Theatre Arts Course Descriptions

COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

 

THA 101:  Traditional African Theatre

A study of traditional theatre in Africa as a non-written drama and artistic form found in various African communities and as a form of theatre evolving from the festival in its various contexts and settings.

 

THA 111:  Introduction to Drama and Theatre in the World

Introduces the beginner student to the nature of drama and theatre, explaining the fundamental distinctions between concepts in various environments in the world.  Evidence and examples are drawn from non-written traditions (of various world communities) from festivals, rituals until the ‘institution’ of formally built-up stages, theatre houses and arenas.  Emphasis is laid on the evolution of social conventions operating in those venues to create both ‘literature’ and ‘performance’.

 

THA 112:  Comparative Traditions of World Theatres

This course examines and compares the conceptions and evolutions of World theatres from the Western world through Africa and the Orient to Oceania to underscore the broad street of ‘traditions’ which differentiate and underscore similarities in what people call ‘theatre’, ‘performance’ and ‘work’, culminating in various concepts of entertainment and cultural tourism.

 

 

THA 122:  Basic Performance Skills

In this course, graded exercises in the practice Studio and field information are used to impart basic artistic skills and stimulate the imaginative properties of the beginning actor and performer.  Use of body; awareness of space in specified methods – Stanislavskian, Suzukian and Labanesque characterizations are employed and explained.

 

THA 131:  Basic Theatre Design and Crafts

This course studies the fundamentals of the major arms of theatre crafts in order to relate scene, sound, lighting, costume, make-up and masks to the requirements of a text to be put on stage in a controlled design procedure.  How to draw a design; how to alter a design; use of accessories; how to repair; how to build, paint, fit, decorate, budget – all are examined as basic issues.

 

THA 132:  Trends in Theatre Design and Technologies

The course examines trends in conceiving designs for theatrical productions and explores the diverse scientific bases for ground planning, and models of designing stages.  The elements of theatrical design – colour, form, line, and texture are studied, and then applied with technical principles – contrast, rhythm, unity, emphasis, pattern, movement, space and balance – necessary to establish a total staging design.

 

THA 142:  Introduction to Dance Theatre in Africa

Entertainment has taken a variety of forms in African Theatre – East, West, North and South. One of the fastest growing independent forms is dance theatre, a conglomerate of music, song, movement, and spectacle as in the opening of COJA 2003 or any big games.  The course offers technical and practical training in dance and movements. It involves exposure to the history and sociology of dance steps and patterns from across Nigeria and parts of Africa and how these could be harnessed in modern theatrical dance idioms and practices.

 

 

 

THA 151:  Basic Speech and Communication for Stage and the Media.

Vocal awareness leads to self-discovery.  The human vocal mechanism through the use of sound, vocal range, interpretive devices, and techniques communicates in dramatic performance.  Voice is integrated to body as actors hold the stage.  Course involves methods of voice training to ensure the actor, public speaker, newscaster or radio presenter achieves optimum performance.

 

THA 152:  Introduction to Media Arts

This course introduces the student to the arts of the Radio, Television and Print Media Drama. The history of radio and television, the use of newspapers to serialize dramatic writing especially as cartoon strips, from the Western world into Africa and the Orient is underscored. The dynamics of programming and production, influence of proprietors of media, the politics of control and censorship are all examined to prepare the student for the ‘difficult’ years of responsible media arts practice.

 

THA 153:  Communication Models in Theatre and Media

Theatre and the electronic media are essentially arenas for sharing ideas, opinions, messages and cultural information. In an era when communicating the ideas and messages has assumed centre stage, it becomes imperative to examine the patterns of that kind of communication peculiar to theatre and mediated channels.  Models as preparation for future semiotic emphasis become a sine-qua-non, and a thorough understanding of the embracement of flow and feedback is necessary.  This course focuses on all the models for achieving these.

 

THA 161:  Participation Orientation

Right from 1st Year, theatre studies students are required to take part in practical productions of plays in the Department’s season of plays calendar.  The course initiates the new student into the complex and composite arts of play production. The student encounters and learns from the artistic, technical and managerial challenges that characterize a play production. They are thus encouraged to find their métier in one or more diverse areas.

 

THA 162:  Basic Theatre Administration and Management

Graduates of theatre studies will eventually come to specialize in the application of theatre principles and theories to education, management and policy guidelines for their kind of physical theatre house in an environment with special challenges. This course introduces the student to the preliminaries of structure, organographies, resource management and the basic rules of conduct that govern theatre business.

 

THA 202:  History of Drama and Theatre: 1850 – Present Day

A historical survey of the evolution of drama and theatre practice with their socio-economic factors since 1850. The concept of Modernism and Postmodernism in theatre is explored through the various conventions and contexts of Romanticism, Naturalism, Realism, Impressionism, Expressionism, Symbolism, Dadaism, Absurdism and allied ‘isms’ and performance approaches that characterize the theatre of the later 20th Century and the 21st Century with its emergent paradigms and dimensions.

