This module analyses relationships between performance, human rights, social justice and how performance might be deployed in the service of specific political and cultural agendas. This course will investigate critical issues in the field of theatre and human rights whilst developing practical professional skills required for working in socially engaged contexts.
The module will engage with a range of key theoretical methods and approaches. It will build on students' introduction to political and ideological debate in theatre practice by focusing on questions of freedom, responsibility, power and protection. The course will consider case studies of theatre work in action, theoretical frames to examine them, and current debates which inform and impact upon the field.
This module explores how political and cultural identity, resistance and belonging is performed in theatre. Of particular interest are performances that trouble how we think or talk about the intersection of rights and social justice with identity categories like race, gender, class, sexuality, age and disability. We will question who have the dominant voices, and how a rights-based performance practice can help build a counter-hegemonic alternative to an orthodox establishment.
This module will explore the traditions and practices of testimonial, verbatim, documentary and tribunal forms of theatre. Raising complex issues such as what it means to 'have a voice' in theatre, notions of authenticity and realness, and of representation and rights, it explores the shaping and framing of material from various sources, including interviews, media, archives and documents.
This module aims to introduce students to ways in which activism has been performed in different cultural and historical contexts to achieve political, social or environmental objectives. In particular, it explores how activism is performed, and how performance can be utilised as a powerful tool for protest and community organisation.