Student performance of work developed on the Performing Arts degree course at DMU

Performing Arts BA (Hons)

Highly practical, this distinctive course immerses you in cutting-edge, interdisciplinary practice, preparing you to enter the 21st-century performing arts industry.

Overview
Structure and assessment
Facilities and features
Opportunities and careers
more about your DMU
Contact us

Overview

Watch: Take a look at this stunning showcase of our performance courses and facilities at DMU.

DMU has a long-established reputation as a Centre for Excellence in Performance Arts, which reflects our commitment to innovative and excellent teaching and learning.

This course incorporates many contemporary arts disciplines, such as acting, dance, voice, physical theatre, music theatre, sound design and digital video. It celebrates and investigates the possibilities of live and digital arts in a range of performance contexts, from the traditional to the avant-garde.

With a focus on making performance, you can tailor your studies across three themes – contemporary performance, digital performance or applied arts and education. You will be supported to develop as an innovative artist able to create, perform and manage yourself, and others, within the national and international performing arts industries. 

Our graduates are dynamic, creative practitioners who can take a piece of performance right through from creative brief to public performance – skills that are attractive to potential employers.

Key features:

You will study a range of topics such as physical theatre, dramatic performance, digital sound and film, site specific, and contemporary music theatre in an intensive project-based approach mirroring the performing arts industry.
Graduates have gone on to pursue a variety of roles and performance opportunities, including teaching and training, projects at Curve theatre and Audience of the Future – collaborative research and development with the intention of delivering an immersive live performance on multiple platforms.
Boost your exposure in the field through our excellent industry links. Recent internationally renowned visiting companies have included Frantic Assembly, Imitating the Dog, Théâtre de Complicité, Kyuu Theatre Company and Stan’s Cafe.
Real-life experience is offered though a placement module in your final year, where you can gain valuable knowledge with a professional organisation.

DMU is recognised as a Centre for Excellence in Performance Arts, with great facilities providing specialist studios and rehearsal spaces designed specifically for performance learning activities. Access digital video cameras, sound recording equipment and editing suites to enhance and perfect your craft.
100% of our Performing Arts graduates from summer 2017 are in work or further study after graduating (Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education 2016-17 report).
Take part in our international experience programme, DMU Global. Students have benefited from trips to the Utrecht Spring Dance and Theatre Festival in the Netherlands, a performing artist’s residency in Valletta, Malta, and the opportunity to visit creative spaces and perform in New York.

Scholarships:

DMU Sports Scholarship
Apply for the DMU Sports Scholarship, worth up to £6,000.

DMU Global High Flyers Award
Our dedicated DMU Global High Flyers Award offers ambitious students a discount of up to £1,000 towards a DMU Global opportunity (terms and conditions apply).

More courses like this:

Dance BA (Hons)
Drama BA (Hons)

UK/EU
International

Key facts for UK/EU students

Institution code: D26

UCAS course code: WW45

Duration: Three years full-time, six years part-time.

Fees and funding: For 2020/21 tuition full-time fees will be £9,250 per year.

Find out more about course tuition fees and available funding.

Additional costs: Here at DMU 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.

Contact us: For more information, call us on +44 (0)116 2 50 60 70.

How to apply

Submit a study-related enquiry

Key facts for international students

Duration: Three years full-time

Fees and funding international: For 2020/21 tuition fees will be £13,750 per year.

Find out more about course fees and available funding.

Contact us: For more information, call us on +44 (0)116 2 50 60 70.

How to apply

Submit a study-related enquiry

Entry criteria

Typical entry requirements

112 points from at least 2 A'levels or
BTEC Extended Diploma DMM or
International Baccalaureate: 26+ Points

Plus five GCSEs grades 9-4 including English Language or Literature at grade 4 or above.

Pass Access with 30 Level 3 credits at Merit (or equivalent) and GCSE English (Language or Literature) at grade 4 or above.

We will normally require students have had a break from full-time education before undertaking the Access course.

We also accept the BTEC First Diploma plus two GCSEs including English Language or Literature at grade 4 or above

Interview and Practical Workshop required: Yes

International students

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.