 

THA 211:  Dramatic Literature and Criticism

This course teaches the student the theories which prominent critics have used to analyze, assess and establish the seminal importance of plays written by prominent playwrights from Sophocles through Bernard Shaw to Wole Soyinka.  It therefore traces the development of literary criticism from its roots in Classical and Medieval theory to the controversies of the present day.  Standpoints associated with major critics are examined in their respective historical contexts.  Even the lesser writers who enlivened debate are examined.

 

THA 212:  Colonization and Indigenous Theatres

A chronological study of indigenous theatrical activity in Africa, Europe Asia and Latin America where foreign forces had dominated in a colonial kind of culture shows that institutions, practices and social life were variously modified or redirected by the colonizers’ impositions.  This course studies the trend worldwide and compares the African experience from events in Churches, Concert Parties and Minstrels to the latest pop groups.

 

THA 213:  Critical Perspectives in Theatre History:  Renaissance to 19th Century

The Industrial Revolution with new technologies had repercussions in Europe and beyond which ushered nationalisms and modern theatres.  This course surveys the interactions of theatre with cultures and politics of the period of Renaissance to the 19th Century that produced revolutionary social change in view of intellectual canons from Darwin, Karl Marx, the Slave Trade; Revolutionary Wars that led to Romanticism, Melodrama, Minstrel shows, Acting companies, the rise of the Theatre Director, new Theatre architecture and Designs.

 

THA 214:  Fundamentals of Script Writing

An examination of scripting and plot devices, characterization, theme and language in creating and writing a dramatic script.  Exercises will be used to develop and test the student’s grasp of fundamental principles in a  few practical individual as well as group written scripts to expose how character is created, situation established, theme expanded, conflict created, intensified and resolved and language made suitable to all aspects of the script.

 

THA 215:  Basic Film Analysis and Appreciation

An introductory exploration into the art and world of films. Students are guided to understand the various genres and formats of films. The students will analyze different films to dissect their contents as narrative texts, understand the industrial nature of films, its raw materials, the political economy of its production, distribution and consumption and thereby learn how to view and comprehend its artistic, managerial and technical complexities as a powerful medium of communication.

 

THA 231:  Rudiments of Directing

A study of the fundamental mechanics of directing for the stage, taking cognizance of the ever-changing demands of the 21st Century theatre. The director’s approach to play analysis and application of the six visual tools of ground plan, composition, picturization, movement, rhythm and pantomimic dramatization are emphasized. The student is initiated to techniques and research resources available to the director in interpreting texts and communicating meaning to a variety of audiences in the age of ever-changing technology and societal preoccupations. Students finally select short plays, sketches or long scenes from a full-length play and try their hands as individual or small group directing practical work for the course.

 

THA 233:  Design Concepts in Performance Spaces

Performance theatres now come in a wide variety: from traditional proscenium to all-purpose and experimental spaces, thrust, arena, ‘created’ or ‘found’ space, multifocus and online learning centres.  The course teaches the student designer the various technologies and approaches employable to meet adequately the demands of these varieties of performance spaces whether in fixed or mobile camping and travelling theatre contexts.  Sound, lighting, scenographic and costume technologies are the challenge. The course also studies the dominance of the proscenium stage in production plans and venues since theatre performing companies made theatres commercial ventures and the architecture of interiors began fusing features of different architecture and expanding seating capacities.  Emphasis is equally laid on model making, ground plans, and the general configuration of spaces from indoor to outdoor.

 

THA 242:  Costume and Appearance Designs: From Festive Spectacle to Carnival

In recent years the basic spectacles of the festival and carnival have become central entertainment features at specific seasons and occasions: from New Yam Festivals to Christmas, Easter and allied cultural extravaganza featuring theatrical processions in a fusion of eclectic social and cultural mixes.  This course directs the students’ attention to the use of specialized costumes and designs to enhance suitable visual appearance in these events.

 

THA 243:  Improvisation and Dance Organization

The stage performer moving in space is not a robot, but an emotionally, physically and verbally motivated thinking mind.  This course on improvisation and dance organization helps the students to explore their imagination in providing artistic solutions to extemporaneous demands of performance by focusing on specific techniques of imparting meaning through the creative use of the body involving rhythm, levels, zones, floor patterns and any other available resources. These resources may include the oral text or scenario, calculated movements in space and time, voice, music, properties, costumes and allied technical elements.

 

THA 252:  Fundamentals of Radio, Television and Film Production

This course enables the student to appreciate the nuances and application of characteristic electronic media communication designs to examine audio-visual production styles as they are suited to radio broadcast, television presentation, filmic rendition and news documentary and reading.  The use of a variety of media, equipment and studio environments are emphasized.

 

THA 261:  Theatre-in-Education and the Community

Theatre and theatrical methods nowadays play vital roles in curricular subjects at school and in social development plans in the community. In this course, the student is taught to use creative techniques in drama games, role-playing, story-telling, to teach children and adolescents to adjust to the environment and be better balanced citizens of their community. Practical field work is emphasized.

