Course summary
The MA Dance: Performance programme focuses on developing your capacity to interact skillfully with the full variety of technical demands and performance outcomes that the international contemporary dance world offers, enabling you to navigate and shape the future professional landscapes with an in-depth capacity to contribute meaningfully as a creative collaborator and develop your own artistic voice and agency. Across contemporary cultural forms, dance artists contribute to a wide range of collaborative and interdisciplinary processes, using different media and modes of audience engagement. To support this, they need to develop and value their artistic agency and professional confidence in negotiating freelance portfolio careers. Throughout this course you will build up a portfolio of performance experiences in order to investigate, apply and evaluate the various skills, networks and frameworks that will optimise your professional development and give you the foundations for a sustainable career as a dance performer. On this course
- You will be exposed to a broad range of intensive performance training, developed through collaborative creative processes
- You will explore the shifting demands, challenges and potentials of performance as you experience different contexts and methods for making and presenting dance
- You will be introduced to the various freelancing skills needed to support and advance your career
- You will establish a professional network to enable you to explore the opportunities for the development, application and promotion of your performance practice
- You will plan, initiate, manage and realise a substantial period of self-directed activity which will foreground your artistic interests as a professional performer
Modules
Unit 1: Mapping Co-Creative Communities This unit maps a wide range of participatory/community/activist dance practices around the world. Through exploring the work of your peers, teachers and guest artists working with multiple approaches, you will situate your own practice in a wide context. Theoretical and practical inputs are applied continuously in the setting in which you practice, enabling you to investigate new ideas and impulses practically and then reflect upon your learning with your community of learners. We interrogate the key terms of the MA: participation, communities, activism. You have an individual student placement in this unit. Unit 2: Learning in Collaborative Practice Unit 2 leads you through a process of sifting through the learning in the previous unit, supporting you to identify and investigate your areas of interest. You will develop your practice-based research in practical collective micro-processes with your peers and communities. Critical reflection will anchor the development of your unique creative practice. Your personal mentor will support you to identify your research questions and to imagine and plan your independent project. Unit 3: Encounter in the Creative Process You will integrate your learning throughout the course to deliver an embedded practice-based, artistic research project with a community. Self-reflective analysis of your process feeds into a final presentation in a student-led symposium. Your mentor will continue to support you throughout this process.
Assessment method
The three units will be assessed holistically. Assessments include: Unit 1: Presentation of reflections on performance encounters Unit 2: Professional Trajectory Realisation Project Proposal Unit 3: Presentation of reflections on PTRP with supporting documentation including Artistic Statement
Qualified teacher status (QTS)
To work as a teacher at a state school in England or Wales, you will need to achieve qualified teacher status (QTS). This is offered on this course for the following level:
- Course does not award QTS
How to apply
International applicants
If you are an overseas student, you might require a student visa to study with us and prove your English language proficiency by providing your IELTS scores We require IELTS level 6.5 or above, with at least 5.5 in reading, writing, listening, and speaking
Entry requirements
The standard minimum entry requirements for this course are: • BA (Hons) degree or equivalent academic qualifications • Alternative qualifications and experience will also be taken into consideration • Personal statement If you don't meet the above requirements, you might still be considered with additional strengths or alternative evidence such as: • Related academic or professional experience in in dance, film, arts, media, fine arts, performance, or similar field • The quality of the personal statement • A strong academic or other professional reference • A combination of these factors
English language requirements
| Test | Grade | Additional details |
|---|---|---|
| IELTS (Academic) | 6.5 | 6.5 or above with at least 5.5 in reading, writing, listening, and speaking |
Fees and funding
Tuition fees
| England | £12950 | Whole course |
| Northern Ireland | £12950 | Whole course |
| Scotland | £12950 | Whole course |
| Wales | £12950 | Whole course |
| EU | £24500 | Whole course |
| International | £24500 | Whole course |
| Channel Islands | £24500 | Whole course |
| Republic of Ireland | £24500 | Whole course |
Tuition fee status depends on a number of criteria and varies according to where in the UK you will study. For further guidance on the criteria for home or overseas tuition fees, please refer to the UKCISA website .
Additional fee information
No additional fees or cost information has been supplied for this course, please contact the provider directly.
Sponsorship information
The LCDS Student Fund has been developed to support and relieve some of the financial pressures students face, making it possible to enrol and remain on our courses. It is open to any registered student whether undergraduate, postgraduate, home or overseas status. If you are applying to study with us to start in 2025/26, further information and an application form for the Student Fund will be sent to you after an offer is made. Any funds awarded will only be transferred once you have accepted your place and have formally registered with us. You can apply to the Student Fund at any point in the year. If you were unsuccessful in your first application you can re-apply as we are aware financial situations can change. All students are invited to apply to the Student Fund for each subsequent year of their studies.
Provider information
London Contemporary Dance School
London Contemporary Dance School at The Place
16 Flaxman Terrace
London
WC1H 9AT