BA Drama

This course explores developments and innovations in contemporary European theatre and performance practice. Taking as its notional starting point the fall of the Berlin Wall, it explores the ways in which practitioners across Europe have worked within and against the structures of neoliberalism and late capitalism. Studying a range of key playwrights, directors, companies and choreographers, students will also engage with recent works of theatre theory and performance scholarship. Students will explore practitioners alongside critical ideas and texts that speak to both contemporary theatre and to issues which have preoccupied contemporary European philosophers (eg spectatorship, participation, community, borders, technology, and cultural capital). The emphasis will be on the processes of theatre-making and theatre watching: from here, we will branch out to think about the relationships between culture and politics, art and community, criticism and practice, economics and creativity in order to develop an understanding of theatre and its wider context.

 Free Choice : Please contact drama.administrator@manchester.ac.uk if you are interested in taking this module as a free choice.

·         To introduce students to the works of a range of challenging contemporary performance makers, and to equip them with strategies for watching and discussing their works.

·         To develop critical understanding of a set of key theatrical, cultural and philosophical debates (and the relationships between these debates).

·         To develop a critical framework for thinking about the ways in which contemporary performance is made.

To explore the relationships between the performing arts and the wider world.

Indicative syllabus (representative only – all of the topics listed below may not be covered every year):

Week 1: ‘we are Europe, also’: contexts, methods, frames

Week 2: On the Holocaust

Week 3: On democracy and representation

Week 4: On colonialism, postcolonialism and globalisation

Week 5: On borders, refugees and crisis

Week 6: READING WEEK

Week 7: On power and ruins

Week 8: On feminism and technology

Week 9: On visuality and bodies

Week 10: On the Cultural Commons and austerity

Week 11: On futures and children

Week 12: Assessments, Closing Conversations, Travelling onwards

The course will be taught via:

·         Three hour seminars which include:

o   mini-lectures,

o   seminar discussion,

o   small group discussion task

o   creative, written and research-oriented tasks

·         Theatre trips and conversations with practitioners as appropriate/whenever possible

The course unit will be complemented by a Blackboard site that conforms to minimum requirements including a course handbook, weekly course breakdown, provision of reading material, reading lists. Supplementary material from workshops will be added as appropriate. The blackboard site will be prepared and available to students at least one week prior to the beginning of the first teaching week each semester.

• Demonstrate detailed familiarity with and depth of understanding of a range of artworks by contemporary theatre practitioners.
•  Demonstrate an understanding of a range of the theatrical, social, cultural and political and philosophical contexts of the past thirty years.
•  Explore critical, contextual and theoretical material and show an ability to interrogate the relationships between this material and primary/performance texts.
• Talk confidently about theatre-making practices and be able to critically assess these practices both in terms of their processes and their performances.

•  Develop sophisticated and coherent arguments and analyses and articulate these in both written and spoken work.
•  Evaluate and critically reflect on a range of texts, performances, practices and concepts.
• Synthesise and analyse a range of critical texts.
• Negotiate and understand complex texts, performances and critical practices with confidence, nuance and analytical skill.

• Work efficiently as a key member of a small group engaged in research, practical work, and presentation
•  Demonstrate advanced skills of independent research and self-directed learning.
•  Communicate research material both verbally and in writing.
• Use creative work and techniques to explore and convey critical ideas.

• demonstrate an advanced ability to self-manage learning – to ask questions independently, identify relevant research material, take initiative, make decisions, and develop independent and sustained responses to complex problems
• demonstrate an advanced ability to develop sustained arguments and present these effectively in written and oral form

Delgado, Maria, and Dan Rebellato. Contemporary European Theatre Directors. (London: Routledge, 2010)

Fischer-Lichte, Erica. The Transformative Power of Performance: A New Aesthetics. (London: Routledge, 2008)

Fuchs, Elinor. The Death of Character. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996)

Gluhovic, Milija. Performing European Memories: Trauma, Ethics, Politics (London: Palgrave, 2013), 1-29.

Kelleher, Joe and Nick Ridout, eds. Contemporary Theatres in Europe: A Critical Companion. (London: Routledge, 2006).

Lehmann, Hans-Thies. Postdramatic Theatre. (London: Routledge, 2006)

Radosavljevi¿, Duška, Theatre-Making: Interplay Between Text and Performance in the 21^st Century (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2013)

Zaroulia, Marilena, and Philip Hager, eds. Performances of Capitalism, Crises and Resistence: Inside/Outside Europe (London: Palgrave, 2015)