 

THA 262:  Administering Theatre in Educational             Establishments

From the primary and secondary schools into the tertiary, there is need to master the principles of administration of an established theatre concern or organization.  The classroom delivers its challenges.  The community of social intermixture possesses its own problems. This course aims to initiate the student administrator into the rules of the game of interpreting policy in these areas.

 

THA 264:  Production Participation

In this course, students are put under a supervisor who oversees and monitors their individual efforts to aspire to be directors, actors, dancers, singers/composers, technical experts, studio or stage mangers, house managers, box-office managers, publicity managers, costume/make-up/ light/sound/special effects designers, and other crew work in Departmental Productions.

 

THA 311:  African Drama and Theatre: Home and Diaspora

The course is a study of how ritual, myth, history and sociology have been used by Africans in the post-colonial or post independence periods to construct their own peculiar dramatic modes, forms and styles in Africa today.  Group classification is unique; production procedures are peculiar; presentational modes are invoked, music and dance, text and audience role are emphasized.

 

THA 313:  Production Workshop

A study and experience of practical theatre production in all its facets and dimensions. Students are taught, guided and intensively supervised to collectively create a play, produce, act, direct, design and manage its production and presentation. Emphasis is placed on professionalism in the key areas of production: artistic, technical and managerial/administrative departments.

 

THA 315:  Theatre, Arts and Culture in Public Relations and Tourism

In this age of the Internet and the global village world, cultural exchanges via public relations; tours and hospitality industries; re-discovery of the place of beauty pageants and sightseeing in historic places and monuments have been keyed into civilization.  Theatre can be a focal point as costume cultures, performance, entertainment and relaxation are deployed as part of cultural tourism. Furthermore, international visitors to countries other than their own always look forward to, and look out for unadvertised cultures of their host country. In these tourism and hospitality guided days with the Tinapas, Ranches and Resorts around, it is necessary to bring theatre via high clubs, comic entertainment and artistic displays to promote pleasure and industry.  Students study these phenomena.

 

 

THA 322:  Script Analysis and Interpretation for Performance

By the use of dramatic texts of various genres and periods of history and from widely separated cultures, the student learns how the play script constitutes the blueprint and foundation for the theatrical event.  How the themes, aesthetic values, artistic expertise that enable the student to interpret and articulate ideas from the text for performance are emphasized.

 

THA 324:  Techniques of Radio/TV/Film Directing and Production

This is a study of the practical application of the models of composition and picturization of varying approaches employed by renowned Radio/TV/Film Directors and Producers.  Specific productions are selected for study, and students learn to become video cameramen, lighting and sound designers, location managers, editors, studio managers, producers, directors, crew members and produce their own feature or documentary genre at the end.

 

THA 331:  Organizing Performance Space in Oriental and African Festivals

The performance space in Africa and the Orient seem always expansive.  Mammoth and Olympic size celebrations and events have been inherited from festivals.  This course re-examines the organizing principles that manage such huge spaces successfully.

 

THA 332:  Principles of Adaptation

This course teaches the students how to create drama out of historical, mythical and legendary sources, fictions, narrative focus with emphasis on meaningful, in-depth action, character realization and situational relevance from Shakespeare to Soyinka.  Examples from centuries and fables are noted.  The class submits and produces their own adapted ‘script’ at the end.

 

THA 341:  Community Theatre for Development

This course focuses on the theory and practice of community/popular theatre for development in Africa and other parts of the world. Theoretical work consists of populist and developmental methodologies in theatre with host communities by Boal, Brecht, Kidd, Freire, Etherton, Abah, Wa Thiong’o, Colleta etc. The practical work requires intensive participation in TfD project(s) in or outside the University community. Plays created in the exercise are performed at the site with host volunteers for the village or community audience. The plays are also documented during performance in audio-visual formats for reference and transcription into scripts.

 

THA 342:  Dance Theatre in the World

This course is a comparative study of Dance Theatres in the continents of Africa, Europe and Asia, using specific examples from repertories and the different forms found in them.  It involves dance analysis and critique, identification and study of movement theories, similarities and dance notation. The works of known troupes from Ogunde to Kurt Jooss and Suzuki are deployed.

 

THA 343:  Set and Lighting Design for Stage and Screen

Scenic and lighting design undergoes fast and tremendous metamorphosis in tune with fast changing technologies of the present age. The student concentrates on the basic principles of scenic and lighting design to explore functions, styles, aesthetics and procedures for scenic and lighting design for the stage, studio or TV/movie set. By the end of the course, the student should be able to conceive, to record and to supervise the execution of scenic and lighting visions to suit the environments and demands of stage and screen productions.

 

THA 344:  Costume and Make-Up Design for Stage and Screen

The students follow the history and evolution of various styles of costuming and make-up through the ages. In the process, they study how national, regional, ethnic, racial and emergent popular traditions of dressing, textiles, cosmetology, fashion trends influence the conception of costuming and make-up through the ages up to the present time. In particular, the students study how these phenomena affect the visual design and appearance of characters in modern films and stage productions. The ideals of sketching, match-ups, fittings, highlights, accessories and finishing are noted and underscored as well.

