During 2022/2023 academic year the performance students in UWS got back on campus for good and the work has been more exciting than ever! With many practical modules happening on campus every week students of all years have been taking over classrooms and rehearsal rooms and the work speaks for itself!

Creative Research Project - 4TH YEAR

The realisation of a creative concept involves challenging and detailed procedures. Producers, directors, technicians, choreographers, musicians and performers face a range of unpredictable circumstances in which they must exercise responsibility, initiative and engage in complex decision-making. Artists must acquire and develop the skills necessary to manage and realise a production, and is required to adapt to ever-changing circumstances and challenges in preparation for a professional environment. During this module the students work with leading professionals in the field of Performance Art responding to commission briefs and feedback, enabling them to explore the responsibilities of production and performance roles. By the end of this module students have synthesised the skills necessary for the organisation of a performance, facilitated the creation of a performance artefact and consolidated through the processes by which performance is created, realised and managed.

Collective Joy

by Angela Aiton, Keelin Couchman, Becca Eley, Craig Fisher, Kirsty Florence, Jamie Kiltie, James Kirk, Ellie MacMillan, Nicole Middleton, Eva Postma

Commission Brief by

Hannah Tuulikki and Will Dickie:

Why have you chosen this theme?

Many of the oldest depictions of human groups see them holding hands in a circle and dancing. How can collective performance swim against current tides of division and celebrate the things that bring us together. Music, play, movement & the ineffable.

Who is the project’s target audience?

This could be delivered in variety of contexts. As a performance for a ‘traditional’ performance attending audience at a festival or for a specific group in the community, if sufficient ethical processes have been addressed.

Any specific genre characteristics?

A large scale choreographic work/ Physical Theatre. With the potential for voice, song, spoken word, live music & Djing.

Reimagining the Mechanicals

by Amy Dennett, Bethany Faulds, Chloe Connor, Holly Merritt, Logan Mcintyre, Morgan Walley, Philip Moore, Skye Morrison

Commission Brief by

Dominic Hill

Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ tells the story of three groups of people - the fairies, the lovers and the ‘rude mechanicals’. Their stories interact at times but can be also extracted from the play to create their own narrative.

The brief is to separate the narrative of the Mechanicals (working men and women) and create a new drama from the perspective of these characters. You will probably want to miss out Bottom’s whole engagement with Titania.

These scenes are written in prose. Cut them or rewrite them as you see fit to create a contemporary exploration of a group of amateur actors, while staying true to the dramatic and comic situation of the original. You also don’t need to stick to the same genders of Shakespeare’s original characters. The emphasis should be on making the story and words accessible and relevant.

Out There!

by Holly Cummings, Amy Davis, Caitlin Phillips, Leanne McMaster

Commission Brief by

Catrin Evans

This is a piece of work for P5-7s that offers an adventurous and playful journey into the little discussed phenomenon of space junk. Out above earth are thousands of tiny items stuck forever in orbit – leftover from human-led space explorations, and from the increasing presence of micro satellites coming from earth. What is their fate? What if the junk could speak? What magic have they witnessed out there in orbit – and what would they tell us about the earth they see below them? This new piece of work might explore this theme directly – inspired by a more traditional ‘theatre-in-education’ approach, or it might seek to explore the metaphorical and poetic substance of this theme. It might be rooted in a story of looking up, or multiple stories across time. The work might be a play to be performed for young people, or it might be an interactive performance experience that involves young people exploring, creating alongside performers/facilitators.

Creative Festival - 3rd year

Drawing on their existing skills, knowledge and experience this module enables students to negotiate an independent practical project. Students deliver and perform in a performance, which they artistically lead. With tutor support students self-direct, negotiate and consolidate their own practice to deliver a professional performance outcome as part of a festival of performance for a public audience.

This year's Refraction Festival took place on the 2nd - 3rd of May at the Ayr Campus of UWS.

Refraction Festival 2nd-3rd of May 2023

A Midsummer of Love

by The Lovers:

Ruben Ross, Andrew Wilson, Charly Gilfeather, Sam Houston, Amber Murray, Rachel Anderson, Kira Tomkins

Company Statement

As a company we aim to create pieces with political undertones, delving into issues in the world around us specifically those regarding the rights of individuals within the LGBTQIA+ community and helping uplift our audience by portraying stories of Self Liberation. As a company we also include work that modernises pre-existing texts to make these pieces more accessible to a twenty-first century audience. We utilise and transform pieces of text into telling the narrative from a new perspective while staying true to source material. Though we are tackling such intense topics we strive to try and make our rehearsal process as uplifting and as joyful as possible. We hope that this translates well to our audience and we are able to spread as much enjoyment to our audience members watching as possible.

Programme Note

The Summer of Love has never felt this magical as we take a trip down into the newly found safe haven of the forest. There, we find the young Lovers Hermia and Lysander who plan to escape the constraints of society that holds their love back. The pair’s paths become intertwined with the Mischievous Puck and the Young Lovers find themselves in the middle of a crossfire of cupid’s arrows as chaotic hijinks ensue causing the Lovers to not only be lost in the forest, but lost within themselves. This piece is modern re-telling of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream but in the political context of the 1960s, exploring issues regarding sexuality, exploration of self-identity, and love in its many forms.

