Theatre and Performance Studies has brand new fully-equipped practical spaces on the Warwick central campus. There are two black-box studios, two adaptable rehearsal spaces with sprung floors and a new edit suite, including digital video-making facilities. These are ideal for enabling students to create and explore a variety of experimental methods in the context of the undergraduate curriculum.

 

Theatre and Performances Studies students benefit from innovative practice-based learning approaches which combine critical theory and practical methodologies. In the first year at Warwick students are introduced to diverse performance-making possibilities, while also being provided with a comprehensive hands-on induction to the use of the available technical facilities. They learn to become fully conversant with the operation of lighting, sound and video equipment, leading to the capacity for independent use in subsequent years. After a common, broad-based first year, students are required to make choices for their second year from a rich variety of options. By the time students reach their third year they are equipped to pursue an independent approach to practical exploration. Usually working in small groups, they have the option to develop specialist practice-based research projects under supervision.

 

The approach to practice at Warwick is laboratorial, tending to emphasise self-contained practical interrogation rather than public show. However, the latter also plays a significant part where appropriate and the students frequently develop work for audiences, sometimes in site-specific locations as diverse as prisons, swimming pools and woods. Often, professional artists inform the work directly, leading workshops or, indeed, devising exciting performance work with students. In recent times students have benefited, for example, from working with Motionhouse Dance Theatre, Adrian Howells, Jos Houben, Complicite, Forced Entertainment, Stan’s Café and Rideout.