 

 

THA 351:  Audio-visual Communication for the Young

This course focuses on the use of audio-visual resources in creating dramatic and theatrical programmes for the education and development of children and young people.  The course inculcates Radio/TV/Filmic/Stage production techniques and approaches for children, teenagers and young adults.  Illustrations can be made from local to international productions – from storytelling to dance/music and cartoons. Cartoons are catchy for children and the young.  Illustrative tales, moonlight dramatizations of folksy tales, story-telling rotations can be videoed and used to check the proclivity of Nigerian’s young to foreign, deleterious cultures.  The pristine values of the local language, customs, mores and manners are re-focused for them.

 

THA 352:  News Design, Broadcast and Documentary Procedures

This course teaches the methods of designing news for broadcast and credibility, and defines the procedures from reporter in the field to the newscaster in the studio or final print at the newsstands.

 

THA 361:  Studio Management for the Performing Arts

Using the examples and models of past master managers of notable studios and repertories, the students are taught the principles of management, leadership and initiative-taking in the performing arts, be it dance, drama, or dance-drama on stage and the electronic media.

 

THA 366:  Research Methods and the Style Manual in Theatre Studies

Research is an ordered inquiry.  In current application, research in theatre studies is assuming a multi-disciplinary venture.  The course aims at identifying various methodologies for collecting, analyzing and interpreting data in research investigations. It is important also for students to understand and master the various existing and current style manuals for research documentation in writing long essays, thesis and scholarship research report.

 

 

 

THA 411:  Contemporary Drama and Theatre

An intensive, in-depth study of current world plays and the kinds of theatres for which they are written.  The course underscores social, philosophical and political implications of the different, identifiable genres of plays.  Plays shall be selected representatively from continents, Movements and periods.

 

THA 412:  Critics and Theoreticians in Africa

This course balances personalized visions and directions of African theatre and film critics and writers who have enunciated theories and concepts derived from the informing archetypal myths of the African worldviews and environment.

 

THA 413:  Theories of Dramatic Criticism

A study of the various approaches to evaluation, general principles of judgment and deduction of leading ideas which distinguish drama from other literary art forms since Aristotle.

 

THA 414:  Culture and Politicization of Performance in Africa

From its earliest history in festivals, carnivals and puppet shows, theatre has battled with the content of entertainment and the views of the ruling powers in the society.  As the arts have grown into a culture and an industry, government and religious bodies have tended to view entertainment with an ambivalent sight. This course underscores those circumstances when art as entertainment has both inadvertently and purposefully treaded on grounds that provoke political aggressive incursion that may result in arrests, imprisonments, exile, or even death for the practitioner in Africa from Colonial into Post-independence eras of activity.

 

THA 415:  Seminar in Theatre and Film Studies

This is a course in which students select a topic from any area of theatre and film studies – history, criticism, dramaturgy and design, performing arts and media, education and administration, dance and choreography, film production issues and trends – and, in 1- 15 pages discuss and enunciate a personal vision of the topic area.  Presentation of the seminar will be in the main specialization area before the panel of assessors.  The write-up must conform to the prescriptions of the Departmental Style Manual, specifying the MLA Style.

 

THA 417:  Studies in Dramatic Literature

This course encourages and teaches students to see how major playwrights from Sophocles to Soyinka have used literary as opposed to performed drama as literature to reflect socio-historical ideas, economic determinants of the art of writing, the major cultural evolutions, and the politics and intellectual traditions and values of society.  Named and specific texts can be used to emphasize literary merit.

 

THA 422: Directors and Performing Companies Since 1960

This course identifies major theatre directors in both ‘popular’ and ‘elitist’ traditions within the performing companies or troupes that they fostered, toured with, and how they redefined entertainment and culture in Nigeria after the Colonial period.  The companies include rural, urban, community and educational institutions-based groups.  The life and goals of companies for sustainability are examined.

 

THA 424:  Major Nigerian Playwrights

Since 1960 when literature creators and independence from colonialism re-spelled ‘Nigeria’, there has evolved an admixture of ethnodrama, ethnomusicals, concert drama, minstrel and literary theatre by pioneer writers in their evolution and practice.  This course studies the major players in this writing explosion to see the major axes along which established (and emergent) theatre writers in Nigeria have operated and what they have achieved so far. Named writers, male and female, shall be emphasized and balanced such that ‘mainstream’ is balanced with ‘marginal’ and generational gaps explored.

 

THA 425:  Adaptation and Story Dramatization

A study of how to create drama out of existing historical, mythical and  legendary tales, fiction, real-life events, narrative poems in the heroic and non-heroic traditions, with emphasis on meaningful, in-depth courses of action, characterization, parodies, transpositions, transliterations, reinterpretation and situation reshaping to give themes perennial  values.

