Tag Archives: performance writing

Level 2 Students Perform, Write and Devise Playground Politics

May 26, 2017UncategorizedAfter Beckett, performance writing, york st john theatree.nedelkopoulou

Playground Politics, a performance produced by level 2 students on the Writing after Beckett module was a feature of the Drama Showcase at York St John University 2017.

A delightfully refreshing performance consisting of 32 scripted vignettes; fleeting moments, comedy shorts, tiny sketches, dramaticules. Written by the group as a scripted piece, all the little plays established a world of their own, varying in lengths and driven by different content as tiny little episodes.

The general theme across all vignettes commented upon the ridiculousness and the failures encountered in current politics, in love, in competition and to some degree, it played upon and stretched, with absurdity, the mundane aspects of our lives. Played through the performativity of the absurd, not too far away from Samuel Beckett’s Dramaticule Come and Go and close enough to Caryl Churchill’s Love and Information, the performers applied a touch of wit created through a series of visual interruptions – custard pie goofs, Kaylee dance routines and farcical noises. Whilst the writing and the concepts were drawn from the work of Samuel Beckett and Caryl Churchill, the material in some vignettes was highly influenced by the conceptual dramaturgy of the TV series Inside Number 9, a dark comedy with each episode featuring an entirely new story in a conceptual space – behind a number ‘9’.

Text and Photos by Claire Hind

Theatre Lecturer publishes new book of Performance Scores

February 24, 2015Uncategorizedaction score generator, book, ifpthenq, performance writing, poetry, publication, score, Theatren.walker

Action Score Generator, Nathan Walker, If P Then Q Press

Senior Lecturer in Theatre Nathan Walker has a new book of poetic performance instructions published by Manchester based poetry press IF P THEN Q. The book ‘Action Score Generator’ is an exploration of performance writing, performance scores and poetry.

The Action Score Generator book is a print version of Nathan Walker’s website of the same name that runs a JavaScript code. The code produces a text of six words in length for six seconds. Every six seconds the six word text is replaced by another six word text and so on and so, the six word texts disappear. The print version is a sixty-minute performance by a machine writing ten six second texts every minute using only six words at a time. They are ordered as they were produced and remain unedited. The book also features an Afterword written by Dr. Mark Leahy that critically explores the work.

You can visit the Action Score Generator website and might even try performing the instructions as scores or simply reading them aloud as poems. You can by the book here

Theatre Graduate featured on OneandOther

August 14, 2014

James Norris, who graduated from YSJ Theatre this year, has featured in a special article for OneandOther magazine. You can read the full article here, and follow James work on tumblr at a-mothers-trace.tumblr.com

Performance Writing in (cold) Scarborough

March 26, 2014Uncategorizedlevel 1, performance writing, scarborough, seaside, textn.walker

The annual performance writing trip to Scarborough for textual tasks, writerly encounters and language games influenced by site-specific processes and performance practices that investigate how we write, inscribe, document, underline and spell Scarborough the sea side town.

Valentines Soiree

March 3, 2014Uncategorizedevent, open-mic, performance writing, soiree, text, valentinesn.walker

Theatre Students organised a Valentines Soiree to test out material, read, sing and perform excerpt from their upcoming performances. The work presented demonstrated an exciting approach to all kinds of writing and making that happens on the Theatre programme at York St John and was organised by Students from Level 2 and 3.

Leve 1 Student Janice Newton performs her own songs

Our Hosts Charlotte Goodlad and Orlando Wind-Cowie

The Soiree model has been taken up by students and developed from the Level 1 Module ‘An Introduction to Performance Writing’ where students perform writing from the module in an open-mic format.

Visiting Professor John Hall

November 29, 2013Uncategorizeddartington college of arts, essayist, john hall, keynote, performance writing, phd, poet, research, symposium, visiting professorn.walker

John Hall

On the 26th and 27th November the Faculty of Arts hosted Visiting Professor John Hall. A poet, teacher and essayist, John is currently based at Falmouth University. He is most associated with Dartington College of Arts – where amongst others he worked with York St John staff Jules Dorey Richmond and Nathan Walker – and his leading role in the development of Performing Writing.

While here John witnessed and discussed Level 3 IPAR work in development and delivered a paper to theatre students on Performance Writing. He also delivered the keynote paper, titled ‘The idea of practice and its relation to research’, as part of Research Snapshots, the Faculty of Arts Postgraduate Research Students’ Symposium. Two PhD students located within theatre, El Stannage and Cath Heinemeyer, also presented papers as part of this event.

‘Three’ Performance – Thursday 19th Sept

September 16, 2013UncategorizedBeckett, Level 2, performance, performance writingn.walker

“We’ve lost the beautiful words.”

In an abandoned space where nobody goes, three performers stand silently on stage, anticipating an audience. They’re ill rehearsed, they can’t find the words, and though they’re not ready to show, it must go on.

Tick-tock goes the clock. We’re sorry. So very, very sorry. Ladies and Gentlemen…’Three'”

Thursday 19th September 2012

2:00pm in Theatre 1

Written by Level 2 Students Benjamin Rosenfield, Charlotte Goodlad and Jonathan Curd. Performed by Mikhail Lim, Charlotte Goodlad and Jonathan Curd. ‘Three’ Combining the influences of Samuel Beckett, the Rat Pack and Dr. Suess, ‘Three’ is an intertextual performance that plays with the nonsensical phono-aesthetics of every-day language and 1950’s pop culture.

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