Theatre & Performance Practices
Guest speakers and events
Practitioners, Processes, Professions
Theatre Studies runs a strand of workshops/seminars under the title ‘Practitioners, Processes, Professions’. We regularly invite practitioners to discuss their work with students and staff, and often to accompany these discussions with a 3-hour workshop for interested students.
In recent years, visiting practitioners have included:
- Euan Downey, Polish Laboratory Theatre
- Nic Green, performance artist/director
- Guillermo Gómez-Peña, international performance artist
- Ben Harrison, Grid Iron theatre company
- Adrian Howells, performance artist
- Stewart Laing, international director and artistic director Untitled Productions
- Kira O'Reilly, UK-based artist
- Tian Qinxin, theatre director, National Theatre of China
- Anthony Schrag, performance artist
- Reckless Sleepers, performance company
- Robert Sturm, Artistic Director of Tanz Theater Pina Bausch Wuppertal
Theatre Studies Research Seminars
The Theatre Studies Research seminars are held three to four times during term-time, and host papers from visiting speakers and distinguished scholars, as well as profiling on-going research by Theatre Studies staff. The seminar series provides a forum within which postgraduate students and staff can meet to discuss and debate current research in the fields of drama, theatre and performance studies. Each session offers an interdisciplinary context for discussion.
In previous years guest speakers at the Theatre Studies Research Seminar series have included:
- Lucy Weir, History of Art, University of Glasgow: In Vogue: The Evolution of 20th Century Contemporary Dance: a lecture/demonstration with Ruth Mills
- Professor John Hall, University College Falmouth: Practising and essaying near the sign of Performance Writing
- David Grant, Queen’s University, Belfast: ‘Living in the Moment’: time, space, the arts and dementia
- Robert Sturm, Artistic Director of Tanztheater Pina Bausch Wuppertal: The Work of Pina Bausch
- Dr Anna Birch, Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RCS): Repetition and performativity: multi layered fresco as living monument
- Professor Elinor Fuchs, Yale School of Drama: Postdramatic theatre and its discontents: the future of a theory
- Professor David Williams, Royal Holloway, University of London: Lone Twin Theatre’s Catastrophe Trilogy
The Theatre, named in memory of the founding Head of Drama, has a capacity of 182 in studio-theatre format. It has a large wire-mesh 'trampoline' lighting grid installed, the only example of its kind in Scotland and one of only three in the UK. Lighting and sound are fully computerised.
This space is equipped with lighting and sound facilities and may be used as a rehearsal room or where practical work such as video production, theatre direction, playwriting, design or stage management can take place.
The Cinema is used for lectures and screenings. The following media can be projected:
We have 2 non-linear digital video edit suites installed in the building in recognition of the fact that TFTS have been developing a need for high-quality, digital editing facilities to be accessible on-demand by students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, working on Video Production Projects or on Multimedia Production and moving-image digitisation assignments of various kinds.
The Resources Room (RR) is an indispensable part of our teaching, learning and research environment. It provides a suitable environment, encouraging student users to take increased responsibility for their own learning while supporting them in the development of approaches to independent study and the acquisition of 'transferable' skills. It also provides a flexible infrastructure within which methods of teaching and assessment related to information technology can be introduced.