Special Topics Course Descriptions 2023-2024
A practice-based exploration of voice and movement in relation to performance. Through an exploration of the connections between breath, movement, voice, impulse, emotion, space, character and text, students learn to use their voice and body in informed and efficient ways in practice and performance and to develop a wide expressive range. Emphasis is placed on both personal awareness and ensemble work. Taken in conjunction with DRM300Y1: Performance II.
Instructor: Seika Boye & TBA
Prerequisite: DRM101Y1 and DRM200Y1
Co-requisite: DRM300Y
F term: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9am–11am
CAP: 18
DRM368H1 S Devised Theatre: Brecht. Learning Play.
Instructor: Antje Budde
In this course we will be exploring Bertolt Brecht’s ideas about the apparatus (both technologically and socially), learning as creative and playful performance, and theatre as an investigative dramaturgical praxis for social change. His revolutionary concept of participatory and inter-media learning plays will serve as a model for collective creation.
Instructor: Prof. Antje Budde
Prerequisite: DRM101Y1 and one of: DRM200Y1/DRM202H1/DRM228H1/DRM224H1/DRM254H1
Recommended Preparation: DRM200Y
Recommended Co-requisite: DRM300Y
S term: Tuesdays, 3pm–6pm
CAP: 14
DRM375H1 S Clown
Clown is way of entering deeply and personally to the notion of play. This is a highly practical introduction to explore what it means "to play" in theatre, embodying the deceptively complex world of clown. We’ll investigate principles of clown including availability, invention, subversion and risk. We’ll explore the effects of tempo, space, the relationship to audience and more. Working primarily with solo and duo exercises, we’ll use the smallest mask in the world… the red nose. This work introduces students to a performance style that is deeply personal. It encourages improvisation, inventiveness, complicity and a heightened sense of what it means to play.
Instructor: Leah Cherniak
Prerequisite: DRM101Y1 and one of: DRM200Y1/DRM202H1/DRM228H1/DRM224H1/DRM254H1
Recommended Preparation: DRM200Y
Recommended Co-requisite: DRM300Y
S term: Thursdays, 12–3pm
CAP: 18
Please read the following carefully:
- Students who are eligible for DRM300Y1 can sign up for any TWO of the following Special Topics courses: DRM301H1 F, 375H1 S and DRM368H1
- Space has limited spots per class, so register yourself early on Acorn.
- Students applying for DRM403Y1 will need 0.5 FCE of these Studio Topics courses and DRM300Y1 and DRM220Y; Minimum grades of 70% in each to qualify for an audition. DRM301H1 Voice & Movement I is recommended to students wanting to pursue DRM403Y Mainstage.
On July 28 2023, the general enrollment period opens up allowing:
- Students in their 4th or 5th year, who have already completed DRM300Y1, will also be eligible to sign up if there is still space available.
Previous Studio Topics Descriptions
DRM368H1 F Devised Theatre: Animating bodies
Instructor: Antje Budde | 2022-23
This course is concerned with one of the most ancient and most contemporary questions across performance cultures: how can we breathe life into something seemingly dead: an object – found or made, a written play character, a disengaged human body, a digital puppet, an avatar? How to create life and liveliness in mixed-media performance? Based on experimental methods of the Digital Dramaturgy Labsquared (DDL2) inspired by Brechtian praxis, East Asian theatre, indigenous creation stories and contemplating cutting-edge advances in technology, the arts&sciences, we will experiment with both the practical-artistic and conceptual-political question of animation, manipulation, mechanisms of power, magic and (losing) control. Students will work on solo, duo and group experiments.
DRM375H1 F Clown
Instructor: Leah Cherniak | 2022-23 & 2021-22
Clown is way of entering deeply and personally to the notion of play. This is a highly practical introduction to explore what it means "to play" in theatre, embodying the deceptively complex world of clown. We’ll investigate principles of clown including availability, invention, subversion and risk. We’ll explore the effects of tempo, space, the relationship to audience and more. Working primarily with solo and duo exercises, we’ll use the smallest mask in the world… the red nose. This work introduces students to a performance style that is deeply personal. It encourages improvisation, inventiveness, complicity and a heightened sense of what it means to play.
DRM378H1 S Costume: Staging Character
Instructor: Snezana Pesic | 2022-23 & 2021-22
This course will look at how costume construction can re-shape an actor’s body and help with the creation of character. We will be looking at how different historical styles and construction techniques have altered the proportions of the human body and how these styles and techniques can be applied and redeployed beyond straightforward period design.
