Performance Making at Goldsmiths, University of London - UCAS

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Course summary

This international MA programme gives you the opportunity to develop your practice as an independent and collaborative performance practitioner. It invites you to explore and experiment with live, digital, intermedial and socially and politically engaged performance. Why study MA Performance Making at Goldsmiths Develop your own performance practice

  • The MA Performance Making programme fosters a creative-critical, experimental and interdisciplinary approach to performance. You’ll study with and learn from a diverse range of practitioners from different creative disciplines, exploring your own practice through performance-making.
  • You’ll gain both practical and critical skills in composing performance, while being encouraged to question, challenge, and reconfigure what performance-making is.
  • During your studies, you’ll be guided to create a portfolio of performances and writings that are designed to let you experiment, take risks and push your own boundaries in a rigorous and supportive learning environment, expanding and transforming your practice.
  • You’ll have the opportunity to take part in a final-year degree show, showcasing your work and celebrating the culmination of your studies.
Practice as research approach
  • Performance-making is a mode of enquiry that considers performance as a strategy to think about art, culture and the contemporary world. This practice-as-research approach is embedded throughout the programme.
  • You’ll be encouraged, guided and supported to become an articulate practitioner and a creative thinker; able to conceive, make, critique, and write about your own or others’ performance.
Study collaboratively and independently
  • You‘ll engage with performance-making as a collective act, and collaboration is built into the structure of the course. You will work with and alongside fellow students and staff with different specialisms. This international community of colleagues and collaborators will enrich your studies.
  • You’ll also undertake independent practice and research, giving you the opportunity to focus on your specialist areas of interest in performance-making.
Gain skills and experience in scenography
  • A hands-on introduction to performance technologies (lighting, sound, media) will give you the skills and confidence to integrate scenography into your performance-making.
  • You'll learn from a dedicated team of theatre designers and technicians both in class and as you develop and put on your assessed performances.
  • Throughout your masters, you’ll learn production management, curation and event organisation culminating in a student-led public performance festival in the Summer Term.
Learn through creative and experimental teaching
  • You’ll learn from our dedicated staff team of practitioner-researchers. You’ll also benefit from guest lectures and workshops delivered by internationally distinguished artists and scholars.
  • You’ll be taught in workshops, seminars and lectures and will be expected to work independently in response to weekly creative tasks, reading and other research, as well as rehearsals and performance design.
  • You’ll have access to our fully-equipped theatre, five studios and our design spaces, which include a sound and media studio and well-equipped workshops for set construction and costume making.
  • Classes will also take place on field trips to London arts organisations and venues, or other specially selected locations in and around the city.
  • You’ll be part of the vibrant and creative environment of Goldsmiths, with easy access to the exciting and culturally diverse city of London, providing you with a broad international network of arts organisations, performance venues and festivals.

Modules

This is a praxis programme on which you gain 180 credits. Compulsory modules You'll complete the following compulsory modules: Performance Research Portfolio 30 credits Performance Portfolio 1: Interdisciplinary Project 30 credits Performance Portfolio 2: Site 30 credits Performance Portfolio 3: Independent Research Project 60 credits In addition to these modules, you will choose a 'contextual' lecture/seminar based module of 30 credits. These modules bring together students from the different MA programmes in the department for intensive engagement with historical and current topics in theatre and performance. The options vary each year according to availability, but have included: Contemporary African Theatre and Drama 30 credits Corporeality, Embodiment, Alternative Spaces 30 credits Cultural Theory, Performance, Interdisciplinary Perspectives 30 credits Disability Theatre 30 credits Radical Performance 30 credits *Please note that due to staff research commitments not all of these modules may be available every year.


Entry requirements

We welcome candidates to the programme who are interested in exploring their own creative practice through performance making, and who demonstrate a competence for independent research and a keenness to work collaboratively. You are expected to have some experience in the fields of theatre and performance, usually evidenced in a personal statement and expanded in an interview. Otherwise you should be able to show an understanding of how performance might complement your unrelated creative experience. You should have (or expect to be awarded) an undergraduate degree of at least upper second class standard in a relevant/related subject. You might also be considered if you aren’t a graduate or your degree is in an unrelated field, but have relevant experience and can show that you have the ability to work at postgraduate level. If English isn’t your first language, you will need an IELTS score (or equivalent English language qualification) of 6.5 with a 6.5 in writing and no element lower than 6.0 to study this programme.


Fees and funding

Tuition fees

No fee information has been provided for this course

Additional fee information

Unless otherwise stated the annual fee for part-time students is half the full-time fee quoted.

Sponsorship information

AHRC

Performance Making at Goldsmiths, University of London - UCAS