Rhodes University Drama Department Undergraduate Courses
DRAMA 1
Course Coordinator | Dr Heike Gehring
Drama 1 is designed to introduce you to a range of theatre studies in academic, artistic, community, educational and professional contexts. The study centres on the theatre experience and offers creative and contextual encounters with ideas and practices shaping theatre and performance.
You will be reading, writing, speaking, moving, performing, discussing, improvising, dancing, creating and working together. In the Theatre Studies component of the course, the focus is on a range of perspectives and contexts, opening up ideas about what a theatre experience might embody. This will be complemented by the Theatre Practice component of the course which includes movement, theatre making and speech communication studies.
The first year course is designed to:
- Include the theatre experience as a medium to develop confidence and build on collaborative, interpersonal and communication skills. Drama is particularly useful in those areas focusing on social interaction between people such as public relations, the legal profession, marketing & advertising, business, management, journalism, community work, politics, healing professions, and all forms of teaching; and
- Act as a foundation course for those students planning to major and specialise in Drama.
Drama can be taken as a major subject for the Bachelor of Arts Degree. Three courses are offered at undergraduate level – Drama I, II and III. One or more of these courses may be included in the curricula of students studying for the Bachelor of Journalism, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Bachelor of Human Kinetics and Ergonomics, Bachelor of Social Science or Bachelor of Music degrees.
Theatre Practice
There are TWO studio practice sessions per week.
 Vocal Practice sessions throughout the year. 1 x 45 minutes per week, times to be arranged.
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to techniques that will support them in vocal performance with a particular focus on physical, psychological and creative readiness. Students engage with key aspects that are necessary for effective vocal performance such as strengthening vocal power and increasing skills for effective vocal delivery.
Movement Studies: Semester 1 – 1 x 90 minutes per week.
This course provides an experiential and interactive space for looking at movement expression and communication as it relates to personal development, physical ease, and theatre communication. Learning experiences are physically-based and utilise a holistic approach to training bringing together movement/ideas/ feelings/images. Movement experiences draw on somatic practices, choreology, movement themes, release techniques, physical improvisation and contact work.
The course can impact on the development of the performer/creator and/or educator, but can also contribute to personal growth, confidence, and creative problem-solving, working as part of a team, as well as social, communication and interpersonal skills.
 Theatre Making: Semester 2 – 1 x 90 minutes per week.
The purpose of this course is to develop skills in making theatre and collaborative performance. Students are encouraged to explore vocal and physical texts to craft and structure material from an idea through to the staging of a ‘theatre event’.
Theatre Studies
An investigation of significant developments and current directions in the theatre using play texts, theatre history, critical writings, theories of performance and visual documentation.
Students are required to read the set texts before the lectures begin and bring their own copies to the lectures. Theatre Studies and Theatre Practice comprise an integrated study requiring theoretical enquiry, practical application of ideas and interactive participation.
Theatre Studies and Theatre Practice feed each other quite fluidly. Think of them as related and linked and consider these links at all times.
Themes:
Origins of Theatre, Ritual, Orality and Storytelling
Ways of Reading the Body in Performance
Performance and Orality in Africa
Contextual influences on threatical form
Tradtition and Reaction: Viewings