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Mock,
R. and Way, R. (2005), ‘Pedagogies of Theatre (Arts) and
Performance (Studies)’, Studies in Theatre and
Performance 25: 3, pp. 201–213 [Very difficult to
make much of this article, which is mostly about defending the
emotional
intensity and cultural significance of theatre arts and performance
studies. There is actually very little
on pedagogy. What there is seems to
suggest that students on this course simply have to try and ‘absorb’
their
views and experiences of the staff. We
hear quite a bit about the views and experiences, and their battles
inside
Plymouth University to retain some sort of agreeably autonomous
location within
wider faculties of arts. Much of this
seems to me to be special pleading about the superb intensity of
theatre
studies, and a denial that it can be easily classified, which is
rendered as
some eternal struggle between binaries, like performance and the arts,
or
theory and practice, which it seems that staff are dedicated to somehow
overcoming (largely in thought, or by putting similar words next to
paper). These contradictory
views, and the different traditions the staff all represent, are meant
to be a
set of challenging resources for students.
Students have to somehow turn these views and
challenges into
performances, to embody them. The staff
then claim to be able to have the expertise to read these performances
in such
a way as to be able to decide if there is been inadequate response to
the
challenge, or a sufficiently complex understanding of the phony nature
of binaries
or stereotypes. At no stage do the staff
question their own abilities or importance, citing from time to time
their own
internal discussion papers, experiences, thoughts and lectures. They seem to believe that assessment is
simply a matter of setting suitably challenging assignments. Just as they themselves somehow bear in their
own persons the history of the great struggles surrounding the arts and
what
they do, so their own personal qualities are sure of the objectivity of
the
assessment. Certainly, no problems are
discussed. Running through this
lofty discussion is a set of proposals that actually look quite useful
and
interesting, if a bit mundane. For
example, there curriculum seems to be stratified so that they offer
pretty
basic theories about performance in year one, a discussion of the work
of
unusual pioneering or innovative performers in year two, and some kind
of
commitment to attack and reduce stereotypes in year three.
One set of stereotypes that have to be
attacked are media stereotypes. Although
the students seem to have a booklist and some tutorials, it does seem
to be
asking rather a lot to first of all be able to analyse media
stereotypes and
then think of ways to subvert than in performance.
My guess is that they actually analysed
stereotypes of media stereotypes! That
he notes that the performances were disappointing at times, and,
despite being
warned, the students seem to reproduce the very stereotypes they were
subverting, which is not at all surprising, unless they had done some
serious
work on identity outside of the ways in which this is conceived in the
theatre. The team have a
pseudo specific list of qualities they are supposed to be assessing,
and no
doubt these are given to students beforehand: What we are assessing: •
The complexity of the critique of identified stereotypes of cultural
otherness •
A considered relationship with the audience •
The shaping of structural patterning •
The maintenance of a performance environment •
The strength of performing presence and focus •
The choice of performance techniques appropriate to the subject matter. The
students were also offered a reading list (we assume that it goes
without
saying that the tutors team taught several sessions introducing
Gomez-Peña’s
work and the issues it raises, as well as offering tutorial support);
furthermore, the students were encouraged to make connections with
other ideas
and practices they had encountered to date on this and other modules
(some
would additionally have been taking options in ‘Latin American Theatre’
and/or
‘The Semiotics of Text and Performance’) (208). I
call this pseudo specific for obvious reasons—who is to
judge complexity, what exactly is are considered relationship, what is
the
third • mean at all, and how do we assess strength and choice? I strongly suspect them of the students
really do is to work out that they have to please their tutors,
probably by
researching them reasonably thoroughly. It
is worth noticing the in the third year, students could
undertake a project instead of a dissertation, and here they had to
demonstrate
that they were reflective practitioners.
No references seem to have been drawn from the
conventional literature
on reflective practice, however, and it seems to been assumed that
centred
drama and performance is a reflective subject, reflexivity can be red
from
performance in the familiar way. The
illustrative photographs in fact seem pretty banal—mind
you they are a poor representation of a performance as we know:
Figure
2: University of Plymouth Year 2 ‘Gomez-Peña Project’: German Women
performed by
Julia Harris There
are the occasional rather amusing hints of
how the team find life in a modern
university. Despite the elegant
disquisition in a position paper on the importance of the theatre,
arguing for
a merger with Fine Arts (p.204) :
Meanwhile, cop this as illustrative: The
impact this had on all of us was extraordinary; although we had each
seen
photographs of, and had read at least something about, Gomez-
Peña’s
performance work (mainly because our colleague, Cariad Astles, had been
offering an option in Latin American performance for some time), we
simply
weren’t prepared for the provocativeness, the risk-taking, the
sexiness, the
powerful presence, the contradictions and the challenges that were both
presented to us and in which we were implicated. In a neighbourhood bar
following the performance, we practically swooned together with
emotional and
intellectual giddiness; here was a performance which achieved a deep
resonance
for us as audience members (207) Luvvy!
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