This module for third-year undergraduate students enables BA Drama/BA Drama and Literature students to explore contemporary trends in British/international interactive performance-making and their historical precursors. Students will develop an understanding of a range of participatory performance forms through an examination and discussion of the recent work of contemporary practitioners, and through practical workshopping to explore key emerging approaches and concerns.
Themes for exploration will include examining the ethics of participation and the face-to-face encounter, engagement with technologies that prompt interaction, interrogating techniques of the invitation to the audience and analysing different descriptors/conceptualisations of the theatre spectator and the value judgements that they imply (e.g. 'audience', 'spectator', 'spect-actor', 'beholder, 'voyeur', 'witness', 're-enactor', 'player', 'immersant', 'mob' etc.).
Adjacent to an exploration of these themes in practice, this module will cultivate a theoretical awareness of the politics of audience participation, agency and labour. This interdisciplinary area of enquiry will overlap with key debates that have emerged in the fields of fine art, art history, phenomenology, psychology, philosophy and performance studies etc. The eclectic case studies examined will range from installations and gallery-based 'relational aesthetics' (concerning the shaping of live experiences that are completed by the involvement of unrehearsed participants) to forms of activism and immersive theatre.
The module is divided into two main parts: in the first half of term, the students will examine different case studies, relevant concepts that might by applied to these exemplars of practice (both to analyse extant work and inform the creation of new creative work) and encounter a range of approaches to interactive theatre-making. In the second half of term, students will continue this exploration but through an initiation of their own focused and in-depth devising process – students will be expected to develop their own company or solo piece, working independently but with supervision and support to create a short 10-minute performance 'fragment' (an indicative 'moment' of a larger performance piece, with an articulation of how it might develop further in the critical writing component), inspired by their research and performed for a university-wide audience. Where possible, the module will involve at least one field trip.
The aims of the module are:
1. To acquire knowledge of a range of creative and critical methods and approaches to interactive performance-making.
2. To develop an understanding of relevant theories concerning the politics, agency, and ethics of participatory spectatorship.
3. To gain an understanding of the relationships between process and ‘product’ in different performance works.
4. To develop organisational, improvisational, workshop and group skills.
By the end of this course, students will have had opportunities to gain:
1. The ability to appreciate, engage critically, and develop work creatively, in a variety of theatre and performance modes, forms, and genres.
2. Experience an understanding of different processes by which participatory performances are created.
3. An understanding of how different participatory forms engage with theory in audience reception, spectatorship and performance-making.
4. Experience of engaging in performance-making, based on an acquisition and understanding of appropriate creative vocabularies, skills, structures, and working methods.
5. Ability to work collaboratively, sharing responsibility, delegating, and where appropriate leading teams.
6. Skills in project management.
Week by Week Outline
Please note, the schedule below is indicative and subject to change
SPRING TERM
Week 16: Participation & the Audience
Case studies: The Futurists, Chris Goode, Marina Abramovi"á
Key Questions:
1. What can 'audience participation' mean?
2. Theatre scholar Gareth White has noted in Audience Participation in Theatre: Aesthetics of the Invitation (2013) that 'there are few things in theatre that are more despised than audience participation' (2013). And yet contemporary trends in theatre/performance-making have continually sought to redefine the relationship with the audience - why?
3. How are audiences being conceptualised in participatory performances?
Required Reading:
- Costa, Maddy. 'Are You Sitting Uncomfortably?'. Guardian. 7 November 2011.
- Freshwater, H. Theatre & Audience. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 2009
- White, Gareth. 'Introduction'. Audience Participation in Theatre Aesthetics of the Invitation. 2013.
Further Reading:
- Bennett, S. Theatre Audiences: A Theory of Production and Reception (2nd ed.). London: Routledge, 1997. p86-106.
- Bishop, Claire. 'Allan Kaprow: Notes on the Elimination of the Audience'. Participation. Documents of Contemporary Art Series. London: Cambridge, Mass.: Whitechapel: MIT Press, 2006. p102-104.
- 'Guy Debord: Towards a Situationist International'. Participation. Documents of Contemporary Art Series. London: Cambridge, Mass.: Whitechapel: MIT Press, 2006. p96-101.
Week 17: The Art of Participation
Case studies: Ontroerend Goed, Gob Squad
Key Questions:
Gareth White asks three questions of participatory performance in Audience Participation in Theatre: Aesthetics of the Invitation (2013: p9) that we will explore:
1. 'Who 'authors' audience participation and how?'
2. 'Who is in control when participation is happening?'
