PERFORMANCE FUNDAMENTALS - 2025/6

Module Overview

This module aims to develop the skill base of the creative practitioner in key elements of performance. Across Level 4, students will study practical skills in studio-based group classes. Students will encounter and explore the application and integration of core technical performance skills. Students will engage with the rudiments of music, voice and singing and undertake movement training designed to develop the experiential, expressive and analytical skills of the creative individual. Students will be guided to engage in reflective practice to engender resilience and wellbeing by documenting and reflecting upon their learning journey. This module provides students with the foundational training that is required to develop an artistic skill-set, within an international context.

Module provider

Guildford School of Acting

Module Leader

BURNS Megan (GSA)

Number of Credits: 30

ECTS Credits: 15

Framework: FHEQ Level 4

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

Module Availability

Year long

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

N/A

Module content

Each teaching block, students will undertake weekly practical studio based two-hour classes in the following disciplines:

•  Theatre Practice


•  Group Singing/Music


•  Movement


•  Voice

The final week of each teaching block will be given over to group tutorials in each discipline, to enable student and tutor joint reflection and action planning.

 

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

N/A

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate a practical evidence of a developing methodology as a creative practitioner.

Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of:

• Continuous assessment of practical classwork for each skills class (theatre practice, voice, movement, singing/music)

Formative assessment

Continuous formative assessment occurs in class and students will be guided to understand and recognise formative verbal feedback in addition to formal written feedback as essential to their development and learning journey.

Feedback

There are practical assessments that provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate and receive feedback continually, verbally, from teachers, and from peers. Students receive informal and formal verbal and written feedback and also benefit from personal tutorials where this feedback can be discussed after reflection and grading has taken place.

Formal summative feedback will be published via SurreyLearn by a published date within three teaching weeks. 

Module aims

• This module aims to equip the student with an understanding of the core technical performance techniques encountered on the programme and to work to the following programme aims:
• To facilitate the acquisition and development of vocal and physical techniques, skills and universal vocabularies inherent within the creative industries
• To enable experiential understanding of theatre and drama, adding to it a level of critical awareness and analytical ability which will enrich practice and extend potential, as artists and creative professionals
• To train and develop practitioners with high order creative skills in a broad range of artistic situations

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to:

• Enable active, experiential engagement with core practical and technical performance skills


• Develop the creative and analytical skills of students


• Enable the articulate, reflective practitioner

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: APP1001

Other information

Guildford School of Acting is committed to developing graduates with strengths in Employability, Digital Capabilities, Global and Cultural Capabilities, Sustainability, and Resourcefulness and Resilience. This module is designed to allow students to develop knowledge, skills, and capabilities in the following areas:

 

Digital Capabilities

Students develop their digital skills and literacy throughout the module. They are introduced to the virtual learning environment and required to make use of online resources including online research, creation and submission of digital work (video, written) for formative and summative assessment.

 

Global and Cultural Capabilities

Module content encourages students to engage and work within a range of different social, economic and cultural contexts. They will examine their positionality in relation to a mixture of sites and settings through appropriate scholarship.

Module content incorporates perspectives and practices from a range of cultures; through conversations around culture, appreciation, and appropriation students are encouraged to diversify their knowledge and reflect on different experiences; through critical engagement students are encouraged to examine and debate topics in relation to global and cultural capabilities, further developing students’ sustainable performance practice.

 

Employability

Students directly gain skills and experience in performance skills, equipping them for careers in the creative field.

 

Resourcefulness and Resilience 

Students are guided to develop the ability to reflect, evaluate, adapt, and respond effectively to unforeseen circumstances and challenges throughout the programme and particularly in their development of community engagement skills, negotiation, and flexibility. They also develop their resilience through the continuous integration of self-reflective assessment. 

 

Sustainability

Throughout the programme students are encouraged to consider how they can apply their in-class learning to the professional creative field. This includes the strengthening of key performance skills and reflective practice which supports resilience and wellbeing. This course promotes enterprise and entrepreneurship as well as collaborative thinking. These values help students to imagine their own models for social sustainability within the applied and contemporary theatre industry. Students will be nurtured as future leaders in sustainability thinking and supported to take informed decisions and responsible actions that promote the wellbeing of present and future generations.

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 2025/6 academic year.