module specification

Performance Research & Development complements SM6P10 Festival Showcase; the module will enable you to undertake intensive research and development (R&D) projects leading to the sharing of consecutive works-in-progress: draft performances presented for feedback to an invited audience. The notion of R&D is a vital aspect of the professional industry, increasingly required by funding bodies and an integral part of producing venues’ programmes. Students will work collaboratively, to tight deadlines, in accordance with the creative guidelines provided by the tutor. This will develop their ability to create rapidly within assigned parameters, encompassing such approaches as adapting existing dramatic texts and devising new material from stimuli.  Students will engage self- and peer-evaluation skills throughout the module.

Pre/Co-requisites: SM5076 or SM5080, and SM5019 or SM5023

Available for Study Abroad? NO

For both R&D practical sharings, you will form small production companies and undertake all of your work in these groups. You will be encouraged to both contribute to the ensemble and take a specialist role(s) within your group.

The module will provide a structure for you to:

• Undertake and communicate to an audience your own research of concept/text for your piece: LO3

• Devise and/or realise text-based material for your piece: LO1, LO2

• Rehearse that material to professional standards and to perform it in front of a public audience: LO1, LO2, LO4

• Record and reflect on the research and development process: LO3, LO5

Scheduled teaching provides the guidance and foundation to ensure that independent study is effective in addressing the module’s learning outcomes and assessment tasks.

In-class activity makes use of varied student-centred approaches such as active, flipped and blended learning, so that a range of learning strategies is deployed, and individual learning styles are accommodated. Information is provided through a range of means and sources to minimise and remove barriers to successful progress through the module. The course team seeks to embed the University’s Education for Social Justice Framework in fostering learning that is enjoyable, accessible, relevant and that takes account of the social and cultural context and capital of its students.

Activities foster peer-to-peer community building and support for learning. Reflective learning is promoted through interim formative feedback points that ask students to reflect on their progress, receive help where they identify the opportunity for improvement in learning strategies and outcomes and make recommendations to themselves for future development. Throughout the module, students build a body of work, including written reflections on progress and achievement.

The School’s programme of employability events and embedded work-based learning within the curriculum supports students’ personal and career development planning. Through these initiatives, students are increasingly able, as they progress from year to year, to understand the professional environment of their disciplines, the various opportunities available to them, and how to shape their learning according to their ambitions.

On completion of this module you will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

LO1:  Undertake both established and experimental creative strategies in the creation of theatre;

Transferable Skills

LO2:  Research, record and present ideas, concepts and practice in a clear, engaging and complex way, suitable for the professional industry;

LO3:  Structure a process and liaise with external bodies and individuals in order to meet deadlines;

Subject Specific Skills

LO4:  Make practical theatre work collaboratively, within strict deadlines;

Cognitive Intellectual Abilities

LO5:  Evaluate and develop the work within a larger framework.

Assessment in the module is designed to extend the principles of work-related learning upon which its curriculum has been constructed. The assessments closely follow the standard developmental process for creating new, publicly funded performance work in the UK. This will consist of:
 
1) Two group R&D presentations, created under a tutor-led theme or premise; these may be based, respectively, on existent play-texts or open devising themes;

2) A written submission based on the current funding application form for Arts Council England, Creative Scotland, Arts Council of Wales, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and/or other major arts funders.

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