The fashion design of CSM/Central Saint Martin has a long reputation. It is the Dream School in the minds of many students. The overall free style of the campus and the "sword walking edge" teaching make it a fashion school that can not be ignored by all students and the fashion industry. However, in addition to the fashion major we are most familiar with, CSM/Central Saint Martin also has such a major that many people often ignore - Performance Design&Practice. What natural light brings to you today is CSM Central Saint Martin Performance Design and Practice Graduates' Application for Studying Abroad 。

MA Performance Design and Practice focuses on the combination of drama, film, video, live art, costume design, installation, space and other forms of artistic creation and expression. MA Performance Design and Practice hopes that students can explore the mixed nature of contemporary performance works through multi media, and at the same time, promote students' critical exploration of the traditional fixed boundary between art performance and drama.

CSM Central Saint Martin Performance Design and Practice Major, in the course introduction, CSM Central Saint Martin College of Art and Design This course brings together artists, directors,writers,researchers and designers to set the agendas that will drive performance practice in the 21st century.

The performance design and practice major will bring together people from various art professional fields. They may be artists, directors, or writers, or even theoretical researchers, as well as designers. These people from different backgrounds will work together to research and explore, so as to promote the development of performance art, directors and other fields in the 21st century.

During the undergraduate period, students' learning focuses mainly on the combination of film, drama, clothing and devices. The focus of the course does not require students to practice specifically, or go deep into a specific real project. The school more hopes that students can explore, and carry out creative experiments and cooperation projects with students of different majors. Professional students will explore the challenges and concepts of film and television performance design through different types of artistic creation forms, space and screen media.

In the graduate stage, the courses of Performance Design and Practice are mainly focused on the fields of expressing culture and orthodoxy. In order to better understand Performance Design&Practice, we are honored to invite and interview Anru Zhao, a graduate of this major, to discuss the professional nature of Performance Design&Practice with her in detail. At the same time, she also showed us her graduation works and collection of professional application works, and told us about her creative experience along the way.

Through the analysis of Anru's application works and graduation works, as well as deeper exchanges, more students may have a new and more specific understanding of MA Performance Design&Practice from different perspectives. At the same time, we can also get some expression inspiration about the creation of works.

　　 CSM Central Saint Martin Performance Design and Practice Graduate Anru Zhao interview:

-About the Course-

　　 Q: At present, you have graduated. After several years of study, in your opinion, what is Performance Design&Practice?

　　 Anru： Performance Design&Practice is actually performance design and practice. It is a comprehensive major in performance and multimedia application.

Different from the traditional drama where everyone has a clear division of labor, choreography is choreography, the director is the director, and the actors are only responsible for reciting lines and performing. The performance design is an area of mutual integration. Maybe the center of the whole performance is choreography, and the actors are just one element. Maybe the whole play has no actors, and the audience drives the plot.

For example, the recent popular immersive drama in China, Punchdrunk's Sleepless Night, breaks the traditional end on, and the audience sits on the stage to watch from the perspective of an observer. The audience is truly involved in the plot, and each behavior plays a leading role in the whole performance.

This is the charm of performance design. He raised questions and tried many traditional performance forms, which opened many possibilities.

Not limited to the timeline and story line, not limited to the actors' body language expression, all planned behaviors in a specific space can be performance.

The major of performance design and practice is a very diversified and integrated performance system. Design performance content and practice expression form.

Anru Zhao Graduation Design Works Collection of Central Saint Martin Performance Design Graduates

　　 Q: In your opinion, will PDP be selective? For example, will there be requirements for the background of the applicant?

　　 Anru： Since Performance Design&Practice is an interdisciplinary art major in the form of a collection, it is very inclusive of the background requirements of the applicants, and it is suitable for a wide range of people.

For example, my undergraduate professional background is advanced customization. At first sight, it seems that it has nothing to do with performance. But because of my personal interest in film and drama, I often tried to integrate story content creation into the design process during my undergraduate period.

I also wrote a script for my design work collection, because I think everyone likes to listen to stories. When you convey any information in the form of stories, the degree of understanding will be much higher.

In fact, I found this course by accident. Later, I thought it was love at first sight. For my personal background, this is the most suitable platform for me.

It gives me a lot of space to explore and experiment, and compared with the limitations of film and drama majors, I don't need to give up my undergraduate professional background completely from scratch. I can constantly try to use various media, and I can constantly use my major.

For example, many of my performance scenes use cloth, which is very familiar to me. And for a person like me who likes to do things, this is a profession that can inspire various comprehensive abilities. Writing scripts, making props, video clips, and performing fully satisfy my various curiosity.

