University of Canterbury

What we do

We study theatre and film as performing arts and as cultural processes in order to provoke a more direct understanding of ourselves as participants in, and as performers and consumers of, culture. Theatre and Film Studies students are encouraged to work both as artists and as scholars at all levels: to read and think and write, but also to create, to act and direct, and to shoot and edit films.

Our approach is interactive and interdisciplinary, incorporating literary, historical, aesthetic, philosophical, psychoanalytic and socio-political theories from the twin perspectives of the artist and the spectator/reader, through the experiences of doing and watching as well as through the processes of intellectual inquiry and research.

Students are encouraged to work both as scholars and as artists at all levels: to read and think and write, but also to create, to act and direct and edit. Ideally, students study both theatre and film, as these disciplines have in common various theories of genre, representation and performance, as well as the practices of acting and directing.

Theatre and film studies courses integrate theory and practice, with performance and digital film work serving as grounds for scholarly writing and all research having the potential to provoke artistic experimentation.

Images from Passion, Pulse, Power.

Free Theatre's Distraction Camp toured Wellington.

 

Quicklinks

Time to Enrol for Semester Two

Enrolments are open for Semester Two 2012. Come talk to us about your plans. Here are the courses starting in July: TAFS105 Puppets, Animated Film and Gaming (also TAFS322, more info below), TAFS232 Theatre: Realism and Beyond, TAFS242 Popular and Art Film (also TAFS321). You can find us upstairs in Fine Arts Block 2, by phone on 03 364 2580 or by emailing Greta Bond.

New Stage One Course

TAFS105 Puppets, Animated Film and Gaming
An introduction to the performance of the inanimate through theatre, film and digital technologies. No experience necessary. Includes practical work. Click on the course title link above for further information. This course is also available at a senior level as TAFS322 Special Topic: Puppets, Animated Film and Gaming.

Postgraduate Study

Theatre and Film Studies is interviewing now for Masters and PhD. Contact Sharon Mazer for details. See Current and Completed Theses.

News and Announcements

Just Announced!
Associate Professor Peter Falkenberg, senior lecturer in Theatre and Film Studies, has won the prestigious University Teaching Award in recognition of teaching excellence. Congratulations Peter!

Hereafter Wins Award
Hereafter has just returned from the Dunedin Fringe Festival, where it beat out companies such as Footnote Dance Company to win entrance to the 2013 Adelaide Festival, including free registration to the festival. According to the Judges "this bold and challenging work is compelling theatre of the highest calibre".

I Sing The Body Electric
Free Theatre's collaboration with the HITLab is set to be taken further. This work, a follow on from December's Passion, Pulse, Power, is planned for June 2012.

But still our song is sung
Associate Professor Sharon Mazer, TAFS Department Co-ordinator, will speak at the NZ School of Music in Wellington on 30 March from 1:30 – 3:00pm in room MS209 on "Staging vitality in the (post-)colonial frame at Te Matatini Maori Performing Arts Festival".

We'd like to congratulate the following staff and postgrads:

• Dr Ryan Reynolds and Coralie Winn (BA Hons TAFS) for being named "Local Heroes" (Christmas edition of The Press), for the success of their ongoing post-quake initiative Gap Filler.
• Coralie Winn for being named a "One News Good Sort" in recognition of her work as co-founder and director of Gap Filler.
• Associate Professor Peter Falkenberg, for directing Passion, Pulse, Power, a work in progress performed by Free Theatre in December. Thanks also to collaborating staff and postgrads of TAFS, and the University's HIT Lab for their contributions. Next: I Sing the Body Electric.
• Tony McCaffrey, PhD student, on his upcoming paper to be given at Performance Studies international 18 in Leeds, for his invitation to contribute to a Performance Research publication on 'Back to Back Theatre', for his paper to be given at IFTR-FIRT in Santiago and for his theatre company, A Different Light, who will perform Still Lives at Ludus Festival Leeds.
  
• Shannon O'Brien, on the successful completion, with distinction, of his Masters thesis; “Jump Cutting: Tracing Parkour as Invisible Spectacle Through the Filmic City.” Best of luck in New York Shannon!
• Associate Professor Sharon Mazer, on the recent publication of articles in Theatre Annual, Australasian Drama Studies, Popular Entertainment Studies and Performance Research, as well as two international papers.
• Marian McCurdy, PhD student in TAFS, on having her article accepted for the April 2012 edition of Australasian Drama Studies Journal. The article, about Bruce Mason's early plays, is co-authored with Professor Dick Corballis.
• Dr Mark Hamilton, on his appointment to the role of Senior Lecturer - World Stages (non-Western practice), at the London School of Film, Media and Performance, Regent's College. Mark recently completed his PhD with us.
• Dr George Parker, for his involvement with the post-quake arts advocacy group, Arts Voice Christchurch.
• Associate Professor Sharon Mazer, who has been appointed the inaugural convenor of the New Zealand Universities Committee for Theatre/Performance Research.
• Dr Ryan Reynolds, on his election to the role of President of the New Zealand Federation of Film Societies and Asia-Pacific Group Secretary of the International Federation of Film Societies. He has also recently become a member of the New Zealand Film Festival Trust Board, which runs two festivals, the NZ International Film Festival and the World Cinema Showcase.