Invisible Journeys: practice-research informed teaching

Creative Project in Performance Design 5TT507, engages students with the creation of participatory, immersive and site-specific performances and looks at cross-collaborative processes.
The project INVISIBLE JOURNEYS was developed with Year 2, BA (Hons) Costume and Set Design students as part of this module. Drawing from Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities (1972) and the students’ personal experience of a walk in a specific place, the task was to generate a participatory experience in a gallery or found space to be experienced by audience-participants.

The project was developed in three phases:

Phase 1: (Individually) The students decided on a walk and captured their journey.
Phase 2: (In groups) The students combined the material from their journeys to develop a creative map of the journey.
Phase 3: (In groups) Using contemporary performance design principles that were unpacked during lectures and workshops (such as: Materials; Light and Dark; The Sensory and Scenographic Turn in Performance; Hybrid Scenography; Socially Engaged Scenography; Site-Specific Performance; Expanding Scenography; –Objects, etc. ) the students developed their work (creative map, interviews, images, experience) into a participatory exhibit for an audience in Derby Theatre’s upper foyer.

The final exhibition was experienced by live audience during the Regional Stages Forum 2022 at Derby Theatre and the students received two minutes each to reflect on their process to a group of performance designers and researchers from the industry.

In this presentation I will reflect on the importance of incorporating practice-research in teaching Level 5 as a way of enhancing the students’ own creative voice on their way to Level 6.