BA (Hons) in Contemporary and Popular Performance
Sidcup, United Kingdom
DURATION
3 up to 6 Years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time, Part time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
29 Jan 2025
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2025
TUITION FEES
EUR 22,800 / per year *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* non-EU/non-EEA fee | £9535 EU/EEA fee
Introduction
This course will give you the physical, critical and authorship skills to create performances that are relevant to our time.
You will become a versatile performer who can make their own work and own their own stage, taking inspiration from physical theatre, live art, experimental performance, cabaret, stand-up comedy, circus skills, immersive theatre, drag, spoken word, burlesque, stage magic and festivals.
What you’ll study
This course focuses on practical performance skills like physical theatre, devising, magic, clowning, drag and burlesque, taught by cutting-edge practitioners. You will create your own new performances, live art and cross-genre theatre work which provokes thought and explores relevant, real-world topics.
You will benefit from the opportunity to undertake industry placements, network with professional practitioners and learn a wide range of practical skills to serve you in your practice (such as performing skills, event management and collaboration). You will be taught at our Sidcup campus and also at the Tramshed in their fully equipped premises, immersing you in the industry in the heart of London.
Why choose this course?
- Make connections: You will be partially taught at Tramshed, a theatre company and community arts hub based in the heart of Woolwich, South East London, the perfect place to network and make connections
- Expert training in a specialist field: Get rigorous training in both contemporary and popular performance, opening up the field and engaging with a combination of performance skills, experimentation and structural knowledge
- Valuable industry placements: Get real-world experience with partners which could include organisations such as Glastonbury Festival, Punchdrunk, Bestival, Latitude, Duckie, Marlborough Productions, Rich Mix, Run Riot and Tramshed
- Learn from the best: Programme director Marisa Carnesky is a renowned live artist and Showwoman. She uses cross-genre performance forms, including new writing, live art, circus skills, stage illusion and fairground spectacle to investigate social issues from a feminist perspective. As well as working with Marisa, you will also be taught by an exciting range of experts in each specialist field
Admissions
Curriculum
Course content is regularly reviewed, to make it relevant and current. Course modules are therefore subject to change.
Year 1
Level 4 introduces and develops the academic and intellectual skills that you will need for study and professional development. In addition, you will begin to learn the practical and technical skills of the performer and creator, producer and change-maker.
You will contextualise these in a developing understanding of contemporary, popular and socially engaged performance and theatre. On completion of level 4, you will be able to:
- Demonstrate a range of technical skills including Voice, Cabaret and Circus Skills, Movement, Production and Design.
- Integrate these various skills and techniques into solo and group performances.
- Apply historical and contextual research to performance in a manner which extends its reach.
- Articulate informed ideas and concepts, about the producing of new popular performances, in seminar discussions and writing.
- Deploy the basics of practice-based research in artistic and analytic ways.
Year 2
Level 5 develops your skills towards a level appropriate to preprofessional work and gives experience in outside professional and community contexts, including via work placement, group facilitation and guest lecture series.
On completion of level 5 you will be able to:
- Negotiate organisational and logistical planning for making and producing both group-devised performances and Practice as Research performative lectures.
- Articulate your artistic and intellectual ideas on contemporary, popular and social change performances, genres and movements in both written and practical modes.
- Present your theoretical ideas confidently using appropriate performance methodologies.
- Manage projects on-campus at Rose Bruford, at Tramshed and beyond college sites.
Year 3
You are expected to be a self-directed learner in year 3. Module study options include, but are not limited to:
- Creating Contemporary and Popular Performance (Skill, Devising and Context) III: This module runs throughout the whole year across two semesters and enables you to hone your skills and knowledge gained from Creating Contemporary and Popular Performance I and II through creating a significant piece of performance work, supporting marketing and documentation materials, a fully realised and researched pitch for your event and a critical reflection in writing.
- Activating Change III: This module runs the full year consolidates your practical and theoretical research skills and enables you to investigate, in detail, a specific aspect of Theatre & Social Change and Popular and Contemporary Performance which is of particular interest to you.
- Producing Change V: Extended Work Placements: This six-month work placement will give you the tools you need to experience being part of an organisation, to see a season or extended period at a workspace, and to build a project for that organisation, thus becoming leaders and innovators inside of theatre & social change.
Career Opportunities
You will graduate ready to take on many roles in the cultural sector. Depending on your interests you could go on to write, perform, produce or manage within the growing contemporary performance, new cabaret, festival, immersive and live event culture in the UK. You may also explore a career in broadcast media and live culture; from radio, online, film or television.
Career Options
Studying an arts-related subject gives you a wide range of skills that can be put to use in many careers. You will have transferable skills in:
- Creating and Devising new performance forms and carrying out your own authored work
- Working knowledge of contemporary venues, festivals and performance contexts
- Working flexibly as artists, writers, directors and producers
- Working as part of a team co-operatively and collectively
- Democratic, ethical management skills and artist development and support
- Leadership, management and event and festival strategy
- Teachers and teaching assistants
Program delivery
Teaching and assessment methods
In your first year, you will complete around 380 hours of indicative scheduled learning and teaching activities and 80 hours of independent learning on projects, productions, placements or self-directed study. Assessment will be through Performances; Coursework, presentations, and portfolios; Continuous practical assessments; and essays.
In your second year, you will complete around 380 hours of indicative scheduled learning and teaching activities and 80 hours of independent learning on projects, productions, placements or self-directed study. Assessment will be through Performances; Coursework, presentations portfolios; and Continuous practical assessment.
In your third year, you will complete around 380 hours of indicative scheduled learning and teaching activities and 80 hours of independent learning on projects, productions, placements or self-directed study. Assessment will be through Performances; Coursework, presentations and portfolios; Continuous practical assessment; and written thesis.