Unit information: Scenography in 2011/12

Unit name	Scenography
Unit code	DRAMM1218
Credit points	20
Level of study	M/7
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Professor. Jones
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	s None
Co-requisites	s None
School/department	Department of Theatre
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

This unit will explore a selection of approaches to scenographic design and use developed during the past century or so, paying particular attention to contrasting collaborative practices. Drawing on historical and contemporary examples, from the modernist avant garde (Appia, Craig, Diaghilev/Bakst, Meyerhold/Popova, Brecht/Neher, Artaud, etc.) to the postmodern experimentalist (Svoboda, Bausch, Mnouchkine, Bread and Puppet, Foreman, Wilson, Wooster Group, etc.) it will investigate key problematisations of the changing roles of director, designer and metier-en-schne in the varied processes of creative collaboration. It will also interrogate the expending fields of environmental, multimedia and cyber-theatrical staging that have produced dynamic cross-overs between theatre, performance, visual arts, technology and digital manifestations in recent years. The relationships between scenography, performativity and location will be investigated for their aesthetic and cultural significance in the processes of historical change. Practical exercises will extend understandings of the creative potential of selected approaches to scenographic innovation.

Aims:

1. To explore critically a range of key concepts and practices relating to scenography, as configured in Performance Studies, Theatre Studies, and related disciplines, at an advanced level.
2. To develop and apply appropriate critical and theoretical approaches to scenographic practices.
3. To investigate, in a determined practical and creative manner, appropriate discourses that relate to scenography and performance.
4. To develop and apply appropriate self-reflective analytical methods.
5. To develop group-work project skills to an advanced level
6. To identify, develop and apply appropriate research methods to an advanced level.

Intended Learning Outcomes

1. To demonstrate knowledge of, and use creatively, a wider range of secondary literature than at Level H
2. To demonstrate understanding of key concepts relating to scenography and performance, as developed in Theatre and Performance Studies (and related disciplines);
3. To be aware of, and be able to apply to an advanced level, a broad range of established theoretical debates, and consider them through a critical lens.
4. To present a clear and well-structured argument, supported by relevant critical and theoretical literature, that additionally develops independent lines of inquiry
5. To present work that is assured in its use of English and referencing
6. To be able to communicate verbally key ideas based on a range of secondary reading, relevant primary texts and independent research/lines of inquiry
7. To demonstrate time management skills

Plus, as appropriate to the mode of teaching:

1. To be able to write a reflective account of practical work, making connections with an appropriate range of critical ideas
2. To be able to work constructively and creatively in a group-based

workshop.

1. To work independently and reach individual/personal judgements within a collaborative context.

Teaching Information

Lectures; workshops; seminars; plenary and small group discussions; viewings; essay/critical analysis;

Assessment Information

1 x 3000 word essay.

Reading and References

Birringer, Johannes (1991) Theatre, Theory, Postmodernism, Bloomington: Indiana UP.

Howard, Pamela (2001) What is Scenography?, London: Routledge.

Kaye, Nick (1997) Art into Theatre, London: Routledge. Kennedy, Dennis (2001) Looking at Shakespeare: a visual history of twentieth-century performance, Cambridge University Press.

Pavis, Patrice (1982) Languages of the Stage: Essays in the Semiology of Theatre, trans. Susan Melrose et.al., New York: PAJ Publications.

Sayre, Henry (1989) The Object of Performance: the American Avant-Garde since 1970, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.