What are the Implications for HEI Pedagogy and Learning when Production and Technical Theatre Practices are Re-orientated as Practices of Scenography? Investigating Technical Theatre Training, in Higher Education Institutions (HEI) levels 4–6 within the United Kingdom (UK)

• Main Author: Hockham, David
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01.01.2022
• Subjects: Career and technical education; Educational Change; Educational Policy; Educational Practices; Higher education; Interdisciplinary Approach; Teaching Methods; Technical Education; Theater; Vocational education
• ISBN: 9798351453361

This interdisciplinary thesis assembles the literature from the fields of scenography and performance studies with those of Practice Based Learning (PBL) and Education studies, navigating the ways in which the ideas within these landscapes might intersect. Framing Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) as sociomaterial situated contexts, the thesis responds to the call of Hann (2019) to adopt scenography as a way to evoke both critical and practical possibilities beyond the practices of design and traditional territories of performance. In doing so the work offers contributions to the fields of scenography and PBL and critically, creates a meta-cognitive Interdisciplinary contribution to the literature which the thesis calls practice scenographics; a term used to describe the ways in which components of situated practice come together forming moments of processional learning. Recognising theatre and performance as a broad and expanding field, with heterogeneous ways of making theatre, framed here as scenography methods, the thesis identifies the dilemma of the HEI pedagogue who must co-construct learning activity in ways which enables both in-depth knowledge and subject breadth, so that knowledge might be recontextualised by scenographers in wider paradigms. With a documented skills gap in the backstage entertainment industry, the thesis presents both personal and industry arguments outlining the necessity of this work.Through a flexible research design utilising semi-structured interviews to collect data from students, graduates and pedagogues, the thesis will consider HEI performance practice as a unique mode of performance within a web of performance practice possibilities. It will highlight the heterogeneous trajectories of students studying technical theatre practice in Higher Education Institutions. In doing so, the thesis is able to make specific recommendations for pedagogues looking to embark on or reconsider, the ways in which students are orientated to their craft. A thesis exploring the pedagogy and learning of technical theatre practice.