Assessment and Learning at the Department of Performance Studies

Students in the Department of Performance studies learn, and are assessed, in a variety of ways.

The teaching staff all have experience in various aspects of the performing arts, from working as actors and directors, to being dancers, choreographers, dramaturgs, multi-media producers, film-makers and animateurs. These experiences and their attendant knowledges and practices are brought to bear in the studio, lecture hall and seminar room, so although we do not assess students as performers—you are not learning how to act, for example—often there is a 'performative' aspect to the learning experience.

In PRFM2602 Performance: Production and Interpretation, for example, much of the discussion of the signifying processes which are used to make meaning in theatrical production is accompanied by workshop classes, in which students are invited to learn about, for instance, spatial semiotics, by manipulating objects—including their own bodies—in space.

Assessment tasks range from conventional essays to multi-media presentations, in which students are encouraged to use a broad range of media to document and present performance practice.