 

THA 426:  Experimental Directing

From emphasizing the two standard approaches – the artistic and the creative to routine directing in the theatre, the course departs to reveal ‘experimentation’ and ‘eclecticism’ of approaches so as to achieve many more dimensions of the relation between playwright and director as they bring social meaning to an audience via text and  performance.

 

THA 427:  Dimensional Dramaturgy

A study of play-writing as art to suit the dimensions of stage, radio and television/film dramatic construction principles with emphasis on character and plot development, and the achievement  of contrast and  variety.  The student shall complete a dramatic script in one of the areas/dimensions with emphasis on the nuances of aesthetics of each area.  It may be required that the play resulting be practically analyzed and put up as a ‘medium show’.

 

THA 428:  Spatial Organization and Aesthetic Effects in African Theatre

Theatre thrives on a composite of beauty-making to animate performance in a stage space. This course focuses on the totality of visual design elements, concepts and the perceptions of colours and scenes, within diverse spaces in which the dramatic action takes place in the African theatrical traditions with all its multifarious and dynamic character.

 

THA 429:  Improvisation and the Minstrel Tradition in Africa

The one-man/group Minstrel Shows have grown in Africa and shown how multi-dimensionality in performance could be achieved and managed. Improvisation requires imagination. In this course, the student minstrel-improvisator-to-be is taught actions and exercises that encompass the dramatic play and creative drama when used in rehearsals and the creative process.  Examples may be drawn from Nigeria’s Lari Williams, Funsho Adeolu, Greg Mbajiogu, Danny Hoch’s Solo work, and Laurie Anderson’s verbal textures in imaginative communication of song and storytelling.  Even the humour and visual language of dramatized trickster storytelling involving the tortoise, the spider form the core of the native mythos as in Jamaican Thomas Osha Pinnock’s homeland folktales and myths and West Africa’s numerous epic singers of tales (storytelling theatres).

 

THA 432:  Control Systems in the Computer Age

Classical control systems use ‘standard’ lighting plans, instruments and gadgetry to achieve defined aims in various production contexts.  Theatrical production has grown enormously complex and complicated.  New trends in communicating meaningful aesthetics have arrived, especially with digital technologies. This course teaches the use of digital (computerized) control systems in the new context to manage lights, sound, intercommunication and allied instruments in panoramic festival and carnival situational productions, in music and  pop entertainment contexts, in dance-halls, pageants, variety entertainment shows and night club settings.

 

THA 433:  Studies in Technical Directing

This course teaches diverse uses of state-of-the art technologies to direct the science and craft of technical theatre within a context of production. Beyond routine scene blockings, script analyses, orienting actors, there are the technicalities of floorplan routines, design concepts and physicalities of stage architecture, crew management, production machinery and embellishments which require coordination, supervision and control for optimal impact.

 

THA 434:  Design Formalism

This course is designed to impart practical skills in the application of varying styles of constructivism and formalism to Realist and non-Realist production design, using principles, elements, facades and perspectives derived from architecture and general design.

 

THA 435:  Architectural Designs and Theatre Houses

The course studies how the architect’s functional use of space and structures can serve the theatre designer who has to build theatre houses at given sites using ordinary local materials. Both the historical alliance and the present interdependence of the artist’s and architect’s skills are underscored in an age when engineering, urban planning and political decisions on culture are prominent.

 

THA 437:   Advanced Costume, Masks and Make-Up

This course identifies costume, masks and make-up design as vital resources for reinforcing theatrical meaning and spectacle. It focuses on how to create and apply costumes, masks, make-up and accessories to highlight visual appearance and enhance dramatic action. Types of costumes and make-up and how they blend into concepts and styles of performance; elements and resources for creating costumes and make-up; fabrics, textiles, substances, and interfacing demands of fitting, blending and characterization shall be studied.

 

THA 442:  Evolution of Musical Dance Theatre: From Vaudeville to Opera

This course explores the different forms of dance and music theatre from Vaudeville to Opera. The works of Kurt Jaoss, (Green Table Ballet), Rudolph Laban, Valeska Gert, Susanne Linke, Reinhild Hoffman and Dieta Baumann are  compared to those of Miriam Makeba, Meki Nzewi, Eldred Fiberesima, Sammy Akpabot, Mike Ejeagha and Nelly Uchendu to underscore the process of evolutions.

 

THA 443:  Dance Kinesiology

An introductory course in principles of kinesiology for dance. Students learn concepts and principles of anatomy, physiology and movement analysis using dance as the reference model. This course will stress structural and neuromuscular analysis of the human body as it responds to the demands of dance. It focuses on human movement in relation to the human body as an intricate instrument for performance. The course incorporates studies in dance movement and techniques in relation to body joints, skeletal and muscle control and awareness, neuromuscular capacities, evaluation of motor skills as well as postural adjustments to dance, safety and dance injury prevention. The works of Sally Sevey (Dance Kinesiology), Daniel Arnheim (Dance injuries, prevention and care), Kenneth Laws (Physics of Dance) Elklen Kreighbaum and Katherine Barthels (Biomechanics and Human Movement) will form part of key reference materials for the course.

