Dance (BA)

Module overview:

This module offers intermediate training and allows you to advance your practical dance skills in the context of dance art seen and performed in 21st-century Britain, within broad multicultural, global and artistic contexts. You will advance your practical dance and improvisation skills developed in Year 1. Approaches will be drawn from a variety of dance styles and movement practices and may include codified dance techniques (such as ballet and contemporary techniques), improvisation, somatic movement practice, and other popular and commercial styles appropriate to recent developments in the sector, preparing you to become a versatile practitioner.

Emphasis will be on the development of movement skills, energy use, strength and control, while expanding interpretative skills and performance quality.

Understanding embodied knowledge and the principles of movement, and how to work with others through sharing embodied understandings, development of the soft skills that dance is known for and are transferable to other contexts, is at the core of this practice module.

There is a focus on the acquisition of self-reflective and problem-solving skills equipping you with focus, concentration and resilience to be able to expand your physical and mental potential and to develop your communicative skills individually and in groups. You will be expected to become self-reliant practitioners and to develop your personal professional practice including class preparation, methods of injury prevention, awareness of well-being and the ability to collaborate and contribute to a community of practice.

How you’ll learn:

You’ll learn through practical studio sessions, supported by 30 minutes of weekly asynchronous content with audio-visual resources to reinforce your practice.

Module overview:

This module introduces you to the diverse career paths open to dance professionals, and to skills and responsibilities in research, funding, collaborative work and promotional activities. It prepares you for successful careers in the dance or creative arts professions through exposure to practical examples, drawing on real industry experiences. The module also considers the social context in which professionals create, curate and respond to work, addressing for instance political parameters such as arts policy and politics and the relationship between art and society. It fosters your growth mindset and motivation to become an engaged professional who is aware of your position in the community and the functions of dance within political and social frameworks.

How you’ll learn:

You’ll learn through weekly seminars and experiential learning, plus 30 minutes of asynchronous support with audio-visual and written materials. You’ll take part in tutor-led sessions to explore dance professions and their contexts, and you'll be encouraged to actively engage through discussions and practical tasks.

Module overview:

This module follows on from Techniques and Embodied Principles in order that you can continue to extend your practical dance skills into performance. Approaches will be drawn from various cultural backgrounds, including codified dance techniques, improvisation and other contemporary and commercial dance styles appropriate to recent developments in choreographic practice. The emphasis of the module is on the development of performance skills and the problems and possibilities of ‘being seen’ (Deborah Hay) considering the performer-audience relationship in a range of potential performance spaces, such as the theatre, sites-specific, digital and commercial contexts. There is a focus on professional practice including the preparation of material, rehearsal skills and daily practice to support the final project of the module. The value of concentration and resilience will be revealed as ongoing tools of practice, so that you can develop the confidence to perform and to communicate in a group. Students will form groups to work on publicity material to promote their performance, such as posters, programmes and social media platforms as well as tools for reflection and documentation.

Classes will be accompanied by music, acknowledging dance and its potential within an interdisciplinary context. Dancers will gain a developed understanding and confidence of working with music.

How you’ll learn:

You’ll learn through weekly practical classes and workshops. The practical classes will cover two dance styles, while the workshops will focus on developing a performance. You’ll also get 30 minutes of weekly asynchronous support with audio-visual materials to reinforce both practical and performance work.

Module overview:

In this module you further develop your choreographic practice alongside related skills in production and lighting for dance. It builds on foundations laid in the first year to advance techniques in movement composition, structuring choreography and conceiving coherent aesthetic projects. The safe use of theatres and their technical equipment, as well as foundations for lighting design, are introduced throughout the module as instrumental to developing choreographic craft. Choreographic and lighting design skills are explored as transferrable across sites of screen, stage or public place. You are supported to develop their unique artistic voice in this module. You will refine your choreographic ideas through a series of compositional studies and draft lighting design that lead to a final choreographic project.

How you’ll learn:

You will learn through a mix of weekly practical choreography sessions and practical production workshops. There will be an additional 30 minutes of asynchronous digital support per week. This will consists of videos of cheogaphic work and lighting design examples to study

Module overview:

This module provides an opportunity for an optional work placement year between the second and third year of the degree.

This module is available as an option to all students studying on the listed programmes. This one-year (sandwich year) module is additional to the 360 credits of a 3-year degree programme.

Participating in a work placement year will enable you to develop employability skills across a longer period. It thus complements and builds on the employability skills developed through the curriculum throughout the first two years of the degree programme.  

