Performance Design

Entry requirements

A bachelor degree with a 2:1 (hons). If you don’t have this qualification, we may consider your application if you can demonstrate significant relevant industry experience.

Months of entry

September

Course content

The MA Performance Design course explores scenography and performance-making from various perspectives informed by current research and innovative practices including immersive and participatory forms of performance design, design-led performance, audience experience and contemporary spectatorship.

On this course, you'll experiment with the creative application of design elements, including space, light, sound, costume and digital media, discovering how to shape live performance and generate meaning for contemporary audiences.

This course allows you to extend your own creative practice through developing an understanding of the theories and concepts of scenography and designing for live performance.

You’ll use our specialist facilities to explore the performance experiences that can be created with space, light, objects, costume, sound, projection and other digital technologies like virtual and mixed reality, creating original performance work that is design-led.

You’ll work collaboratively to create dynamic cutting-edge work and you’ll develop skills in documentation and reflection so that you can develop your individual creative practice. 

You’ll devise and carry out an independent research project into an aspect of performance design that interests you. You’ll also examine contemporary performance practices, from immersive and participatory experiences to site-specific work staged outside of traditional theatre spaces and locate these within their wider social and cultural contexts. 

Additional highlights

Leeds has a thriving cultural scene, and is home to contemporary performance events like Light Night, Compass Festival and Transform Festival. Our industry connections allow you to work closely with local organisations such as Leeds Playhouse, Opera North, IOU and innovative artists in the field of performance design. Recently, students have worked with; Imitating the Dog, ZU-UK, Quarantine, Louise Ann Wilson, David Shearing, Julie Rose Bower, Freddie Wulf, Lucy Thornett, Rosie Elnile, Max Johns and Naomi Kuyck-Cohen.  

Explore some of our students' previous projects, follow the MA Performance Design Instagram.

The staff on this course are at the forefront of the study of scenography, especially at postgraduate levels (Masters and PhD). They have researched and published on how scenography makes a distinct contribution to performance both on and off the stage. Their books such as The Cambridge Introduction to Scenography (2009), Light (2013), and Scenography Expanded (2017) are used widely by educators, researchers and creative professionals around the world.  

Read the course staff profiles: 

Professor Joslin McKinney, Professor of Scenography 

Dr Scott Palmer, Associate Professor in Performance Design

Dr Yaron Shyldkrot, Lecturer in Scenography and Design-led Performance 

Specialist facilities

Our School is based in stage@leeds, a purpose-built landmark building that sits at the heart of campus. As our student, you’ll have access to its two professional standard, publicly licensed theatres: the main space seats 180 and is equipped with the latest technologies, and the theatre studio provides a technically advanced performance research facility.

stage@leeds hosts a range of work by students and visiting theatre companies all year round. Within the building you’ll also find rehearsal rooms, two black-box studios, costume construction and wardrobe stores, a design studio, a scenic workshop, computer aided design facilities and video-editing and sound recording.

Information for international students

English language requirements

IELTS 6.5 overall, with no less than 6.0 in any component. For other English qualifications, read English language equivalent qualifications.

Improve your English

International students who do not meet the English language requirements for this programme may be able to study our postgraduate pre-sessional English course, to help improve your English language level.

This pre-sessional course is designed with a progression route to your degree programme and you’ll learn academic English in the context of your subject area. To find out more, read Language for Arts and Humanities (6 weeks) and Language for Social Science and Arts: Arts and Humanities (10 weeks).

If you need to study for longer than 10 weeks, read more about our postgraduate pre-sessional English course.

Fees and funding

We have a generous range of funding available for postgraduate study. Find out more on the University of Leeds Postgraduate Scholarships database here.