 

THA 444:  Dance Development in Africa and the Diaspora

For hundreds of years, mankind has danced, from the sympathetic magical open camp dances of the earliest peoples, to the Ameri-Indian Hopi, to the Igbo Ohafia War dance and Omambala Egbenuoba Hunting dance, and up until modern days of great feats of feet and voice in Rock and Jazz bands of the Duke Ellington, The Beatles and others. The evolutionary and generational Pop, Hip-Hop and Afro-fusion Medley dance metamorphoses of today’s Michael Jackson, MC Hammer, Daddy Showkey, P-Square, Yahooze and emergent dance-performers are also underscored. An analysis of the impact of Satellite TV music and dance channels (Channel O, MTV Base, Trace) and dance competition programmes like Maltina Dance All etc. on dance development are also highlighted.

 

THA 445:  Advanced Dance Workshop

A course in elaboration, extempore, styles, techniques, formations and the use of inspired routines created to polish dance, character and sensuality with dynamic flare/flair, thus promoting musical theatre and its specialized dance. It stresses spontaneous and elaborate exploration of movement potentials and possibilities in varied themes and concepts. It inculcates practical group composition and presentations in formulated themes utilizing all paraphernalia associated with dance.

 

THA 452:  Nigerian Media Performers and Performance

Graduates of theatre studies in Nigeria today find jobs in the Nollywood film culture prototyped on American Hollywood and Indian Bollywood. Performance is commercialized. The performers have essayed to build roles and typical identities from ‘Zebrudaya’ to Basi and Company’ to Pete Edochie and RMD.  This course gathers the pioneer performers, categorizes them and assesses their cultured, political, social and entertainment value impacts.

 

 

THA 453:   Principles and Practices of Radio/TV Production and Programming

A course that teaches students the principles and practice of Radio/TV production, commercial Radio/TV production, with their appropriate designs, sound control, marketing strategies and budget management. Students also learn Community Radio programme production. At the end a student produces either a full length radio or TV programme.

 

THA 455:  Film Studies

Although traditional cinema houses with their Indian films and American western fares seem to have disappeared, Nigerians are still making feature, documentary and other genre of films for specified purposes.  This course sets out the history and probes the development of filmmaking, participations in local and international Film Festivals and evaluates the prospects for a sustainable film-making industry in Africa in this technology-driven Century practice.

 

THA 456:  Stardom: The Syndrome and Psychology

The concept of the ‘star’ player on radio, television and film productions started with the stage play star.  This course examines the ‘Star Cult’ with emphasis on the historical and historic rise (and fall) of stars in that ‘industry of desire’ which is media, stage and film performer’s life and career.  Examples will be drawn from all over the world.

 

THA:  457:  Industrial Theatre and Community Viewing Centres

This course studies the theoretical and practical systems whereby the administration and management of theatre as industry can be enhanced through productive community viewing. It explores how responsibilities and decisions are shared. Students go out to the field, undertake any primary live-in work experience for a stipulated space of time and submit a report.

 

THA 462:  Project Research and Writing

The course is a research project of the final year in which a student submits a reasoned Long Essay in a selected practical or theoretical area of theatre arts and in not more than Sixty (60) pages, typed double spaced on quarto-size wood-free paper, and bound, together with reference notes, cited works and appendixes and illustrations, following the prescriptions in the Department Style Manual and working under an assigned Supervisor.  A coordinator collects all the students’ submissions following a well-defined calendar, so as to conclude before all other written final year courses examinations.  An External Examiner vivas the students at the end and grades them in conjunction with the Departmental Board of Examiners.

 

THA 463:  Dramatic Techniques for the Classroom

Teaching, at all levels from primary through secondary to tertiary, has always been characterized as a performing art. This course emphasizes the dramatic teaching methods which build confidence, examines planning and use of ordered work programmes, the charismatic person of the teacher and the deployment of audio-visual aids in subject projection and effective delivery to enhance learning. Students work with school children in a practical exercise from which they are assessed.

 

THA 464:  Perspectives on Igbo Drama and Theatre

The course focuses on perspectives on Igbo drama and theatre history, folklore, festivals, masking, storytelling, Civil War and Post War performance, art and cultural developments. Students will also study and analyse the emergence and growth or decline of Igbo artists and producers (at home and the Diaspora) in the electronic media (Radio, Television and film).

 

THA 465:  Theatre Therapy

All over the world, theatre has been acknowledged as a therapeutic medium for mentally and psychologically depressed persons. It has also been ascribed with healing powers for those suffering from diverse ailments. Beginning from its earliest application in primordial times as a healing resource through sympathetic magic, theatre in its various forms continues to gain relevance as potent therapy among various peoples, cultures, situations and environments. This course studies the trends as well as why and how it happens.