DRM376H1 S Technology and Performance
Instructor: Doug Eacho | 2021-22 & 2020-21
What do digital technologies offer “in-person” theatre and performance? How can computers shift from tools of accessing performance to media that support, interrupt, and act in performance? And what are we, as performing artists, uniquely positioned to offer debates about digital technologies and their role in contemporary society?
This studio course tasks students to produce a series of devised performance pieces that both employ and analyze computational technologies. We will begin with tools frequently used by live artists – lighting, sound, video – and progress towards newer tools such as VR, Isadora, motion capture, and algorithmic generation. Many of these will involve support from the Centre’s unique BMO Lab. Each week will involve a crash-course introduction to using each tool, and ask students to rapidly prototype performances. The emphasis will be on small-group and solo pieces of short length. Readings, discussion, and critique will connect our practice to theory and politics.
DRM375H1 F Elements of Clown and Play
Instructor: Leah Cherniak | 2020-21
Central to the actor’s work is the notion of play. This is a highly practical course exploring what it means "to play" in theatre, often embodying the playful play of Clown! We’ll embody the principles of clown and play, including vulnerability, availability, rhythm, pleasure and more. We’ll explore the effects of tempo, space, size, dynamic and more. We will primarily work in solo and duo exercises, sometimes using the smallest mask in the world… the Red Nose. This work introduces students to a performance style that is deeply personal. It encourages improvisation, inventiveness, complicity and a heightened sense of play.
DRM377H1 S Performing Text
Instructor: Francesco Gagliardi | 2020-21
Through a combination of theory and studio practice, this course will explore the use of non-dramatic text in performance. Looking at examples from avant-garde theatre, performance art, sound poetry and experimental music, we will critically examine different ways in which artists have produced work based on textual and visual scores, poetry, prose, found text, manifestos, etc. Through a series of exercises and workshops, we will experiment with different ways of generating and performing a variety of non-dramatic texts. By working outside the conventions of narrative and character, the students will develop skills of aural and visual composition that they will be able to apply to non-dramatic and dramatic work alike.
DRM286H1 S Filmmaking Basics for Theatre
Instructor: | Summer 2021
This online course will cover the basics of video and sound recording, editing, and presentation using on hand equipment, such as phone and tablet cameras. Topics will include camera features and settings, framing, practical and natural lighting, video editing (managing media, creating a timeline, manipulating sound, creating titles and credits), as well as the strengths and weaknesses of various presentation platforms, such as Zoom, YouTube, Twitch and Vimeo.
DRM368H1 S Devised Theatre
Instructor: | 2019-20
Devising a performance is a fundamental skill required of the contemporary theatre artist. Devising has no codified set of rules, yet many unwritten expectations. As a member of this class, you have joined an ensemble, inhabiting the roles of actor, director, designer, writer, and dramaturg.
During the course, you will: improve your ability to mine your imagination; learn to generate material based on non-theatrical texts; work in an ensemble; explore autobiography; study recent practices in site-specific, immersive and cross-disciplinary theatre; and apply these practices to your work. Students will create short performance studies during the term, and at the end of the year, will culminate with a site-specific presentation
DRM375H1 F - Voice, Character and Dialect
Instructor: | 2019-20
This practical course explores how to learn a dialect and how to do “character voices”. It will focus on how to listen to the key elements in a dialect, how to practice effectively and how to master a dialect, so that you can get on with acting. In addition, the term “character voices” refers to any character’s vocal traits that are significantly different from your own. In this course, we will explore what these traits (pitch, tone, speed of speaking, complexity of syntax, use of idiom, etc.) reveal about a character and how actors can use this knowledge to enrich their portrayal of the character.
DRM378H1 F Somatics and Movement
Instructor: | 2019-20
Somatics is defined as the study of the body as perceived from within. Somatics and Movement invites students to expand that view, exploring inner, embodied experience as the basis of knowing, thinking and learning. Combining theory and practice, experience and reflection, students will evaluate somatic modalities, which are currently available, situate somatic practices historically, and take ownership of their own somatic work.
Students will explore the history of Somatics as it is now practiced in Europe and North America, originating in European performance and gymnastics traditions. The readings will include fiction and poetry to provide insights on embodied experience across cultures. The practical component of the course will consist of lessons based on the Feldenkrais Method, which promotes awareness of relationships between parts of the body and their functions (such as head/pelvis, or breathing/balance), and provides the foundation for healthy, empowered and sustainable performance in movement, voice, athletics and dance.