Photograph taken during the costume residency "Transformation" led by Elliott as part of the current Acts/Reacts performance festival at Wimbledon College of Art.  Performer: Julie Groves. Photographer: Alexandra Purvis.  Image  of Katie Elliott.

CCW Graduate Teaching Scheme

CCW Graduate School runs a Graduate Teaching Scheme which offers CCW Doctoral students the opportunity to teach on selected CCW BA and MA courses.

The programme offers PhD students an insight into the nature of teaching at Higher Education level at CCW and to provide working introductions to relevant courses, staff and students. It has been designed to induct those who have no or little teaching experience, but can be configured to suit those with experience of teaching. Graduates gain work experience, a CV item and material that should feed into any Personal Development Planning. CCW Graduate School has pioneered this scheme within UAL.

Katie Elliott, an AHRC funded PhD student at CCW, has taught in the Theatre and Screen department at Wimbledon College of Arts. ‘I am a costume designer and a full-time PhD student at CCW, where my practice-led research is exploring the significance of the costumed-body in theatre and performance. As a Graduate Teaching Assistant, I work in the Theatre and Screen department at Wimbledon College of Art; presenting lectures and leading seminars on aspects of my research in the Contextual Studies Programme and in the BA Costume Design pathway. Teaching has been a way for me to place my research into other spaces (conversation-spaces/activity-spaces), and has caused me to re-evaluate my methodology in terms of its potential value for costume designers and theatre practitioners.'? Selecting these 'valuable' elements, and constructing sessions around them that might facilitate discussion, interaction and debate, has cast new illuminations on how I view my research and its future uses. The relationship of 'value' and 'teaching' is something that I would like to explore further as a GTA. In particular, I am interested in the connection between what I am investing as 'valuable' knowledge (ways of thinking, watching, testing the costumed-body as a significant component of performance) alongside the value of other spaces (conversations and activities between myself and theatre students engaged in their own practices) to myself as a developing costume designer.’

Elliott’s practice-led costume research, titled 'A Practice-Led Investigation into the Significance of Costumed-Bodies through a Study of Tanztheater Wuppertal' uses a selection of works by this dance-theatre company to explore how the material identity of the costume produces meaning in addition to character and/or narrative. Her research interests include costume design, drawing, and sign theory. She has disseminated her research at the 2013 TaPRA conference (Scenography Working Group) and will present a paper about her costume practice to the New Scholars Forum at the upcoming 2014 IFTR symposium. She has also published a short piece in the peer-reviewed journal JAWS, the Journal of Academic Work for and by Students (Issue 1, 2012).

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