 

THA 466:  Children’s Theatre Education

In this course, students learn how to explore the dramatic imagination of young people by encouraging communication, awareness and interaction at various levels through movement, mime, song, dance and action. Practical tasks are assigned and evaluated both in selected schools in the community and at the Saturday Playhouse Project.

 

THA 468:  Gender in Performance

Performance, be it on stage or the electronic media is basically a presentation of people in action, living their lives as reflective of human society. Human relations and interactions reflected in dramatic and theatrical works focus on men and women in their dynamic relations. Gender is an analytic category and a pedestal on which society is placed and evaluated. Contrary to existing misconceptions, gender is not focused on the parochial interests of women but rather a broad canvas for studying, projecting and analyzing the relationship between men and women and their implications for societal development. This course studies gender undertones and overtones as reflected in contemporary performance within and across cultures.

 

THA 470:  Applied Theatre and Community Education

Theatre has always been an educational tool in various communities through the ages. As societies advance in economic and technological spheres, human existence becomes more complex. The course teaches the student the applicability of theatre as a social force and pedagogic tool in dealing with diverse challenges of community organisation, group dynamism and individual quest for knowledge and improvement in their living environment.

 

THA 471:  Advanced Studio Management

A practical exposition of the challenges of Studio Management in the electronic and stage media. The course incorporates floor management, studio organisation, trends in and care of technical equipment, human resource optimization, maintenance, funding and allied matters connected to managing the studio to achieve desired results. The students undertake field visits to various studios for hands-on experience and submit analytical reports.

THA 472:  Commercial Theatre

For years theatre was practised as a sideline or amateur and non-profit sideshow.  As tourism concepts have grown, it is clear that theatre in a capitalistic (and monetized) economy has immense commercial potential.  This course examines processes whereby theatre can be turned into a paying business to stem the tide of its demise, to emphasize prudent management principles, the drawing up and implementation of season time-table and calendars and entrenchment of entrepreneurial skills and tenets on theatre graduates. The course lays emphasis on transforming the arts of the theatre into viable and sustainable livelihood, creating skilled entrepreneurs capable of generating gainful employment for practitioners and attracting serious investment in the industry.

 

THA 473:  Creative Arts Promotion

Patronage is a cardinal element in the expression and survival of the creative arts as an industry and profession. The products of the creative arts, whether it is performative, visual, auditory or literary, need to be packaged and made available to the target consumers. This course focuses on the techniques and challenges of attracting audiences, investors, patrons and consumers and making the arts a sustainable vocation in a modern, industrializing society with diverse and dynamic tastes often influenced by technological advancements and social change.

 

THA 474:  Advanced Production Planning

The course is a study of the integral functions of the legal, artistic and commercial aspects of production as it is planned from text selection to the conclusion of the run. The course also incorporates the application of technologies in the enhancement of production planning and its running procedures to achieve desired objectives. Students will be required to submit a model plan with a full write-up.

 

THA 476:  Events Marketing and Management

Theatre performance is primarily an event and every human event in society has theatrical elements. All events involve people (performers, celebrants, audience, guests, hosts, tourists, press) that gather at a designated venue (theatre, hall, square, arena, pub, joint) for a scheduled or advertised programme or ceremony (performance, exhibition, festival, installation, wedding, funeral, launching, dedication, conference, workshop, campaign, rally, presentation, promotions, investiture, graduation etc.). The course is designed to equip the theatre graduate with the skills and techniques to safely and prudently manage and market public events to achieve desired goals to the satisfaction of guests and hosts. Allied issues such as event publicity/promotion and crowd management shall also be studied.

 

POOL OF OPTIONAL COURSES FOR VARIOUS LEVELS AND STRESS AREAS OF THE PROGRAMME

 

THA 102:  Theatre History: Beginnings to Medieval

An outline history of the theories of the origins and development of theatre and its practice from earliest ritual, oral and written traditions all over the world up to the Medieval times. Various contexts and texts will help focus attention on traditions of theatrical performance, concepts of stage house, play, and the social conventions that realized them.

 

THA 113:  Theatre History in Perspective: 500BC – 1800 AD

This course is essentially a historical survey of the history (500 BC – 1800 AD) of how myths, folklore, songs, riddles, parables and legends have grown into written plays accredited to well-known playwrights in various genres and styles of playwriting, to see whether ‘theatre’ ‘evolved’, ‘developed’ or was ‘made’/’crafted’ in various contexts in the world.

 

THA 164:  Workshop Participation

As further extension of the search for their strong skills and ideas development areas, students are encouraged to fully engage with directors in various areas of the practical production process in a play: From acting to house care and box office and design practices.  Each student submits a notebook/logbook record of such participation at the end.  The notes must reflect his/her understanding of the ‘philosophy’ of theatre in the Department by whatever concepts they are called.

 

THA 244:  Introduction to Kinesics and Dance Organization

From the 15thC to 2000AD, dance has emerged and dominated entertainment and education.  This course selects from the songs and music of a variety of dances – the ballet, volta, galliard, polka, high-life, rhumba, mazurka, swing, makossa, mambo, twist, disco, moon walk, hip-hop and country/western serving – to put a student into the world of kinesics and dance organization.

