Module overview
The Sonic Performance Lab is a dynamic and explorative module designed for students to engage deeply with contemporary music performance practices and theories. The module invites students interested in performance, composition and/or technology to develop solo or small ensemble works that incorporate avant-garde or contemporary performance approaches. The module emphasises innovation, collaboration, and the fusion of sound, creative technology and performance.
Aims and Objectives
Learning Outcomes
Transferable and Generic Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Develop project management and collaborative skills through ensemble work and independent creative practice.
- Communicate complex ideas effectively in written and oral formats, demonstrating clarity, coherence, and critical insight.
Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Conduct critical research to inform creative practices, drawing on academic texts, performances and musical analysis.
- Analyze and synthesize theoretical perspectives on sound, music and performance art to support practical explorations.
Knowledge and Understanding
Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:
- key theories and practices within contemporary and avant-garde performance.
- relevant performance and musicological frameworks to contextualize and critique independent creative work.
- the roles of digital technology in contemporary performance and documentation
Subject Specific Practical Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Apply advanced creative techniques to develop and deliver engaging live or recorded performances.
- Integrate sound, movement, and visual elements to create performances that reflect contemporary and/or avant-garde sensibilities.
- Utilize rehearsal strategies and reflective processes to refine performance pieces.
Syllabus
Students will be introduced to a variety performance styles and artists through case studies. They will learn about contemporary performance and sound technologies and use cases.
Topics covered may include:
+ Character, Story and Metaphor
+ Digital Technologies and Embodied Performance
+ Queer Performance Theory
+ Political Performance
+ Conceptual and Aesthetic Performance
+ History of Performance Art and Performativity in Contemporary Music
Learning and Teaching
Teaching and learning methods
Teaching and Learning Methods will include:
- Lectures
- Practical Tasks
- Individual and Group research into performance theories and methods
- individual and small group tutorials
- viewing professionally made performances either live or via documentation
| Type | Hours |
|---|---|
| Independent Study | 126 |
| Teaching | 24 |
| Total study time | 150 |
Resources & Reading list
General Resources
Negotiated moments : improvisation, sound, and subjectivity. The contributors to Negotiated Moments explore how subjectivity is formed and expressed through musical improvisation, tracing the ways the transmission and reception of sound occur within and between bodies in real and virtual time and across memory, history, and space. They place the gendered, sexed, raced, classed, disabled, and technologized body at the center of critical improvisation studies and move beyond the field's tendency toward celebrating improvisation's utopian and democratic ideals by highlighting the improvisation of marginalized subjects.
Internet Resources
Practice-Led Research into an 'Avant Garde' Style.
Pamela Z (11/19/17 solo voice & electronics).
Journal Articles
Micahel Nyman. Experimental Music; Cage and Beyond.
Philip Brett. Musicality, essentialism, and the closet.
Textbooks
Tavia Nyongo. Afro-fabulations : the queer drama of black life.
Eric Salzman and Thomas Desi. The New Music Theater: Seeing the Voice, Hearing the Body.
C Carr. On Edge: Performance at the End of the Twentieth Century.
Assessment
Assessment strategy
Two summative assessments, one creative, one critical/reflective.
Summative
This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Performance | 60% |
| Blog | 40% |
Referral
This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Coursework | 100% |
Repeat
An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Coursework | 100% |
Repeat Information
Repeat type: Internal