MA PG Dip PG Cert Dance

Applicants should be in possession of a minimum of a 2.2 undergraduate degree in Dance, Performing Arts or a similar field. Candidates will be expected to attend an interview and/or workshop. Where candidates are not progressing directly from a first degree, relevant professional experience will be taken into account.

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This is essentially a vocational programme and students who graduate from it are equipped to pursue a range of careers in the dance professions.

These include teaching, performance, community arts, choreography, and/or further study towards a postgraduate degree to teach in secondary, further or higher education or continue an academic career towards doctoral studies.

 The first two core modules, Research Methods and Frameworks and Practices are intended to complement one another. Research Methods seeks to introduce candidates to research methodologies and strategies appropriate to the study of performing arts and exemplars of application. Frameworks and Practices provides a range of conceptual frameworks and a discourse of theory into practice, that informs, supports and contextualizes performance practice research within the context of artistic, cultural and educational discourses. This study will inform and underpin the practice- based modules in the rest of the programme.

The Dance Practitioner is designed to offer candidates the opportunity to develop the skill of reflective practice, practical workshops will explore and test, working processes related intention and context, the self as dancer and/or dance maker. Candidates will be expected to develop an appropriate methodology for evaluating responses to their work and the ways in which they can learn from this feedback as a reflexive practitioner. Creative Platforms is a double module that develops candidates’ knowledge in creative and collaborative processes in dance. It is allows opportunities for candidates to further develop their creative and collaborative capacities and at the same time focuses more on reception and evaluation. This enables candidates to make more informed decisions concerning their own research path on the remaining modules on the programme.

Research Report gives candidates the chance to undertake a written research essay that develops their abilities to articulate their theoretical understanding. For the final triple module students can choose to concentrate on the construction of further performance or practical work with an evaluation (Major Practical Project), or the writing of a dissertation (Research Dissertation). Of course, in the latter case it would be entirely acceptable to place the student’s own practice within a broader frame of reference and it is possible to relate further practical exploration in a related or distinct field – the notion of practice as research to be presented in the dissertation.

All programmes in the Department of Performing Arts aim to develop thinking artists and practitioners through rigorous engagement with theory, process, practice and notions of professional practice. The programme is structured to help students locate and extend their practice in relation to current bodies of knowledge and professional practice in dance. Teaching and learning methods selected for this MA are designed to facilitate the students’ ability to develop their own artistry and practice and to stimulate links between this, the practice of others and current related theoretical knowledge and concepts. Throughout the programme the curriculum design and content encourages the integration of theory and practice, where no division is seen between the studio or the seminar room.

The programme commits to pedagogical principles that:

promote professional engagement and reflective practice; encourage independent and autonomous learning; and support continuing professional development.

Students will be exposed to a variety of teaching and learning methods including workshops, seminars, lectures, field visits, the viewing of live and mediated work, mentored rehearsals, tutorials, performances, group work and independent study.