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| Contemporary & Classical
Throughout the three years, students will be systematically trained
in areas pertaining to acting, performance, theatre theory and the
practice of working across linguistic and cultural boundaries. This
includes work in Acting Approaches, Movement, Voice & Speech,
Taiji and Meditation and the immersions in Theatre Traditions. The
objective is to shape, condition and build the actor’s body
and mind into an instrument capable of meeting the demands of Contemporary
Theatre practice.
They will be immersed in four Asian Classical Theatre systems (Beijing
or Kun Opera from China, Kutiyattam or Kathakali from India, Noh
Theatre from Japan and Wayangwong or Balinese Dance from Indonesia)
as well as the European theatre tradition.
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 The
curriculum includes skills and technique training, project-based creative
learning, field research, academic exposure to the humanities, arts, theory
and critical studies, as well as foundational multimedia training.
Students will also be introduced to the diverse practices of World Contemporary
Theatre including those of the source countries of the Asian Classical
Systems. Another vital component will be Contemporary Theatre Practices
in Singapore and South-East Asia.
Click here for
more details on Acting,
Movement,
Voice
& Speech and Taiji
& Medication modules
Immersions in Theatre Traditions
During each semester of the first two years students will be
immersed in a significant Theatre Tradition from Asia. In the future,
if it is deemed appropriate and resources permitting, Theatre Traditions
from other parts of the world may also be considered and included. Students
will be immersed in the physical, gestural, dramatic and vocal training
methodologies of each form. Over the last five years these forms have
been Beijing Opera, BharathaNatyam, Kutiyattam, WayangWong and Noh. It
is possible to substitute these forms, without significant loss of content,
with Kun Opera, Kathakali and Balinese Dance.
The immersion in all of these forms is principally
corporeal and practical; what is emphasised is the performer’s body
as instrument of performance. But this training must include a theoretical
dimension, a learning of the cultural, artistic and social contexts of
each form, that is delivered through a series of tutorials, lectures and
seminars spanning all three years of the programme.
The TTRP’s objective is not
to train classical performers. The aim is to activate in each student
a repository of aesthetic sensibilities, techniques, theories and performative
strategies drawn from the Classical Theatre systems of Asia and beyond;
a resource that they may draw upon throughout their artistic lives.
The hope is that these immersions will serve to unlock
and unpack these monolithic theatre systems so that students may select
and draw only those elements ? precepts or aspects of gesture, voice,
movement, rhythm, breath-control, presentation, dramaturgy and form ?
which may be recombined, assimilated psycho-physically and situated within
the specificity of a more conventional, contemporary actor training method,
that of Constantin Stanislavski (1863-1938).
Read more
on Beijing
Opera, Kutiyattam
, WayangWong,and
Noh
Technical Theatre
In every semester the participants at TTRP have classes in aspects of
technical theatre. The fact that most of the graduates will not become
stage managers or theatre technicians is recognised.
The exploration of technical theatre as part of the play production process
is achieved through practical exercises based on existing pieces of theatre
that both have had worldwide acclaim and have specific demands in terms
of lighting and sound. The participants are responsible for many aspects
and rotate through various positions: director, operator, actor and stage
manager. This approach has the obvious benefits of a broad experience
in various responsibilities coupled with having to align all technical
work to specific parameters as well as exposure to various styles of theatre
writing. Past exercises have been based on Tennessee Williams Suddenly
Last Summer, Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Dylan
Thomas’s Under Milkwood, Joan Littlewood’s Oh What A Lovely
War and a Polish piece, The Little Garden of Eden.
The outcomes are not productions as such, but
are an opportunity for the participants to develop their judgments on
the timing and profiling of cues as well as an opportunity to explore
the overall play production process through practice rather than theory.
It is also an opportunity to understand the work processes and pressures
of most personnel directly involved in the performance process.
The class work is augmented by further practical work on showings or open
classes as part of their acting training. The ultimate goal is to provide
a sound basis for skilled work enhanced by courtesy, efficient communication
and good collaboration.
Post Modular Labs
Student led performance-making opportunities that follow the immersion
in a particular theatre tradition. The objective of this platform is to
enable the students to work with compatriots in the process of creating
a performance outcome that would manifest their engagement, understanding
or critical stance of the immersion that has just happened. Students may
use the experience of immersion to perform or express texts or excerpts
of existing plays; alternatively they may use methods or strategies from
the immersions to devise original work or create a demonstration of a
performance structure that accents a perspective on the tradition just
encountered and so on. Teachers will serve as mentors and guides providing
support and counsel.
Theatremaking Modules
A series of work platforms led by the faculty, and/or guest teachers,
which seek to teach broad Theatremaking strategies by focusing on specific
skill-sets like Voice, Movement, Acting, Directing and Dramatic Writing.
The student’s work is expected to develop and evolve over three
years and finally achieve a level of performance suitable for viewing
by a paying audience in Singapopre. The modules are selected, framed and
designed specifically to satisfy the TTRP’s primarly objective of
actor-training, with a view towards the needs of the emergent theatre
environments that the students come from and to which, presumably, they
will return.
Humanities & Life Studies
Students will be required cultivate and engage actively in a “life
of the mind”, that is connected to a wider reality to which they
see themselves as being part of and belonging to. They will also be kept
in close contact with the realities of theatre making in Singapore. In
addition, they will be introduced to related studies of society, culture,
science, technology and the environment. |
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