My classmates also have different professional backgrounds, including directors, painters, editors, architectural designers, and sound engineers. It's also very interesting to see everyone's works later. You can definitely find the impact of their personal backgrounds on their performance works, but at the same time, they are very surprised. Wow! It turns out that the props of the sound engineer can be made so well?

I think the major of performance design and practice is especially suitable for drama lovers, people who like writing scripts, people who like to design props by hand, and people who dare to try new things.

I used to think that my future career might be a tailor, but this postgraduate major in Performance Design&Practice has opened up my whole vision. Now I am not only a director, but also a choreographer, but also a fashion designer.

Compared with a single technical and specific specialty, the CSP of CSM Central Saint Martin Performance Design and Practice provides everyone with the space to do what they want and try. The inclusiveness of performance design and practice is incomparable with other specialties.

　　 Q: Do you think there is any difference between PDP and traditional drama academy, stage art, or costume design?

　　 Anru： Because the major of performance design and practice is actually quite special, and these majors you mentioned actually have contacts, we often take classes with students from the Drama College in many courses.

It seems that the creative process of students in traditional Drama College may be to write a story first, and then restore a script according to the content, and restore the drama content in a more traditional way.

For example, in a play, they may use age sensitive costumes and props to match the background of the story and shooting needs; And they may need to memorize the script, use the dialogue with dramatic conflicts to advance the story, or present some content to the audience.

However, the focus of the major of performance design and practice may be more in the direction of modern drama, and the form of expression of the major of performance design and practice will be more diverse. For example, in a play, we may use a relatively abstract device to express a certain concept or idea.

Traditional drama often uses actors as the main form of expression, and we have many professional expressions, which can be actors, an object, a device, or even a space. We have many forms of expression. I think this is the main difference.

　　 Q: What employment options do PDP students have after graduation?

　　 Anru： I think it depends on personal interests and development choices. For example, you can choose to be a lighting director, or even a performance designer. Because in this major, you will learn a lot.

But I think the great thing is that the students of the PDP of CSM Central Saint Martin Performance Design and Practice will be familiar with the whole process and elements of drama, which is an ability that a person who only studies acting or director cannot have.

In addition, PDP students will have more opportunities to learn and practice, and integrate different art forms. Such ability will actually help us better develop our personal abilities and ideas.

-About Her Portfolio-

　　 Q: Can you share your application portfolio with us? I think this will definitely be of great help to the students who are interested in applying for the PDP major.

　　 Anru： Well, my application work is a short film called<A Fish on Land>. The inspiration for this work comes from a police report that one day on the coast of Australia, they found a corpse dressed like a fish net.

Later, they found in the process of investigation that the man had imagined himself as a fish all his life. He would never communicate with people, and all the clothes in his wardrobe were fish like clothes.

In the end, his choice is to return to the sea. I think this is a very interesting story, so my work restores this process to explore people's understanding of themselves.

At the beginning of the research portfolio stage, I did a lot of research and found that there are many people in the world who think they are animals, or some objects, and even some people are indirect, and some people are all. For example, the person mentioned in the previous report is all; Another example is that some people think that if they are a horse, they will live like a horse, which is indirect.

If a man thinks he is a fish, what is his life like in a day? This is actually the source of inspiration for my undergraduate clothing design works. I designed a series of clothes for the main character, and I also wrote a script for<A Fish on Land>.

Taking the main character in the script, that is, the character image, as the center, and carrying out some imagination and creation around him, the content of this part will be more observant. Finally, this work contains the script, short films, and clothes I designed, which are also the whole materials for me to apply for PDP.

　　 Q: In the end, what kind of project did you do for your graduation project?

　　 Anru： My graduation project is a pantomime, without language and dialogue. My source of inspiration is actually a dream of mine. In this dream, I dreamed that a pair of scissors was inserted into my chest. In the dream, I always thought about how to get along with this pair of scissors peacefully, how to cover it, and how not to be found. When I woke up, I thought it was a good character element, so I wrote a script with this dream as the background.

The final film is an actor on the stage with a huge pair of scissors in his chest. I use multimedia to combine with the actors' performance. At the same time, there are two projection videos behind the actors. The content of the projection video is in a more casual form, such as from National Geographic. The content of the projection video forms a "humorous" contrast with the actors.

I hope to use this theme and creative works to explore the psychological state of marginalized people, such as patients with depression, using a very dark and humorous approach.

In this work, scissors are actually just a metaphor - used to talk about setbacks in life and how people should continue to live with setbacks when encountering huge setbacks. After this work, the theme of my thesis is Screen, which discusses the application of screen in various art forms.

Introduced the application requirements, portfolio production, script writing and other project production of CSM Central Saint Martin Performance Design and Practice. If you want to apply for Central Saint Martin Performance Design, please consult the natural light teacher.

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