3. And 'Where does the art happen - in the event itself, or in the preparation for the event?'
Required Reading:
- Gob Squad. 'On Participation'. Gob Squad and the Impossible Attempt to Make Sense of It All. Nottingham: Gob Squad, 2010. p86-100.
- Ontroerend Goed, Author. 'Audience'. All Work and No Plays: Blueprints for 9 Theatre Performances. 2014. (Distributed in class)
- White, G. 'Process and Procedure'. Audience Participation in Theatre: Aesthetics of the Invitation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2013. p29-72.
Required Viewing:
- Ontroerend Goed's Audience (2011)
Week 18: Participation & Ethics
Case studies: Kaleider, Metis Arts, Badac, Tim Crouch
Key Questions:
1. What is meant by 'ethics', and what might constitute good 'ethical' practice in participatory theatre-making?
2. How might Emmanuel Levinas' notion of the 'other' aid us to stage ethical encounters?
3. What kinds of ethical considerations or concerns might different participatory theatre forms prompt?
4. Can participatory art deliver to audiences what Jen Harvie describes in Fair Play (2013) as 'social engagement and fair, democratic opportunity'? (p2)
Required Reading:
- Crouch, Tim. The Author. Oberon Books, 2009.
- Harvie, J. 'Introduction', Fair Play: Art, Performance and Neoliberalism. London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. p1-25.
- Ridout, N. Theatre & Ethics (Theatre&). Basingstoke & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Required Viewing:
- Kaleider's The Money video clip
- 3rd Ring Out Documentary
Further Reading:
- Crouch, Tim. 'The Author: Response and Responsibility'. Contemporary Theatre Review 21, no. 4 (2011): 416-22.
- LaFrance, Mary. 'The Disappearing Fourth Wall: Law, Ethics, and Experiential Theatre'. Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law 15, no. 3 (2013): 507.
Week 19: Participation & Intimacy
Case studies: Adrian Howells, Rosana Cade, One-to-One Performance
Key Questions:
1. Why has there been a growing interest in intimacy and 'confessional' participatory theatre practices in the UK in the 21st century?
2. What approaches have different artists used to initiate openness, closeness and intimacy with strangers?
3. How do artists manage the ethics of working in close proximity with unrehearsed participants?
Required Reading:
- Howells, A. (2016) 'Footwashing for the Sole'. It's All Allowed: The Performances of Adrian Howells. Heddon, D. and Johnson, D., (Eds.) Series: Intellect Live. Intellect. p188-203.
- Ridout, N. (2006). 'Embarrassment: the predicament of the audience'. Stage Fright, Animals, and Other Theatrical Problems (Theatre and performance theory). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p70-95.
Required Viewing:
- 'Adrian Howells' (Interview on the British Council Arts Channel (Singapore)), YouTube
Play Video
- 'Adrian Howells: Research Ethics Processes'
- 'WALKING: HOLDING - Rosana Cade (UK)', Vimeo
University of Essex, 'Guidelines for Ethical Approval of Research':
https://www.essex.ac.uk/reo/documents/guidelines-for-ethical-approval.pdf
Further Reading:
- Walsh, F. (2013). Theatre & Therapy (Theatre&). p61-71.
Week 20: Participation: Proposals/Pitches
In this class you will share your completed proposal forms with the rest of the group and arrive prepared to deliver a short 10 min. pitch for your proposed project for the Practical Assessment in Week 24.
Each proposal will be evaluated in-class by the tutor/peers in the other groups to help refine your ideas/project design.
Week 21: Pitches (cont.)/Second draft of the proposals
Today we will hear about how the proposals/pitch/proposed project has developed in response to the feedback in Week 18. Each group will receive focused feedback on your second draft of proposal and supervision to start planning what you intend to show for Sharing 1 on Week 21.
Week 22: Sharing #1
You will share short work-in-progress iteration of your performance with tutor/peers.
This will be followed by a Q&A/feedback.
Week 23: Sharing #2
You will present a 5-min. version of your work and receive feedback from tutor/peers
This will be followed by a Q&A/feedback.
Week 24: Sharing #3 (Final sharing)
You will present a full version of your work (10mins.) and receive feedback from a guest lecturer.
This will be an opportunity to test the participatory work with an unrehearsed audience member.
Week 25 - Practical Assessment (Fragments)
Practical Assessments will take place in the Lakeside Theatre (Mainstage), or in a site-specific location co-ordinated by the student groups and confirmed with the module tutor in advance.
The critical reflections will be due approx. 1-week after the practical assessment