Manchester Metropolitan University
MA/MFA in PerformanceManchester, United Kingdom
DURATION
1 up to 2 Years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time, Part time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
Request application deadline
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2025
TUITION FEES
GBP 3,667 / per year *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* full-time fee for EU and Non-EU international students | part-time fee: £3667 per 30 credits studied per year
Key Summary
Introduction
A bridge between undergraduate study and the professional world, MA/MFA Performance allows for the development and consolidation of new creative practices.
The MA/MFA Performance is an exciting master's program that offers a practical, versatile, and interdisciplinary approach to performance-making and training. The program provides students with an advanced and practical understanding of current performance practices, drawing on a broad range of artistic and theoretical influences. The development of new creative practice is at the core of the program, as well as how this work might be developed and profiled in a professional context.
Furthermore, MA/MFA Performance offers students the chance to specialize in either the distinctive areas of laboratory theatre or contemporary performance. The experience of these options is fed through a further process of critical and professional contextualisation before students embark on the creation of their own Major Projects as the culmination of the degree.
The Laboratory Theatre specialism focuses on performer training, dramaturgy, and socially engaged cultural actions. It also offers students the unique opportunity of a residency at Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium (NTL) in Denmark, the umbrella organization of which internationally renowned laboratory theatre group Odin Teatret (Denmark) is a part. There is a premium uplift for students on the Laboratory Theatre specialism of £2,000.
The Contemporary Performance specialism focuses on the creation of innovative and experimental performance practice, within or across the categories of radical theatre, contemporary dance, and performance art/live art.
The program draws particularly on the acclaimed interdisciplinary ethos and context of the Manchester School of Art and Manchester’s international arts networks.
Features and Benefits
- MA/MFA Performance capitalizes on the cultural effervescence of Manchester and the North West region, whilst maintaining an outward-looking ethos, offering students the ability to develop an artistic voice with internationally renowned partners including Denmark's Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium.
- Our location in the landmark new Grosvenor East building provides the program with access to significant resources and the potential for cross-disciplinary influence and impact from a wide range of related arts and humanities practices in the faculty.
- The degree is taught by practitioner-researchers at the forefront of the performance field, with specialist knowledge in contemporary performance and laboratory theatre.
- The program prepares students to make radical theatre and performances that respond to the unique challenges of the 21st century.
Admissions
Curriculum
MA/MFA Performance creates a space for asking big daring questions about why we perform, who we perform for, and how radical performance can act upon, and in, the world. It offers a distinctive opportunity for graduates and artists, from experimental and laboratory theatre practices, contemporary dance, and performance art backgrounds, to create innovative new performance that plays across artistic borders.
The course is shaped and driven by the passions and expertise of an interdisciplinary team of internationally recognized theatre makers, artists, and writers, offering two specialist routes in either Contemporary Performance or Laboratory Theatre.
For graduates, this MA/MFA creates a bridge between undergraduate study and the professional arts world. For emerging and mid-career artists this program is an opportunity to interrogate and transform your existing work, within a supportive community of like-minded makers, with input from expert practitioners and scholars as mentors. We welcome applications from small groups of collaborating artists as well as individual makers. The Laboratory Theatre specialism is run in collaboration with the
renowned Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium (NTL) in Denmark, where students will be able to participate in professional placement opportunities at NTL’s theatre laboratory in Holstebro. Here they will encounter and work with some truly inspiring people in an invigorating atmosphere. Students on this specialism will engage in rigorous psychophysical and vocal training from a range of international lineages and will be introduced to innovative dramaturgical strategies to develop their own expanded laboratory practice.
The Contemporary Performance specialism promotes the development of innovative and experimental contemporary performance practice drawing on the lineage of post-modern performance and post-dramatic theatre. Students will create a range of performance projects, with their peers and professional artists, that will expose them to alternative ways of making and thinking about performance to intersect with, antagonize, disrupt, and compliment their practice.
Year 1
Core Modules
- Major Project
- Performance in Context 1
- Performance in Context 2
- Performer as Maker
- Professional Practices
Option Modules
- Artist Led Project
- Cross Pollination Laboratory (NTL, Denmark)
- Making Performance
- Psychophysical Training
- The Contemporary Performer
Program Tuition Fee
Career Opportunities
MA/MFA Performance graduates will leave the program able to operate as performance practitioners at a professional level, whilst understanding the vocational and critical contexts in which the field operates. This will empower them to develop a career as freelance theatre artists, or as other professionals in the sector (producers, programmers, facilitators, curators, pedagogies, etc.) or to combine these identities based on their own interests/skill-sets, as is increasingly common practice in the portfolio careers built by performance artists.
Program delivery
Study and assessment breakdown
Ten credits equate to 100 hours of study, which is a combination of lectures, seminars practical sessions, and independent study. A master's qualification typically comprises 180 credits, a PGDip 120 credits, a PGCert 60 credits, and an MFA 300 credits. The exact composition of your study time and assessments for the course will vary according to your option choices and style of learning, but it could be:
Study
- Full-time 35% lectures, seminars, or similar; 0% placement; 65% independent study
- Part-time 35% lectures, seminars or similar; 0% placement; 65% independent study
Assessment
- Full-time 100% coursework; 0% practical; 0% examination
Part-time 100% coursework; 0% practical; 0% examination