The MA/MFA in Applied Theatre (performance as social practice) is an advanced enquiry into socially turned performance and how it is enacted for social justice. The MA is organized for practitioners of theatre with an interest in the effects of their work beyond the stage, practitioners with backgrounds in social fields seeking skills in creative methods, and graduates with an interest in these areas. This programme is for those who are excited by the potential of performance and culture to interact with questions of justice in the areas of race, class, gender, economy, migration and ecology.
The MA in Applied Theatre is a one year taught postgraduate degree with an MFA as a second-year option. The programme will prepare you to develop your practices in socially engaged theatre contexts; to facilitate and create projects in non-theatre environments; to experiment with forms and genres of social performance including activism, outsider art, performance as social action, performative conversations, workshops, critical interventions, live, narrative, durational, devised and participatory creative projects. You will be prepared to plan, deliver and evaluate your own projects and, to deepen your critical understanding of the social contexts and cultural politics of your work. The programme will ask you to think about your position as a cultural worker between communities and institutions through modules based on interdisciplinary projects, cultural politics, community and facilitation.
You will work practically with practitioners and companies through placements, reconsider definitions of performance in terms of how and where it takes place and be able to identify critical contemporary moments where the immediacy of performance can be used as a response. Your position as creator and cultural worker makes this programme unique to applied theatre in establishing you as a maker of performance that acts critically and literally in a world that is connected within networks of care and solidarity.
Performance, Community and Cultural Politics
You will examine the boundaries of performance and social practices through understandings of how cultural politics, concepts of community and social engagement are encountered and rehearsed in collective situations.
You will study and discuss:
- the cultural politics of race, gender, class, nation, ability, age, ethnicity
- situating your practices and community practices in relation to cultural politics
- formulating your positioning and limitations as a cultural producer of 'community work' within economies of cultural production
Pedagogy for Social Change
Taught with professional practitioners, this module is focused on socially engaged and activist practices for the facilitation of groups through performance.
You will practise:
- Pedagogical skills for the facilitation of applied theatre
- Diverse art activisms for community and social practices
- Relevant and ethical approaches to social actions in specific contexts
- A personal pedagogic / activist practice for social contexts
Applied Practices
Building on your knowledges in discourses of community, and the social and political dimensions of performative practices, you will work on a project in a specific community/social setting.
You will apply:
- Advanced social practice skills
- Critical processes for practice and their application to social contexts
- Creative and ethical methods in the application of practices with communities
Research Methods
This module provides you with a range of research methods and skills necessary for undertaking production/project-based dissertation work. It makes use of research to develop original source materials, plans, conceptual and technical experimentation mapping subject matter onto formal performance research strategies. You will examine the politics and ethics of research and how it operates for social contexts.
Practitioners & Praxis
This module will provide you with the opportunity to develop an innovative practice based methodology in a strand of social performance. Following seminars on funding, arts policy, community/audience engagement, you will develop your practitioner profile and pursue self-initiated work made through an initial proposal and developed with a tutor.
You will produce:
- Digital Profiles
- Artist / Practitioner Statements
Project Platform
A companion module to Practitioners and Praxis, this module is a final independent project that realizes project planning already undertaken. You will choose to deliver a self-designed project based in social practice or write a dissertation.
