Drama Foundation Year

This module will introduce you to contemporary concepts and creative studio production processes related to the theme of the ‘Body’.
You will learn to develop and produce a range of experimental collaborative and individual artworks under the direction of academic staff from across subject disciplines. Through directed and self-directed approaches around a range of studio and workshop practices you will produce a portfolio of work that offers a personal reflection on a subject that has fired the imagination since the first humans established their presence through paintings on cave walls, collective performance or carvings into rocks.
You will learn to understand the importance of primary research from source and the application of collaborative interdisciplinary practices.
The Body is a complex subject and you will be engaged in a number of learning situations that will build your awareness and understanding of critical engagement and reflective thinking through creative practice.
You will develop a greater knowledge of how the Body has been the catalyst for artists producing paintings, sculpture, live art performances, drama, dance, text, photography and film; and be introduced to the theoretical debates such as body politics, feminism and ethics.
Working in a team you will further learn from each other’s practices and creative interventions through experimentation, making and discussion. This will enable you to build confidence in outlining your own views and position.

Creative practitioners have often looked to artists in the past to inspire new directions in their own work. In this module you will be asked to identify a specific artwork inspired by the Body theme and transcribe it in your own terms. This is a valuable learning tool in research and development leading to a final output. The transcription project will aid you develop a more personal direction that will inform the Identity module in semester 2.

This module will introduce you to contemporary concepts and creative studio production processes related to the theme of Arts and the City.
You will learn to develop and produce a range of experimental collaborative and individual artworks under the direction of academic staff from across subject disciplines. Through directed and self-directed approaches around a range of studio and workshop practices you will produce a portfolio of work that offers an exploration of the inter-relationship between the city that we see and the city that we imagine.
Arts and the city are intertwined, and this module gives you an opportunity to develop your own arts practice through observation and interrogation of the cultural life, activities and artefacts of a real city.
Through arts practices, students will consider the role of arts within the environments of the city, developing knowledge on how arts can explore, reflect, enhance and critique the city and its citizens.
The module will consider the location and impact of arts and culture in introducing the relationship between artist and spectator/audience/public.
The module will also introduce you to the distinctive environment and culture that has shaped Newcastle and Gateshead and how Tyneside has evolved into an international centre for the arts. Consequently this Semester 1 module will help locate you in a studio culture for the first time and complement the learning activities around interpretation of form and function linked to the Body module.

“Identity’ is the final module in the Arts Foundation Year course and helps position your practice towards a BA Honours programme in one of the visual and performing arts subjects.
Through this module you will learn to demonstrate in a portfolio of work your creative practice and emerging personal philosophy moving towards a major project output and personal statement.
In building a profile as a student of the arts, your practice is informed by your skills, knowledge, experience and imagination. Across the visual and performing arts there are a wide range of delivery processes and methodologies for presenting your practice. This module enables you to be ambitious with your creative studio work and learn to make critical decisions about your identity that will influence your future direction.
Gombrich once told us that ‘there is no such thing as art, only artists.’ In completing this final study you will learn how to draw upon the creative practitioners that have influenced you and examine 2 artists/performers/directors/scriptwriters with whom you strongly identify.
In this module you will also learn to outline your personal development to date and position your practice against the cultural sector that it is most aligned (fine art, drama, live art performance, applied theatre, animation etc). A supporting document will provide a narrative of that development and will be considered alongside a final major work.
Working in a team you will further learn from each other’s practices and creative interventions through experimentation, making, discussion and evaluation. Following semester 1 and the Nature and Technologies module you will learn how to use your feedback to develop a greater understanding of your personal artistic position moving towards your final submission.

Our interaction with nature and the environment and a need to capture and understand these experiences has informed the production of a range of creative arts practices (landscape painting/site specific performance/multi-media installation). Likewise artists have always had an interest in the natural sciences and have an increasing concern about the trajectory of change given the rapid developments in modern technologies in the last century.
This module will introduce you to contemporary concepts and creative studio production processes related to the theme of Nature and Technology. You will learn about new digital methodologies of production and be able to discern between appropriate use of low tech or high tech production processes in the making of work and the development of your practice.
Workshops will enable you to learn more about new media technology and how it may be applied to your scholarly and studio interests.
Creative practitioners often look to the sciences to develop new directions in their own practice. In this module you will also be asked to examine the concept of evolution and how this is aligned to your own creative practice; the germination of an idea, fermentation and final output/product.
You will learn to understand the value of being a student in a university that has a wide variety of academic resources available to enable you to develop your knowledge and creative practice (geo-sciences/life and chemical sciences/earth and space research)
Working in a team you will further learn from each other’s practices and creative interventions through experimentation, making, discussion and evaluation.
Following semester 1 you will learn how to use your summative feedback to develop a greater understanding of student centred learning building a more personal artistic position in advance of the final ‘Identity‘ module

On this module, you will build a portfolio demonstrating and evidencing the broad range of academic, professional and transferable employability skills you have developed throughout the Arts Foundation Year. These will include demonstrations of cogent academic prose, accurate academic citation, research skills, independent learning, oral presentation, and teamwork. You will develop this portfolio throughout the year, drawing evidence from work you conduct in your other modules, and from workshops and seminars from this year long module.