Module overview:

This module provides a framework for you to explore your advanced movement potential using a variety of approaches drawn from a range of dance contemporary, commercial and somatic practices with consideration to global perspectives. The technical, performative, improvisational and interpretative challenges of dancing are scrutinised and the interplay between physical, imaginative, observation and analytical skills is interrogated and developed. The module articulates questions about how dancers experience movement quality in relation to space and time and how detailed embodiment of movement arises through testing (trial and error) and safe and effective practice. Alongside a personal practice, the module will propel you to advance your skills and engage with expressive and interpretative group tasks in relationship to music, sound accompaniment, or text and to find methods of working with awareness and sensitivity in relationships with other dancers. Acknowledging dance’s potential within an interdisciplinary, professional and commercial context, dancers will gain advanced confidence in working with music and understand principles of collaboration in art making.

The continuity of ‘training’ through regular classes prepares you for the physical and mental demands of the various roles within the profession, such as navigating a portfolio career, as a dance artist such as performer, choreographer, teacher or community artist, as well as in related professional areas, in health, education, fitness, well-being sectors, or in related roles in the creative industries, including fashion, social media, design, commercials and video games.

It also asks transferrable soft skills such as resilience, critical self-reflection, adaptability and flexibility as well as an awareness for selfcare and safeguarding a healthy practice.

How you’ll learn:

You’ll learn through weekly practical classes.

Module overview:

This module supports your individual artistic voices to flourish as you build on compositional abilities developed throughout the programme. You will further advance their skills in choreography, technical production and applied lighting, as well as in Screendance, to explore and realise their full artistic vision. You are supported to refine your own choreographic style through studies that ask in what ways movement quality, dramaturgical structure, scenographic design and expression can interact. Staging is explored as the choices that can be made about how an audience encounters choreography, whether on screen, stage, gallery, or public site. Opportunities for collaboration run throughout the module as students support each other to realise creative and production elements of their projects. The module features extensive peer appraisal, drawing on different models to evaluate work and to receive feedback, including articulating one’s own choreographic intention in formats that replicate industry practices. The skills in technical production acquired in this module, and in the 2^nd year module Choreography and Production, means you graduate ready to enter any dance production situation with the vocabulary and practical knowledge to engage professionally. You will create their strongest choreographic works and be ready to introduce them to the professional world.

How you’ll learn:

You’ll learn through a mix of practical choreography class  and practical production and lighting classes weekly. There will be an additional 30 minutes of asynchronous digital support per week. This will consists of  video examples of exemplary work for both choreography and lighting design.  

Module overview:

In this module you will work on a live brief of a tutor-led choreography commission to develop a dance performance project. Cross-pollinating the practical and contextual skills and knowledge acquired from previous modules The Dance Profession in Social Contexts, Choreography, Production and Aesthetics, and Advanced Dance Practices, you will envisage, organize and develop a performance with all its accompanying aspects from digital and/or live, site-specific content creation, rehearsal and production. Working in groups, you will apply methods of devising and collaboration, exploring strategies of shared authorship and co-creation. Performance is approached in relation to trends and industry practices and can be realized either as a live event in a traditional theatre setting or an installation or a site-specific performance, or a digital event with outcomes of mediated choreography, on screen and on other digital platforms. Attention will be given to aspects of access and inclusivity, considering diverse audiences and media.

Professional practice and performance will be reinforced through technique classes, increasingly establishing an independent working attitude enabling the transition into the field after graduation. You will identify roles, and plan, curate and organize all relevant activities, such as rehearsal schedules, curation of the sharing event, promotion and documentation including programme notes, curator statements, social media content production and publicity, digital images, video content and post-performance reflections. The module offers an opportunity to gather material to develop a personal performance portfolio including a showreel, visual identity design (web presentation), and other related material.

How you’ll learn:

You’ll learn through practical dance classes and hybrid classes each week in the Spring term. The practical sessions will build your dance skills, while the hybrid sessions will focus on creating a performance event based on a tutor-led brief. You’ll also get 30 minutes of weekly asynchronous support with audio-visual resources to help develop your digital portfolio.

Module overview:

The Dance Industry exposes you to the key aspects of the dance industry and its infrastructure – teaching, community dance, festivals, dance organisations, the freelance dance artist, researching. It will offer you a rounded picture of these aspects through giving an overview of the research on the topics and analysis of the real-life contexts and issues that currently challenge the dance and arts sectors. The module will propose several case studies from the dance industry for you to engage with through research, problem solving or creative imagining. The module is designed to provide tools to think widely and deeply about professional scenarios and to learn more about the dance infrastructure in the UK and internationally. The module content draws on first year module Contemporary and Commercial Dance and second year module Dance Professions in Social Contexts, and these modules should be seen as contributing to your understanding and knowledge in The Dance Industry.

You will be taught through tutor-led seminars and workshops to enable you to gain a critical understanding and deeper knowledge of the dance industry. You will be encouraged to take a pro-active engagement in sessions, contributing to discussion and practical tasks.

How you’ll learn:

You’ll learn through a mix of seminars and experiential learning. There will be an additional 30 minutes of asynchronous digital support per week. This will consists of audio-visual and written material.