MA Performance: Design and Practice

at University of the Arts London

MA Performance: Design and Practice will address your learning through practice holistically. This encompasses the relationship between your ideas, research methods, chosen form and contexts of your practice. Your learning is supported and developed through “Collaboration and Context” and the “Performance Practice” units to prepare you for your final independent project.  

Central to the course is the recognition of different models of practice. These have significantly informed debates surrounding definitions, functions and roles within performance making. Such debates have spawned key practitioners, organisations, events, critical texts and seminal works. You will be expected to study and reference these in relation to your own practice. You will also be encouraged to engage with concepts of site, and space, both physical, digital and virtual reality.

Unit 1: Collaborative Practices

The first part of the course focuses on developing your conceptual and practical skills and your understanding of the context of performance making. There is a particular emphasis on cooperation, collaborative methods, composition and performance dramaturgy. During this unit, you will be asked to engage in a collaborative project – this could be a single extended project or a series of shorter projects. The length/scope of the project depends on the form and guidance on appropriate length/scope will be given as part of individual and group tutorials. 

Overall, this unit gives you the opportunity to develop your skills in the initiation, management, and presentation of performance though cooperative endeavor. The early part of the course is about bringing your individual position, concerns, and strengths into a collective and co-operative community. 

Forums, speakers, cultural visits and a seminar series will help you to engage with the art and performance landscape within which your work will be situated.   

Unit 2: Performance as Dialogue 

This unit focusses on how the work you make and the performance language you use can be understood and further developed.  To do this the unit looks into how the work you are making is likely be encountered interpreted and understood by an audience, viewer or participants. Throughout the unit you are asked to present proposals for performance-based projects; these may be presentations of performance fragments or short form experimental works. Your critical position, as a practitioner, and your developing concerns are expanded on through a deeper engagement with research or practice enquiry. The proposals that you conceive and develop through this unit will be further explored or realised in the final unit. 

Through a programme of studio critiques you will be supported in an interrogation of how you and your peers, as well as more established artists, communicate ideas and elicit emotional responses.

Unit 3: Independent Project 

This final part of the course will ask you to unite your ideas and research methods to a level of resolution. You will be required to generate a body of independent practice for presentation, alongside a written document. These outcomes combine to reflect your conceptual, practical and professional abilities and as such are graded holistically. In this final part of the course might you undertake an investigation of an aspect related to performance in the expanded field.  This investigation or Independent project should directly or otherwise help you to develop a body of practice and critical reflection.

Critical skills and methodologies 

This course will develop your critical and research skills, as well as your knowledge of relevant research methods. You will focus on practice-based research, with particular emphasis on the theories underpinning the work of key international practitioners. Developing your critical thinking alongside practice-based experimentation will help inform your work. For example, it may influence its structure, context and form of communication. The course also aims to facilitate greater insight into debates around contemporary art and performance.

Independence and professional preparation 

MA Performance: Design and Practice encourages independent study. This is the dominant focus of the second year, which is supported by seminars and discussions. You are provided with a supervisor or mentor appropriate to guiding the progress of your individual study programme.

These opportunities will consolidate thinking around contextual influences and drivers in your practice. In addition, the independent project combines practical work with research. This reflects the wide diversity of individual concerns and purposes on the course.

The standard entry requirements for this course are as follows:
 

• An honours degree

• Or an equivalent EU/international qualification.

MA Performance: Design and Practice suits designers and artists with a background or demonstrable interest in performance, theatre, visual performance or related practice including live art, dance, film, installation art, video/time-based media or other interdisciplinary art and design practices.

Although it particularly suits individuals interested in time-based or narrative art forms, it also attracts those involved in broader performance-related practices, such as fine art, photography, fashion and architecture.

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:
 

• A portfolio of creative practice or relevant experience

• The quality of the personal statement

• Recommendations from employers or professionals in relevant fields of practice. 

Or a combination of these factors.

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

English language requirements

IELTS level 6.5 or above, with at least 5.5 in reading, writing, listening and speaking

Home fee
£6,045 per year

International fee
£15,165 per year

MA Performance: Design and Practice prepares you particularly for independent professional practice. Many of our graduates form their own creative companies and partnerships. MA Performance: Design and Practice graduates have gone on to work in art, design and performance in a range of roles, producing and presenting work in many creative contexts including festivals, art centres and venues around the world.

MA Performance: Design and Practice students leave with a specialist individual understanding of performance practice from a chosen perspective. The experience you gain on the postgraduate course enables you to progress to professional practice, working, for example, in theatre, television, film, opera or dance. Some students go on to direct, write or produce. Others progress to research degree study. MA Performance: Design and Practice supports its graduates via a company that offers initial professional experience and publicity.

Recent alumni activity demonstrates the breadth of student activity within the subject. Many graduates from MA Performance: Design and Practice have gone on to achieve professional success. For example, 2010 graduate Catrin Osborne has been appointed Director in Residence at Circus Space, London, 2010 graduate Ruchita Madhok has an Internship at the V&A Museum, London, 2010 graduate Payal Wadhwa has gained a place on the Royal Court Theatre's writing programme. 2009 graduate successes include Susan Leen on a Studio internship with Lucy Orta and David Shearing, appointed to a teaching and research post at Leeds University. 2008 graduate Ingwill Fossheim has a Design Internship at the Royal Shakespeare Company.