PER2040 - Making Performance: Theory and Practice

Leader: Peter Snow

Offered

Clayton First semester 2008 (Day)

Synopsis

This is a performance based unit which continues from PER1040 and PER1260. It investigates the processes of making and theorising performance. Each week students will complete short performance exercises exploring a particular element of performance, such as space, tempo, bodies etc. They will then proceed to make a self-devised work drawing on the ideas and practices of the weekly sessions. In addition there will be several guided performance projects throughout the semester. There will also be readings and discussions on the performance-making strategies and theoretical positions of well-known practitioners. Students will write up and critique the projects in which they have participated.

Objectives

Upon successful completion of this unit students should:

1. Understand some of the relationships between practice and theory in the construction of contemporary performance work.

2. Be able to investigate and manipulate particular elements of performance, such as tempo, space, bodies and action, with a view to production possibilities.

3. Have the capacity to make a short, imaginative, theoretically informed performance work.

4. Be able to utilize their skills to participate in a range of performance projects.

5. Be able to critique some of the processes of the performance projects according to contemporary theoretical perspectives.

Assessment

Seminar/ workshop participation: 25%
Devised performance project (3000 words equivalent): 25% +

Additional performance project(s) (3000 words equivalent): 25%
Written documents (3000 words): 25%

Contact hours

6 hours (1 x 2 hour seminar and a minimum of 4 hours of performance workshops and rehearsals) per week

Prerequisites

PER1040, PER1260 and normally a first-year sequence in DTS.

Co-requisites

PER2000