DRAM40560 Artistic Research

Academic Year 2023/2024

This module aims to equip students with practical, critical and creative skills for developing their artistic practice through research. As emerging theatre artists, students are encouraged to explore their own distinctive approaches to making, thinking, doing, and researching. Participants will encounter a range of research methods and tools, including practical work with the body as a site of exploration and meaning-making in performance. Throughout, the emphasis is on ‘research’ as a varied and dynamic set of practices that may also encompass studio practice, fieldwork, archival work, ethnography, collaboration, discussion, writing, drawing, listening, reading, and collecting. The module engages with the work of a range of practitioner-researchers, embarking on rigorous and sustained creative explorations both inside and beyond the theatre studio.

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Curricular information is subject to change

Learning Outcomes:

On completion of the module, students will have encountered and practically explored a range of approaches to research, and reflected critically on how those approaches might best support and nourish their own developing artistic practice.

Students will be able to:
• Develop research questions, aims and methods as appropriate to their artistic practices.
• Understand how to design, develop and sustain a creative enquiry supported by rigorous research practices.
• Identify, test and reflect on the effectiveness of various approaches to research in support of artistic creation.
• Articulate their artistic ideas and aims coherently and persuasively in the form of an artist statement, and/or proposal for a creative project.

Indicative Module Content:

The module has two threads:
Thread One: practical workshops engaging Anne Bogart's Viewpoints as a framework for exploration using the body and space.
Thread Two: reflective work and experiments in practice-led research.

Student Effort Hours: 
Student Effort Type Hours
Tutorial

1
Seminar (or Webinar)

33
Autonomous Student Learning

200
Total

234
Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
In weekly workshops, students will engage in a combination of practical work, discussion, and critical-creative learning. The module is taught by staff with practical and professional experience of theatre practice and creative research, and students are invited to engage with them as emerging theatre artists in a shared space of exploration.

Students will encounter the creative research methods of teaching staff and selected visiting artists, will be supported to participate in practical explorations based on these approaches, before being given space to explore and develop their own responses independently.
 
Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Not applicable to this module.
 
Assessment Strategy  
Description Timing Open Book Exam Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade
Presentation: Presentation of Practice
 Unspecified n/a Graded No

30
Assignment: Mid-Term Research Journal / Project Proposal Week 7 n/a Graded No

30
Portfolio: Creative-Critical Portfolio Week 12 n/a Graded No

30
Continuous Assessment: Contributions to workshop exercises and discussions in class, alongside submission of weekly journals. Throughout the Trimester n/a Graded No

10

Carry forward of passed components
Yes
 
Remediation Type Remediation Timing
In-Module Resit Prior to relevant Programme Exam Board
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 
Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, on an activity or draft prior to summative assessment
• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
• Peer review activities

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Informal / formative feedback is provided on a rolling basis, through tutor responses to workshop activities and discussion contributions. Peer responses to work-in-progress is also a valuable source of informal feedback. Formal feedback to specific assignments will be given in written form, via Brightspace. Students have the opportunity to discuss this with tutors if requested.

Name Role
Dr Paul Halferty Lecturer / Co-Lecturer
Dr Pedzisai Maedza Lecturer / Co-Lecturer
Ms Andrea Scott Lecturer / Co-Lecturer
Timetabling information is displayed only for guidance purposes, relates to the current Academic Year only and is subject to change.
 
Autumn
      
Lecture Offering 1 Week(s) - Autumn: All Weeks Tues 14:00 - 16:50