Performing Arts & Music

Are you destined for the stage or screen? Performance professionals have the ability to entertain us, move us and make us think. If you have the passion, talent and commitment and want to perform, present, direct, write, produce or teach, we can give you the knowledge, skills and experience you need.

Few industries have changed quite as radically in recent years as those of arts and entertainment. While live theatre continues to thrive, new formats and delivery platforms are constantly being developed.

With two TV studios, a radio station and two theatres, and access to motion capture studios, we offer you the opportunity to create performance on almost any platform. You study modules on marketing yourself as a performer and marketing events, and create a showreel of your work to appear on your own website.

What you study

We give you the opportunity to gain experience and advance your skills in every aspect of performance, including directing, writing, design and production. You work on productions for the stage, radio, video and other formats to become a media-literate, versatile artist able to work across a wide range of disciplines.

Key features

• industry-standard fully equipped theatre
• fully-equipped sprung floor drama studios
• digital editing suites and cameras
• award-winning radio station(National Student Radio Association)
• teachers who are professionals from the arts and entertainment industry.
• • two industry-standard TV studios

Year 1 introduces you to the key contemporary movements, theories and practices in performance (this includes theatre, film and other technically mediated practices) which have emerged over the last century up to the present day. Through practical sessions you gain hands-on experience of the above practices, including presenting and acting skills, and the technical skills needed to create, mount and record your performances and showreels. You work alongside staff, other students and visiting professionals to do so.

Year 2 focuses on developing your knowledge of the current field to give you the skills to become an autonomous artist. Studies ranging from performance analysis to marketing allow you to situate your own practices within the professional community. Practical sessions include two major productions and technique classes on comedy, all expressed through a range of live and recorded media.

Year 3 begins to look more closely at your future employability. There is more focus on understanding yourself as a business, the complex, competitive world you will be entering, and the marketing of yourself as a graduate. You work towards your own major practical and research projects: these are significant pieces of practical work for public showing, which are also contextualised and documented.

How you learn

You undertake practical workshops, technique classes, rehearsals, lectures and seminars. You are taught by full-time academic staff who specialise in a range of arts practices in film, theatre and TV, and visiting professionals from the arts and entertainment industry. You create performance work for different media, and work with students on other courses on live and recorded productions.

How you are assessed

Assessment ranges from assessed public performances to critical essays. Nearly all modules feature practical assessments, with further reflective and contextual elements.

Career opportunities

We prepare you to enter the arts and entertainment industries in a variety of capacities, but you will also develop a wide range of transferable skills applicable in teaching, marketing and PR, arts management and other areas. You will also be able to go on to further study, either vocational or academic.

Entry requirements

You need to audition for this course, as well as having formal academic qualifications or professional experience. We welcome your application if you're a mature student without traditional qualifications but with relevant experience or abilities.

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