Learn 2024

Welcome to the UKZN Digital Learning Course!

This course may differ in format from what you are used to because it is highly activity-based. The reason for this is the learning theory upon which it is based, namely Constructionism (Papert 1987). This theory supports the idea that the student is learning by applying their minds to solving problems in the real world. You will, therefore, be challenged to take what you have learned and immediately apply it to your activities and assessments. However, as much as the journey will be challenging, it will equally be rewarding.

The skills you attain here will be invaluable in a world where digital technology, both for study and at work, is becoming a standard.

In this module, students are introduced to the world of drama and performance. We grapple with ideas around what drama and performance studies mean and entail, what the elements of drama are and how these intersect and relate to/with each other.  Using these questions as our frames of engagement, the idea is to draw on students’ personal experiences, work from other practitioners, and theorists from Africa and beyond to frame our practice. Our exploration of what drama and performance means and what embodying this world begins with and is centered around the self. It is important for students to relate this craft of drama and performance, by first locating the performances of the self; ndingubani/ngingubani/who am I? Most importantly who do I arrive in this university space as? Those stories inform our theory and practice in the module. 

DRAM201 welcomes you to an Introduction to Applied Theatre.  Applied Theatre is theatre that sees the possibility for theatre/ performance to be used as a tool for something beyond entertainment.  This is usually concerned with education, development and social change.

This module will explore different forms of applied theatre in Africa and abroad and look at the great minds and theatre practitioner's who saw the potential of theatre to change the world!

Name of Course: Origins and Uses of Theatre.

Izandla zika Makhulu: tracing orality in South African contemporary performance.

Aims of the course :  This course takes on a Afrocentric and decolonial approach towards mapping and  unveiling origins and use of Theatre in South Africa. 

A)    We centre uMakhulu as a way to explore some of the philosophical thought and spiritual practices that inform the origins of theatre in South Africa.

B)   We explore and reveal traces of ORALITY  in contemporary (theatre) performance making and training practices. 

Hello and welcome to Acting and Dance 306. This course is a CORE MODULE in Drama and Performance Studies. The 306 Acting and Dance Program is aimed to do these questions: what is in acting? What is in dance? At the centre of these questions is thinking of acting and dancing as a verb – a doing - a practice of empathy.