Theatre and Film Studies

Theatre and Film Studies

Faust Chroma

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

+64 3 364 2580, admin@tafs.canterbury.ac.nz
Theatre and Film Studies, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch. Contacts Page

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: