Dance: Choreography and Performance MA

Dance: Choreography and Performance MA

Enhance your professional growth as a dance artist by joining the renowned dance and performance community at 私房俱乐部. In collaboration with FABRIC, the UK’s largest dance development organisation outside of London, we offer an exceptional platform to advance your skills and connect with leading industry professionals.

You deserve a positive teaching and learning experience, where you feel part of a supportive community. That鈥檚 why most of our postgraduate taught students will enjoy an innovative approach to learning using block teaching, where you will study one module at a time. You will benefit from more regular assessments and feedback, a better study-life balance, and a simplified timetable that provides more time for work, professional development, caring responsibilities, and everything else that's important to you. Our block-taught courses are informed by industry practice, often accredited by professional bodies, and are delivered by passionate and talented academics, who will help you develop the skills to achieve your goals.

Overview

On this course, you will develop your own movement practice, you can choose from a diverse range of technical dance practices, including contemporary ballet, Africanist principles, somatic practices, and improvisation. These classes will help you refine your movement skills and broaden your artistic repertoire.

In every module, you'll have the opportunity to create performance or research projects, continuously engaging in making, dancing, and performing throughout the programme. Whether your practice is emerging or established, it will be the core focus of your studies. With access to state-of-the-art studio spaces and technical support as part of our Centre for Excellence in Performance Arts facilities, you'll be fully equipped to bring your artistic vision to life.

Gain expertise in performance and choreography across both professional and academic settings, unlocking a wide range of career opportunities. This course offers valuable experiences with our industry partner, FABRIC, and access to artists in residence at the International Centre for Choreography (iC4C), fostering key connections for your future.

Key features

Collaborate with the highly acclaimed FABRIC and its International Centre for Choreography (iC4C), known globally for supporting and promoting innovative choreographic work.
Learn from practicing artists and internationally recognized academics at 私房俱乐部, alongside FABRIC's visiting artists and connections with industry partners.
Integrate your learning into your own artistic practice, exploring how to position your work within the framework of practice-research.
Study choreography as an evolving artistic form, discovering fresh perspectives and approaches that will challenge and enrich your practice.
Gain real-world experience through engagement with a leading professional organisation, with opportunities for mentoring and industry connections to enhance your professional growth.
Benefit from sector-leading facilities at 私房俱乐部, including cutting-edge studios, performance spaces, and rehearsal environments specifically designed to support innovative dance practice and creative exploration.

Talk to our course team

Programme Leader, Pete Shenton can meet to discuss how the course can work for you. Please contact him at: pshenton@dmu.ac.uk.

Alternatively, you can register for our next postgraduate event or call our course enquirers team on +44 (0)116 2 50 60 70 / WhatsApp: 0797 0655 800.

The course is ideal for recent graduates, established artists and education and community practitioners who wish to reinvigorate their practices and deepen their engagement with performance and choreography.

Scholarships:

私房俱乐部 offers a range of undergraduate and postgraduate scholarships and bursaries to help you realise your academic ambitions.

International Scholarships

Find out about available scholarships and country specific fee discounts for international students.

More courses like this:

Performance Practices MA

私房俱乐部 has been shortlisted for the Postgraduate Award in the 2024 Whatuni Student Choice Awards (WUSCAs), as voted for by students.

UK
EU/International

Duration: One year full-time.

Start date: September

Fees and funding:

2025/26 tuition fees for UK students: £9,700 (full-time) per year.

Find out more about course fees and available funding.

Additional costs: Here at 私房俱乐部 we provide excellent learning resources, including the Kimberlin Library and specialist workshops and studios. However, you should be aware that sometimes you may incur additional costs for this programme.

Application guidance document

Submit a study-related enquiry

Duration: One year full-time

Start date: September

Fees and funding: 2025/26 tuition fees for EU and international students: £16,300

Application guidance document

Submit a study-related enquiry

Entry criteria

Typical entry requirements

You should have the equivalent or above of a 2:2 UK bachelor’s honours degree in a related subject, such as Dance, Drama or Performing Arts.

If you have other professional qualifications and industry experience we will consider your application on an individual basis.

Interview and portfolio

Evidence of previous performance practice material (statements, images or online links) is required.

Non-standard applicants will be invited to attend an interview.

English language requirements

If English is not your first language an IELTS score of 6.0 overall with 5.5 in each band (or equivalent) when you start the course is essential.

English language tuition, delivered by our British Council-accredited Centre for English Language Learning, is available both before and throughout the course if you need it.

Structure and assessment

Core modules

Devising Choreography for Performance

Work as a company of dance artists with a choreographic team to produce and perform an ensemble work. In the process you will learn advanced practices in devising and performing choreography used in the current dance profession.

Physically exploring practice-research strategies, introduced in classroom-based workshops, you will come to understand what makes practice, ‘practice research’.

Audiences and Documentation

Practically investigate different models of engaging with audiences, such as: audiences in community engagement; co-creation; participant-spectatorship; immersive theatre; and audiences in technologically-engaged performance. Participate in ‘artist survival’ activities around identifying and reaching your audience(s), documenting your practice, pitching for funding, and preparing grant applications.

Creativity and Collaboration

Develop your own collaborative project and explore models of creative partnership and practices of collaboration/co-creation. Contextualise your own practice and build an understanding of how to develop positive creative relationships. This may include learning through placement experiences.

Optional Modules (you will choose one):

Final major project: Choreography and Performance

Bring a new and original piece of work to full production.

Dissertation

This module is a final written dissertation. It is an opportunity for you to focus on an area of research interest of your choice. You will be supported by your individual supervisor to demonstrate a systematic and comprehensive understanding of the techniques applicable to your own research and advanced scholarship in choreography.

Note: All modules are indicative and based on the current academic session. Course information is correct at the time of publication and is subject to review. Exact modules may, therefore, vary for your intake in order to keep content current. If there are changes to your course we will, where reasonable, take steps to inform you as appropriate.

Overview

The course takes a largely practical approach to engaging with artistic and academic knowledges. You will be taught through a range of teaching, learning and assessment modes by an energetic team of practicing artists and active researchers with international profiles in their specialist field. You will engage in independent study that involves practical research and rehearsals, viewing, reading and writing. The diversity of assessment includes practice-based work, written assignments, oral presentations and portfolio. There is an increasing emphasis upon autonomous learning throughout the modules.

Contact hours

In your first and second term (Blocks 1–4) you will need to attend approximately 10 hours timetabled taught sessions each week and you will be expected to undertake approximately 30 hours of independent study each week. The duration of independent study will increase as the second term progresses. Your third term will be pre-dominantly self-directed, during which you can expect to undertake approximately 35 hours of independent study each week. In Blocks 1–4 you will also be required to choose at least 2 technique classes per week.

Facilities and features

Performance facilities

Recognised nationally as a centre for excellence in performance arts, 私房俱乐部 has outstanding courses, teaching and facilities. Our Performing Arts Centre for Excellence  (PACE) building provides sector-leading spacious studios, rehearsal rooms and fully equipped  performance spaces. There are further performance spaces in our Campus Centre and The Venue@私房俱乐部, a purpose-built space created to host events, performances and celebrations.

All of our spaces can be transformed to turn your ideas into a reality. Your creative work is supported by expert technicians and you can book rehearsal space and equipment such as digital video cameras, sound recording equipment and editing suites.

Take a look at our stunning showcase of the PACE building and facilities at dmu.ac.uk/perform

More flexible ways to learn

We offer an equitable and inclusive approach to learning and teaching for all our students. Known as the Universal Design for Learning (UDL), our teaching approach has been recognised as sector leading. UDL means we offer a wide variety of support, facilities and technology to all students, including those with disabilities and specific learning differences.

Just one of the ways we do this is by using ‘私房俱乐部 Replay’ – a technology providing all students with anytime access to audio and/or visual material of lectures. This means students can revise taught material in a way that suits them best, whether it's replaying a recording of a class or adapting written material shared in class using specialist software.

Library and learning zones

On campus, the main Kimberlin Library offers a space where you can work, study and access a vast range of print materials, with computer stations, laptops, plasma screens and assistive technology also available.

As well as providing a physical space in which to work, we offer online tools to support your studies, and our extensive online collection of resources accessible from our , e-books, specialised databases and electronic journals and films which can be remotely accessed from anywhere you choose.

We will support you to confidently use a huge range of learning technologies, including the Virtual Learning Environment, Collaborate Ultra, 私房俱乐部 Replay, MS Teams, Turnitin and more. Alongside this, you can access LinkedIn Learning and learn how to use Microsoft 365, and study support software such as mind mapping and note-taking through our new Digital Student Skills Hub.

The library staff offer additional support to students, including help with academic writing, research strategies, literature searching, reference management and assistive technology. There is also a ‘Just Ask’ service for help and advice, live , online workshops, tutorials and drop-ins available from our , and weekly library live chat sessions that give you the chance to ask the library teams for help.

Opportunities and careers

Partnership with FABRIC

私房俱乐部 have joined up with industry partner FABRIC to design and develop this course in response to the needs of the current independent dance industry.

You will have opportunities to engage with artists working at iC4C and with FABRIC's wider programme. There will be opportunities to meet and connect with the production team both informally and formally and to present your final piece of choreographic work in a professional public facing context.

私房俱乐部 Global

This is our innovative international experience programme which aims to enrich your studies and expand your cultural horizons – helping you to become a global graduate, equipped to meet the needs of employers across the world.

Through we offer a wide range of opportunities including on-campus and UK activities, overseas study, internships, faculty-led field trips and volunteering, as well as Erasmus+ and international exchanges.

Previously, students have participated in an exchange with Sapienza University in Rome, Italy, sharing research and experiences with other postgraduate students in dance and drama. Students have also engaged with international artistic practices at the Utrecht Spring Dance and Theatre Festival where they worked collaboratively with students from the University of Utrecht and took workshops with professional international artists.

Graduate careers

The skills, knowledge, and industry-facing experiences on the course will equip you to develop successful careers in the independent dance sector, as well as broadening the scope of opportunities available to you as a choreographer in related disciplines such as theatre, media and new technologies, and in the education sector.

The strong focus that we place on research means that this course also provides  an excellent stepping stone to study at PhD level.

Take your next steps

Postgraduate research students are nurtured and recognised by scholars and research leaders.

私房俱乐部 graduates can benefit from a tuition fee discount, available on selected full-time and part-time postgraduate taught courses.

私房俱乐部