Dance & Choreography BA(Hons)

You'll explore and challenge your ideas of performance and choreography, make and perform work in different settings and locations, and develop strategies for making connections between practice and theory.

Modules

Contemporary Techniques & Improvisation

Through studio-based bodywork sessions, you’ll develop your fundamental physical and improvisational skills such as basic alignment, posture and placement and the development of stamina and strength. Your learning on this module will underpin the course’s structure and help you prepare yourself for the degree. You’ll be encouraged to document and reflect on your development as you progress through the module. 

Performance & Choreographic Practices

In this module, you’ll receive an introduction to the creative and collaborative processes involved in developing choreography and performance, including conceptual development, creative resources, generating movement material, artistic collaborations, presentation and audience considerations. 

The module focuses on solo, duet and small group work and you’ll receive ongoing feedback on performance-making process and informal sharing of work. 

Embodied Learning: Theories & Practices

Through a series of practical workshops and lectures, you’ll explore how different perceptions of the body inform approaches to training, choreography and performance. In order to encourage an understanding of the body in society both historically and culturally, emphasis will be placed on learning through doing. You’ll be assessed by producing a case study or essay, which will introduce you to the requirements for academic writing at undergraduate level. 

Contemporary Techniques & Improvisation 2

Here, you’ll continue the bodywork sessions started earlier in the course and develop your physical and improvisational skills, focusing on an increased level of conditioning, and a developed understanding of placement, shift of weight and movement through space and an increased awareness of how to manage the body in training for purposes of injury prevention and wellbeing. 

Dance Cultures, Histories & Practices

Through a series of lectures, seminars and discussions, you’ll explore a range of historical and theoretical issues that arise from dance and performance practice. Key issues are explored in relation to wider cultural contexts, with reference to documented dance on film, theoretical writing and philosophy to enable you to develop a reflexive and critical practice. 

Site-Based Practices

In this module, you’ll be introduced to a key area of contemporary dance practice: making dance in and for non-theatre spaces. You’ll explore the various aspects of sitework through a series of introductory workshops and your practice will be contextualised through seminars, presentations and discussions. This module is delivered in a variety of different spaces, utilising internal and external sites both on and off campus and you’ll create a group site choreography for assessment.  

Throughout the duration of the module, you’ll regularly update a journal that will support you in preparing for your final performance. 

You'll continue to develop your technical and creative skills, while developing your specialist interest in choreography or performance. You'll further develop your research skills, gain a greater understanding of the contexts for your practice and start to consider your own future in dance.

Modules

Performance & Choreographic Skills

In this module, you’ll expand your physical knowledge and confidence through a range of technical, improvisational and somatic practices. You'll explore different strategies for performing and structuring movement material and you’ll develop your abilities to reflect on your practice as a dance maker. You’ll also receive on-going feedback on your performance-making processes as well as during informal sharing of work. 

Dance Futures

In this module, you’ll learn how and why dance practitioners and companies create supportive and sustainable frameworks to contribute to the industry. With teaching provided by core staff and industry specialists, a seminar and workshop series will introduce and examine a range of approaches and responses to the challenges of making and showing dance and choreography in the 21st century. Through critical research, you’ll position yourself as an artist in relation to the approaches you have explored in theory and in practice. 

Applied Techniques

In this module, you’ll focus on consolidating technical skills (alignment, stamina, strength, posture, assimilation skills) and apply them to increasingly more complex movement material, styles and research. You’ll develop a comprehensive awareness of your technical strengths and weaknesses and you’ll receive ongoing feedback during the taught sessions. 

Researching Dance: Theories & Contexts

Here, you'll explore the varied contexts for dance practice through looking at the socio-cultural conditions that give rise to the development of particular dance practices and performances through history and in contemporary culture. You’ll also look at several theories through which to read choreography and performance. This module is designed to develop your confidence in writing and in becoming an independent dance researcher. 