Our Humbling Abode

by ECLIPSE:

Annalise Thomas, Olivia Lauter, Nicole Burns, Conn McGeever, Stevie Paterson, Alana Brown, Sophie Grubb, Rhianna Parker-Clevett

Company Statement

ECLIPSE focuses on working with original scripts to create a comedic performance for our audience. As a company, we are director-led and we describe our acting as hyper realistic to allow our audience to reflect on their lives and relate to our characters. We use stripped back aesthetics to highlight the quality of acting and by using this, it creates our vessel for storytelling. ECLIPSE performances encourage escapism as we create work that resonates with everyday working-class people to take them to a familiar place, while also pulling them away from their real life. We aim to connect with our audience in a space of complicité with the actors.

Programme Note

Our Humbling Abode is an original Glaswegian comedy that follows the Robertson family as they meet the youngest child, Louise’s, almost-boyfriend (Anthony) for the first time. Louise is a 20-year-old single who is used to boys running a mile after meeting her family, and Anthony is about to find out why the Robertsons are different to most. It is a house full of girls; five women who live in the house, Louise’s best friend who pops round so much she might as well live there too, and a nosey neighbour who can’t keep her nose out of their home. Anthony has got his work cut out for him meeting the Robertsons! With a total of seven females, this piece shows a variety of different strong women with contrasting characteristics, and celebrates the beauty of the Glaswegian family bond through a humorous lens.

The Graveyard

by The Ensemble Project:

Jamie Campbell, Holly Ferguson, Hope Wilson, Claire Connor, Manon Miny

Company Statement

Our mission is to get the space to encourage the audience to participate in a structured way. We want to create an environment that does not feel set in stone; we want our audience to become our company and feel a sense of freedom and playfulness. We believe theatre provides a space to think and create together as an ensemble and with the audience. We recognize theatre as a way to express and explore ourselves, and connect with people. We create work which includes audience participation because we would like them to think with us in a creative and safe place. The Ensemble creates through devised practice to play with different materials such as text, movement, games, and workshops.

Programme Note

Welcome to the graveyard, where ghosts tend to be. We will guide you on a journey like no other. An important question will be answered and a few ghosts will be busted. In this performance, we encourage ourselves and others to take things from our past and better understand them through theatre. We work through workshops to deliver this show exclusively for you – don’t miss out! Our performance will take a look into the ghosts which have haunted us throughout our lives. Some of them will be weird, some funny, and others that have a deeper meaning. We want everyone to feel safe and comfortable to share whatever type of ghost they have. In the end, we want you to so-called "bust" your ghost. So, will you join us on your trip through the graveyard? Become an official ghostbuster

Digital Theatre - 3rd year

This module allows students to explore the developing area of telematic performance from a theoretical and practical perspective. Drawing on digital performance practices from the 1960s to the present day, students investigate and develop new collaborative performances in the context of remote and digital working. Driven by the move to online performance at industry level, this module investigates questions of performance in a digital environment from creation to collaborative practice to reception.

Amber Murray - Final Assessment

Claudia Kelly - Final Assessment

Euan Paterson

devising - 2nd year

In this module students develop the necessary skills to create original theatre, giving them the opportunity to make their own work and explore subjects without the restrictions of a script. Tutors introduce students to the principles and pedagogies of devising. They experience a variety of devising practices ranging from director-led to non-hierarchical collaboration and participatory performance. They critically reflect on the diverse approaches to devising via independent research and their own practice throughout.

Don't Sleep!

Ensemble: Gemma Templeton, Nikolaos Pavlantis, Sophie Henry, and Anna Young

The thrilling journey of a sleepover. Our troublesome trio take on the terrors of being home alone, stuck with a little sister of course! Free from the control of parents, these kids run wild. What could go wrong when three fourteen year olds are faced with their past memories, but are those memories as real as they feel? Who knows what’s crawling in the past?

FLASH

Ensemble: Jay Brown, Leah O’Neil, Zahra McGinney, and Joseph O’Connor

The purpose of this piece is to convey the requirement and withdrawal internet devices have on this generation. In our collective, we show the paradox that can come from an addiction to cyber validation.

This is a no-dialogue piece, so physical theatre is

included to show the constant want from consumers. We want the audience to relate, being a consumer of content that we know is unethical. The focus is to make the audience feel almost guilty because as a society we expect to see too much of people’s time and private life.

2100

Ensemble: Kirsty McAdam, Aidan Toland, Ellie Donaghy, and Hannah Reader

True or False: By the year 2100 there is a 3% chance the entirety of humanity will be extinct?

RAFT and other extracurricular projects

RAFT is our student lead theatre company, who with the support of the University work on multiple productions every year. This year RAFT produced multiple new writing - scratch nights, a production of Antigone and multiple student lead workshops.

An exciting collaboration that took place at our Ayr Campus this year is the one with Shakespeare on Toast where our students worked on Pericles on the Seas.

These performances are the latest event from the De-Centred Shakespeares Network.

This is a group of theatre makers and academics comprising of Creative Producer Ben Crystal, Henry Bell and Stephen Collins at the University of West Scotland (UWS) and theatre companies Cena IV-Shakespeare Company, based in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Salaam Shakespeare Naatak Company, based in Mumbai, India; and Act For Change, based in Jamestown, Ghana.

Each company was invited to film a scene from Shakespeare's Pericles, adapting the text as they saw fit, into their own language(s), and shooting on the streets (or seas) of their community, all in one shot, no editing.

Ben Crystal worked with the students of UWS to create adaptations of the Gower Chorus pieces, to offer links between the three global films. These were both filmed, and live-performed. The filmed versions are the first take, each unscripted, devised, improvised in the moment of filming. In the opening Gower piece, the students played the game, "if you don’t hold a light you hold the storytelling stick."

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