Performance: Design and Practice

Entry requirements

The standard entry requirements for this course are as follows:

• An honours degree
• or an equivalent EU/international qualification.

AP(E)L – Accreditation of Prior (Experiential) Learning:

Exceptionally applicants who do not meet these course entry requirements may still be considered. The course team will consider each application that demonstrates additional strengths and alternative evidence. This might, for example, be demonstrated by:

• Related academic or work experience
• The quality of the personal statement
• A strong academic or other professional reference

Or a combination of these factors.

Each application will be considered on its own merit but cannot guarantee an offer in each case.

Months of entry

September

Course content

MA Performance: Design and Practice explores performance making, design and time-based work. It promotes hybrid practices, critically exploring the conventional boundaries between fine art performance and theatre. The course encourages criticality and restlessness, alongside an exploration of new forms of practice. It asks: What is the context for contemporary performance? What is its purpose? Who is it for?

The course will support you to become an independent practitioner in the fields of experimental theatre, live art and dramaturgy through design. You will create theatre which acknowledges the expanding and contested field of performance. You will interrogate conventions and traditional roles, such as that of the writer, designer, director and performer.

MA Performance: Design and Practice has three principal concerns:

• Exploring compositional strategies for time-based practice.
• Challenging authorship and the relationship between performer and audience.
• Critical writing as an essential tool for understanding and articulating personal practice.

Through an integrated and individual approach to practice and theory, the course aims to develop your creativity. You will be encouraged to analyse the processes which drive and define your practice and to question how your work relates to the broader context of performance practice. The historical and critical framework of the course is predicated on European modernism and post modernism. Non-European traditions, particularly those of Japan and China, are also embedded in the curriculum.

Information for international students

IELTS level 6.5 or above, with at least 5.5 in reading, writing, listening and speaking (please check our main English language requirements webpage).

Fees and funding