 

THA 266:  Pantomime, Puppetry and Animation Techniques

The special skills that are mime (pantomimes) and symbolism with the body alone on stage; the near acrobatic manipulation of puppets from traditional Nigerian Kwagh-hir to European Bread-and-Puppet Theatre; the enlivening of these and such other figures electronically as cartoons for children and commercial advertisements are essential to theatre today.  This course brings together all the techniques necessary to achieve practical excellence in these features of theatre.

 

THA 268:  Applied Theatre for Special People

There are hordes of challenged (or originally ‘handicapped’) persons in the society: from the delinquent child in the Remand Home to the hardened criminal in the National Prison, to the maimed, deaf, dumb and mentally unstable. This course, using essential tools of social acculturation and psychosocial tools employs techniques in theatre ways in which the student learns how to work successfully in any of such settings as persons like these are found.

 

THA 323:  Studies in Nigerian Video Film

In this course, students are divided into small working groups to review selected Nigerian Nollywood video films, study them as texts, critically dissect their merits and shortfalls and from that exercise learn how to direct for cameras, examine production styles and submit a model text as a video film director.

 

THA 333:  Jingle and Effects Design for Radio and Television

Since Radio lacks the visual, but Television is visual, special skills are needed by the director of a drama on either medium. Microphone types need special handling.  Sound effects by way of jingles and background support music must be invented, selected or borrowed or specially composed to fit the spirit and mood of the production.  Students submit an own work at the end.

 

THA 342:  Administering the Industrial Theatre in Africa

Industrial Theatre has been neglected in Africa.  This course re-defines industrial theatre, restores it to its central place, and insists that its survival can only be ensured when competent hands administer it. The course outlines the principles of such administering.

 

THA 353:  Advanced Radio/TV/Film Production Techniques

Here the student is taught the basic guidelines to the preparation of radio, or television, or film production.  They are taught collaboration, as well as individual working principles, they learn how to design and plan; how to handle the venue, how to determine content, make a budget, discover actor-performer talent and contract and negotiate the business with him/her; devise publicity and finally work out the marketing strategies.  In the end, student submits a 45-minute or 60 minute tape.

 

THA 369:  Theatre and Development Studies

Developmental issues now occupy middle ground in African and World affairs, from education to politics and governance. Theatre can be a useful medium for communicating methods and processes for change. Developing intellectual militancy may become a methodology for dialogue. The student learns how change and positive development embed in the mind and flower in community’s mutual understanding of each other’s culture and attitudes.

 

THA 439:  Plastic and Graphics Designs for Television Shows

Visual design is an essential aspect of Television production. The course provides avenues for students to learn the challenges and allied factors involved in creating graphics, captions, cue cards, idiot sheets, sets, décor, props, marionettes, puppets and dummies used in various television programmes and productions. Some examples can be drawn from the works of Inyang Emma, Alan Wurtzel and others. The course requires field visits to television studios, recording sessions and locations of television drama production for hands-on experience and practical tutorials. Students are expected to create their own design models and submit field trip reports.

 

THA 454:  Children’s Education on Radio and Television

As the media with a proliferation of programmes and an avalanche of channels have invaded society, a kind of war for young souls has been unleashed upon the child and the home. This course examines the impact of radio and television programmes (and the Internet and allied computer games) on children to see how to improve the media as a means of educating the child on the use, choice of programmes, and evaluation of what to see and hear and at what times.

 

THA 469:  Educational Theatre Research Methods

A study of scientific methodology for gathering, storing and analyzing data and information drawn from various educational sources: nurseries, primary schools, secondary schools and tertiary institutions, in order to build-up relevant curricular models for the enhancement of  education through drama.  The student submits a model report at the end.

 

THA 467:  Creative Dramatics

In this course the cumulative experiences of established Creative Dramatics proponents such as Dorothy Heathcote, Peter Slade, Brian Way, Edisua Oko- Offoboche, and Paul Caldwell are brought together to focus an approach to making Creative Dramatics relevant to Nigerian Schools, Homes, Prisons and Community Urban Entertainment Centres. A study of the application of Creative Dramatics process to sharpen the imaginative potentials of the young via improvisation, games theories, learning theories, narrative techniques by the teacher to shape and direct children participants especially in the pre-school and school-age periods of adolescence to adult development.  The role of the family, parental supervision, club and caucus effects is emphasized for meaningful social acculturation.

 

 

THA 458:  Advanced Film Production

An advanced study of the artistic technical and managerial demands of film and filmmaking. Students study the economic and allied factors that underpin film production as an industry from scripting to marketing of the finished product. The course requires some field work to experience the preproduction, production and postproduction processes at production outfits. The course is concluded with a student short or medium video-film production to be fully produced by the class. The DVD copies are to be submitted for grading. Such productions shall also constitute the base material for entries at Student Film Festivals such as BOBTV, Zuma, Lagos Film Festival and other National and International Student Film Festivals.