Course units
Unit 1: Elements of Puppetry
This unit will explore the art of puppetry in relation to 3 key relationships of performance making: audiences, aesthetics and forms.
You will investigate these through practical projects and performances. Seminars, lectures and workshops will focus on the key roles that are central to crafting puppet performance. You will develop a deeper understanding of the 3 specialist areas within the profession: dramaturgy, designing and fabricating, and performance.
You will learn how to document, critique and demonstrate your research and methodologies. You will be shown how to present your work effectively and creatively. With your tutor, you will establish a Learning Agreement for the year. This will be developed into your final project in Unit 4.
Unit 2: Developing your practice
This unit introduces you to more puppet-making techniques and materials. You will focus on and interrogate specific aspects of puppetry that reflect your interests.
You will engage in a critical research project to develop and articulate a thorough understanding of a key artist, technique or process in puppetry. This will improve your understanding of creative research methodologies.
Workshops and taught sessions will develop your puppetry skills and knowledge. You will also improve your understanding of dramaturgy and visual storytelling.
You will consider and evaluate the ethical and social implications of your artistic choices, designs and performances. You will fabricate, develop and realise an object for performance. Your design choices will reflect its use and consider safe and sustainable materials. You will evaluate context and scale in relation to performances and their environments.
The unit will conclude with a group project. You will put together a cabaret-style performance festival inspired by a chosen case study. You will document your learning in your research and practice portfolio.
Unit 3: Collaboration
You will devise and develop a collaborative live brief for a performance event that includes puppetry alongside other contemporary performance practices, styles and disciplines. This may involve other postgraduate level disciplines or industry connections. The unit will require you to engage creatively with peers using empathetic and inclusive practice. You will explore practical techniques for developing dramaturgy collectively.
The outcome will be a researched puppet-based proposal, or prototype. It will show the potential for further development or outcomes in the field of puppetry.
Unit 4: Realisation
In the final unit you will work on an in-depth personal project. This will demonstrate an advanced level of puppetry practice that will challenge or expand the boundaries of existing performance practices.
You will develop your professional interests and relate your own work to a critical understanding of current and historical practices and methodologies. Completing your research and practice portfolio of work will allow you to position yourself in the field as a practitioner or researcher.
Your creative research will challenge and interrogate existing practices to a professional level. It will reflect on the future of puppetry and look to new forms of making, devising and developing your own artistic vision.
Your process will engage with sustainable, socially engaged and ethical methods of production. It will show an understanding of the relationship between audiences, aesthetics and forms.
Your project will culminate in a presentation in which you will take on one or more of the key puppetry roles explored in Unit 1. You will further your collaborative skills by inclusively leading peers and bringing together a group to realise your personal project. This will demonstrate proactivity, agility, craft, effective communication and storytelling skills.
Note: 120 Credits must be passed before the final unit is undertaken.
