Introduction-to-Performance was a course elective devised by Gordon Douglas with members of the HND Contemporary Art Practice, Edinburgh College from Oct 2016 - Feb 2017. The course adopted a theatre shortlisting method, used by Total Theatre Awards, in order to rigorously debate the values of 150 historically significant performances towards a mutually selected shortlist of 10. Each week, members of the group were issued four works to independently research for the following week. Individuals returned to convey their four works to the rest of the group through storytelling, presentation or re-performance with the one condition that they must not use supporting images. The individual chose whether to discard or nominate the work for further discussion, at which point the work was respectively, either dropped, or designated to another member of the group for further research. The following week, the two considered the work, and decided together whether or not to nominate it. As the list distilled itself, an increasing number of group members had knowledge of the remaining material and were able to participate in the decision-making. Eventually, a shortlist of 10 was selected based on a habitualised group value system.
This online resource has been designed and built by Ben Callaghan, both as an archive for the research material accumulated, and as a performance score for anyone wishing to re-perform the course.
Introduction-to-Performance 2017 was:
Chris Coatham, Gordon Douglas, Aimee Mccallum, Georgia Mckinna, Victoria Rankin, Martin Pringle, Lauren Shannon Wilson, and Ana Yarza.