The MA Advanced Theatre Practice is particularly aimed at those wishing to apply performance, scenographic or dramaturgical skills in collaborative, company-based interdisciplinary processes of theatre making and experimentation. As a participant in this course you will be one of a carefully selected group of theatre-makers wishing to pool their resources and imagine the theatre of the future, in an atmosphere encouraging choice, personal advancement and imaginative possibility.
The course aims to draw together a range of theatre-makers, ready to challenge, change and extend their specialist practice through collaboration with others.
For example, you may be a performer with good physical and vocal skills, wishing to extend your ability to create new work through contact with puppetry and object theatre specialists, writers and directors. You may be a dramaturg, wishing to develop your academic knowledge with others in the rehearsal room, or you may be a designer – with experience in lighting, sound, scenography, or visual media for performance – wishing to work more closely with colleagues in non-hierarchical companies.
You may wish to test and transform traditional theatre disciplines in new and unexpected ways.
Or you may possess knowledge and experience in another academic discipline such as: science and mathematics; film and animation; anthropology, choreography, or composition; which you are keen to develop in an experimental theatre-making environment, through improvisation and play.
While your practical and research interests may arise from a particular discipline, your engagement with this course will be as a participant in an innovative laboratory for practical experiment. You will focus on working flexibly and constructively with others to create new and innovative work, extending the boundaries of theatre and how it might be seen.
To build a platform for this creative development you will first work with a range of experienced practitioners, undertaking a thorough analysis of their work. You will also work closely alongside the programme convenors and members of the wider faculty, activating languages of interdisciplinary theatre within one of three broad investigative clusters – performative, scenographic or dramaturgical – but constantly joining with the whole laboratory to review and summarise your progress.
Throughout the year you will be supported in developing your ability to document and disseminate your explorations and produce new work within a variety of institutional contexts. Building on the tradition of theatre-making as a communicative medium of exchange, you will also have the opportunity to look at web-based technologies and digital mediums appropriate to the development and representation of your work – or choose from one of the other MA options available within the postgraduate department.
Your work will transform and develop during the year, through a process of reflection and rigorous critical attention, leading to carefully planned and documented public performances or manifestations of your work, making new links and connections outside the School, at the conclusion of the course.
Key Features
An innovative course which offers practical and theoretical training in the creation and production of new theatre and performance. Promotes ensemble, company-based methods and the creation of new interdisciplinary companies and partnerships.
