PERF13016 Experimental Theatre

This course is designed to challenge and refine the student's performance understandings and skills through creatively exploring a variety of non-traditional approaches to dramatic presentation. Students are involved in group theatre techniques and processes aimed at devising original pieces for performance to a selected audience. As a basis for experimentation, a study is made of experimental and avant garde performance theory and practice from circa 1900 to the present. Then self-selected teams of students decide upon the ideas and concerns they are committed to expressing and the particular elements, styles, forms, media and technology they wish to explore and manipulate in search of unusual and effective theatrical statements. This search necessitates a focus on contemporary performance practices involving hybridity and multi-media.