Writing from Performance

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2016:

120 Hours

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Student Support and Engagement Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Overview, Learning Outcomes, Assessment and Generic Skills sections of this entry.

It is University policy to take all reasonable steps to minimise the impact of disability upon academic study, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enhance a student's participation in the University's programs. Students who feel their disability may impact on meeting the requirements of this subject are encouraged to discuss this matter with a Faculty Student Adviser and Student Equity and Disability Support: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/disability

This subject focuses the student on the task of writing from/after performance. Like all art, live performance is constituted in part by some elements and enigmas that are not easily expressed by means of language. The subject familiarises the student/artist with established conventions and traditions pertinent to writing from/after performance, including the review, the critical review and analysis, exegesis, dissertation, thesis and reflection, while also challenging and stretching those conventions to express and represent new and evolving forms of performance and writing. New forms of ‘after-writing’ might respond to notions of trace, transience, re-assemblage, poetic response, metaphor and meditation. Writing exercises in this subject will respond to the performance work of others (both inside the VCA as well as professional work including work presented at the Melbourne International Festival).

On completing this subject, students will be able to:
• demonstrate the capacity to respond in writing to performance critically, imaginatively and rigorously in a variety of written forms;
• demonstrate an innovative approach to writing after/from performance;
• demonstrate an advanced understanding of existing dramatic, non-dramatic and emerging performance forms, and their cultural contexts;
• effectively document and respond to the creative process;
• demonstrate a high standard of articulation in written expression;
• demonstrate skills in the gathering and organisation of research materials.

Ongoing participation in class work, readings, workshops and discussions 10%

One critical review of a performance, 2,500 words 45%

One response to a performance in a negotiated form of the student’s choice, equivalent to 2,500 words 45%

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.

On completing this subject the student will be able to:
• demonstrate the capacity to evaluate and synthesise data and other information;
• demonstrate an ability to access data and other information from a range of sources;
• demonstrate an advanced ability to discourse on artistic practice in the context of wider aesthetic, social and historical domains;
• demonstrate an ability to apply relevant research processes to specific cultural practice;
• demonstrate the ability to communicate in oral and written form;
• demonstrate the capacity for critical thinking.