Optional modules

Devising Performance

In this module, you’ll have the opportunity to explore different strategies for making performance, encouraging you to contribute to an ensemble creative process that is rooted in a choreographic context. You’ll focus on the collaborative choreographic relationship and the connection between technique and performance. You’ll also receive on-going feedback throughout the making processes, as well as through the sharing of process work. 

Choreography in Context

In this module, you’ll explore choreography as a widening field with broad applications, social imperatives and interdisciplinary practices. You’ll identify how choreography can encompass participatory dance, activism, technology, public art and site-related performance and you’ll develop a critical and theoretical research framework to support your collaborative choreographic practice. 

Cross-Disciplinary Performance

In this module, you’ll work in groups to devise a cross-disciplinary approach to performing. You’ll collaborate with practicing artists in other disciplines and art forms such as technical theatre, voice work, photography, theatre, and visual arts. This module culminates in the showing of a work-in-progress that demonstrates your research and collaboration between dance and another discipline. 

Choreographing the Screen

Here, you’ll experiment with ways of choreographing for, with and through the camera. Through making video-specific choreography, you’ll explore choreographic questions in relation to a range of spatial, temporal and compositional elements. You’ll also be introduced to film and online editing skills and their choreographic potential through exploring diverse live and screen-based performance formats such as live-feed projection.  

You can choose to take an optional placement year after your second year on a three-year programme. 

You’ll be responsible for finding your own placement, with support from the RealWORKS employability team. 

Choosing this option will enhance your industry experience and skills while studying. 

How you’ll study during your placement year 

You’ll spend time working in a professional context, as part of a business or organisation. This can be in one role, or up to three, and must be for a minimum of 24 weeks. 

You’ll develop in-demand workplace skills, deepen your insight into industry and grow your network of contacts, all of which could help you get ahead in your career after graduation. 

Throughout this year, you’ll develop a portfolio of work that includes critical self-reflection on what has been learned from the experience. You’ll be required to evidence your experiences, the skills you’ve learned and your professional growth. 

Taking charge of your learning, you'll undertake two research projects (one practical and one written), both of which focus on your chosen areas of interest. Throughout the year, you'll advance your physical training and creative and choreographic skills. This culminates in a professional practice project, in which you'll collaborate to produce, market, choreograph and perform an original work for public performance.

Modules

Written Research Project

In this module, you’ll produce an extended essay that gives you the opportunity to carry out critical analysis of a topic relevant to the direction and development of your dance or choreographic practice. You’ll gain and develop skills in the structuring, protocols and conventions associated with effective academic and discursive writing, building your confidence in creating written contributions to public and professional debate.

Practical Research Project

In this module, you’ll begin to form collaborative relationships and explore ideas that could feed into your Professional Practice Project. You’ll focus on the process of researching, experimenting with, and reflecting on a chosen theme in one of the following three areas: teaching and facilitation, technical collaboration or independent enquiry.  

Advanced Bodywork 1

Through studio-based bodywork sessions, you’ll continue to develop your contemporary dance skills, focusing on adjusting alignment, building stamina and strength, and developing your ability to assimilate movement material. You’ll study a range of styles and approaches that may include Graham, Cunningham and Release based techniques, as well as augmenting your training with complementary practices that may include ballet, and High Intensity Training. 

Advanced Bodywork 2

Following on from the skills gained in Advanced Bodywork 1, in this module you’ll work on augmenting your technical foundation with advanced coordination skills, movement vocabulary and a solid technical understanding. Contemporary dance classes will be supported by training sessions, such as ballet, yoga and Pilates, as well as your own methodical and regular self-directed body conditioning. On completion of this module, you are expected to have developed your contemporary technique to a professional standard. 

Professional Practice Project

In this module, you’ll have the opportunity to create a producing company as a launchpad for graduate work, allowing you to develop your subject-specific skills alongside your employability. With the support of your tutor, you’ll also harness everything you’ve learned during the degree and produce and present an independent performance work within a public context.