level H
4) acquired sophisticated knowledge of a range of site-specific and immersive performative techniques and understanding of their practical application
5) demonstrated the ability to analyse and evaluate site-specific and immersive performance both in terms of their own practice and the practice of others through a highly critical account that considers a wider range of relevant art works and discourses than at Level H.
6) the sophisticated ability to conceptualise and perform a collaborative group project in response to understanding of a site or set of immersive principles, in which practice-as-research enquiry is used to develop a coherent process and present an advanced practical outcome
Weekly 2-hour Seminars; Weekly 3-hour Workshops; a 30-hour intensive period culminating in a performance
Mike Pearson & Michael Shanks (2001) Theatre/Archaeology. New York: Routledge
Susan Bennett & Mary Polito, eds. (2014) Performing Environments: Site Specificity in Medieval and Early Modern English Drama. London: Palgrave
Guillermo Gomez-Peña & Roberto Sifuentes (2011) Exercises for Rebel Artists: Radical Performance Pedagogy. New York: Routledge
Fiona Wilkie (2002) “Mapping the Terrain: A Survey of Site-Specific Performance.” New Theatre Quarterly 18.2: 140-160
Andrea Olsen (2002) Body and Earth: An Experiential Guide. Middlebury: Middlebury Books
Michel De Certeau (1984) The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press
Henri Lefebvre (1992) The Production of Space. London: Wiley-Blackwell
