CHOREOGRAPHY PROJECT - 2021/2

Module Overview

This module will provide final year students with the theoretical and practical skills to develop a choreographic artefact through collaboration, through an area of specialism of their choosing. The choreographic artefact is broad to encourage students to engage with current politics and practices and to consider the specific and unique skills and goals of each cohort. A key theoretical base covered in the module will be the expanding notion of choreography and collaboration, as it is utilised and discussed in a range of disciplines today. Although choreography can be conceived of as central to a dance degree, it is a concept also used and employed in a number of disciplines, in the arts - theatre, digital media, music - and outside of the arts - biology, sociology, business studies. Choreography today can be making a performance work for a proscenium theatre, making an experiential work for a one-to-one experience, a means of analysing social everyday activity, a way of composing and organizing digital space, engaging with complex social justice issues, and more. Other concepts will be explored in this module, e.g. practice as research, pedagogy, dramaturgy, devising. Through workshop-based learning, students will engage with the theories and practice of choreography and collaboration and reflect on their learning. Students will be guided to take on a role in the collaboration that fits the skills they want to use, nurture, and develop (e.g. choreographic, performative, directorial, film or media-based, dramaturgical, production-based, pedagogic) at this stage of their degree and work in dance and dance studies. The module includes contextual study, case study, interdisciplinary analysis and/or workshop/laboratory enquiry. By these means the module prepares students for the collaborative and creative group work that serves as part of the assessment. Students will explore and understand their own place in creative processes, with a view to working productively with others (including how and when to take the lead), contributing to good effect to project realisation and developing personal objectives. They will work under tutelage that will aid them in processes and tactics for overcoming obstacles in rehearsal, in some elements of production management, and in the provision of feedback on the development and realisation of the performance.

Module provider

Guildford School of Acting

Module Leader

BIRCH Rachel (GSA)

Number of Credits: 30

ECTS Credits: 15

Framework: FHEQ Level 6

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Year long

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

N/A

Module content

Both content and form will change from year to year, based on the specialisms of available staff, and on broader thematic or contextual issues current in any given year. As such, the module is specifically designed to be research and practice-led, and therefore to offer final-year students the opportunity to ask questions and pursue ideas at a heightened level of detail and sophistication.

The module centres on expanded notions of choreography and choreographic thinking. Although a number of performance practices and practice as research projects will be a part of the module, there is a specific focus on choreography as the issue that brings together the module and collaboration(s).

The module addresses the pragmatic and organisational aspects of successful project realisation. It examines the relationship between effective group work and individual responsibility, and explores ways in which to ensure a harmonious working environment and a balance of contribution (with individuals more or less predominant according to role, circumstance and agreement). Depending on each year and on the tutor’s expertise and research interests, the module might also addresses logistical considerations including pedagogy, production management and scheduling. It sets the parameters for diverse individual engagements across a series of practice outputs, and provides for individual objective-setting. In the development of the project into performance/artefact they present and receive feedback on the proposal and work in progress from their peers and the module convener.

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

The alternate assessment will depend on the nature of both assessments (for example, if a presentation is missed an essay may be set as the alternative).

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate:

Engagement with making a choreographic artefact and making informed and reasoned choices in selecting an appropriate methodology/collaborative contribution; encourage students to reflect critically on methodology/collaborative contribution; encourage students to identify positive and negative aspects of selecting a particular methodology/collaborative contribution; develop awareness of methods of enquiry and ability to evaluate critically the appropriateness of these for the analysis of choreography, practice research and collaboration; give students the opportunity to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of choreography, practice research and collaboration, as well as the opportunity to integrate theories where appropriate; and to give students the opportunity to apply theoretical knowledge to achieve learning outcomes.

Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of two assignments designed around the defined collaboration and roles identified in the early part of the module. Assignment 1 will be a written submission of 2000 words, so that feedback can be offered before Assignment 2. Assignment 2 will be contribution to the performance artefact which is set out in Assignment 1 and can be performative, choreographic, dramaturgical, written, etc. Performance artefacts may or may not be streamed and/or performed for a live audience.

The formative assessment is intended to give students the opportunity to identify and begin to engage with methodology/collaborative contribution in a critical and reflective way that will be of benefit both for the summative assessment. Unassessed and indicative formative assessment and feedback may include: oral responses to work presented in-class (online, recorded, and/or in-studio), which may take the form of questioning and/or dialogue; group reflection and discussion; peer review; and written responses to work submitted digitally and/or hard copy.

Feedback

Please see indicative formative assessment above.

Module aims

• • Nurture self-identified student skills and provide a learning environment to develop these skills (e.g. choreographic, performative, directorial, dramaturgical) and operate effectively within specific performance-making contexts as a collaborator, creative practitioner, facilitator, researcher and/or leader, as part of a team
• • Develop knowledge and understanding of the expanded notion of choreography, practice as research, and collaboration through the study of theoretical texts, models and practical tasks
• • Enable students to develop a viable collaborative project proposal based on a shared idea and bring this to fruition
• • Foster students’ development of articulation of ideas, reflecting and theoretically framing concepts covered in the module and project methodologies and practices, bridging theory and practice
• • Provide a structure in which to nurture independent research and learning in preparation for working in professional contexts in the creative industries

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to:

Allow students to understand and apply practice and theory in collaborative work that is centred on the concepts related to performance, expanded notions of choreography and practice as research. Lecture-seminars allow discussion of relevant theories best explored in a discursive mode and also allow for exploration of theory in practice and vice versa. Workshops diversify the approaches covered in the module and reflect current practices in the field; they also allow networking for students and the university and providing research informed teaching.

The learning and teaching methods include: Practical workshops, lectures, seminar discussions, performance analysis, self-directed research, one-to-one and/or group supervision within hybrid, on-line, and in-studio environments.

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: DAN3036

Other information

Under the three term structure that commences from academic year 2019/0 – this module’s delivery is year-long due to the teaching occurring in Teaching Blocks 1, 2 and 3.

Programmes this module appears in

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2021/2 academic year.