Interview and Practical Workshop
UK applicants with relevant qualifications will be invited to a practical workshop and interview. Overseas applicants will be invited to send samples of their performance work. Please see our Practical Workshop Advice Performing Arts BA (Hons) for full details.

Structure and assessment

First year

Dramatic Performance Project
Post-Dramatic Performance Project
Contemporary Music Theatre Project
Physical Theatre Project

Second year

Curve Company 1
Performing Mixed Reality
Site
Intercultural Performance Identities
Deconstructing Performance
Perspectives on Performance and Digital Arts
Applied Performance
Dance Techniques 2
Teaching and Leading Dance 1
Enterprise and Promotion 1
Devised Theatre and Performance
The Healthy Practitioner
Technical Stage Production

Third year

Students choose from a range of modules offered from the list below. This enables students, in their final year, to specialise. Modules offered may include:

Performance Company
International Performance Project
Performance Research Project 1
Performance Research Project 2
Education and the Performing Arts
Teaching and Leading Dance 2
Live Art and Experimental Performance
Music, Media and Community Arts
Music Industry Management
Creative Media and Performance 1
Creative Media and Performance 2
Placement 1
Enterprise and Promotion 2
Contemporary Screen Dance: Concept to Production

Click here for more detailed module information

Note: All modules are subject to change in order to keep content current.

Structure

The degree has a strong core of modules that develop your skills in performance-making for stage and screen-based media, alongside contextual knowledge of contemporary performing arts through the 20th and 21st centuries. Around the core, you have the freedom to construct your own specialist programme within three broad themes:

Contemporary Performance
This theme includes a range of innovative contemporary practices across live and digital media. You will develop your understanding and skills in the creation and performance of all manner of contemporary performance, including immersive theatre, site specific, music theatre and Live Art. You can do this through a range of optional modules including Devising in the second year, as well as International Performance Project, Performance Company and/or Live Art in the final year. Recent graduates who focused on this theme have gone on to the Performance Practices MA or pursued a career in performance making in the UK and overseas, including Frankie who made and toured solo work in Berlin.

Digital Performance
This theme explores the extraordinary use of digital technology in the context of live theatre, dance, interactive installation, music, gaming and internet performance and software development. Develop the skills to make work for screen, or digital soundscapes, or even performance in the virtual world. You can explore this theme in a range of option choices including Performance, Interaction and Digital Technologies in the third year. Recent graduates who focused on this theme include Amy and Ruth who set up a professional company delivering mixed reality workshops to schools, James who has created sound designs for several professional theatre companies, and Laura and Andrew who set up a successful theatre and media production company in the East Midlands.

Applied Arts and Education
This theme develops your understanding and skills in how arts inform and enrich our lives in community, healthcare and educational settings. Module option choices with this focus include the second-year module Applied Performance which leads on to Education and the Performing Arts in the final year. These can be combined with other specialist applied arts modules and/or a wide range of practice-based modules such as Devising or Performance Company. This prepares you for further training in teaching or applied arts careers such as leading community workshops. Recent graduates pursue careers in a broad spectrum of applied arts including Alex who works with adults with special needs in Staffordshire and Sarah who teaches performing arts at a school in Shropshire.

Contact hours
You will be taught through a combination of lectures, tutorials, seminars, group work and self-directed study. Assessment is through coursework (presentations, essays and reports) Your precise timetable will depend on the optional modules you choose to take, however, in your first year you will normally attend around 13 hours of timetabled taught sessions (lectures and tutorials) each week, and we expect you to undertake at least 25 further hours of independent study to complete project work and research.

Opportunities

You have many opportunities to work with visiting professional practitioners. Previous visiting artists and practitioners include Frantic Assembly, Imitating the Dog, Théâtre de Complicité, and Kyuu Theatre Company. You will also see live performances at local, national and international theatres.

There are placement opportunities in and around Leicester in education, community arts and arts management. Our excellent links with the local performing arts industry have also resulted in internships for many of our students.

Facilities and features

Performance facilities

We offer some of the finest facilities in the sector. The Performance Arts Centre for Excellence (PACE) building has two spacious dance studios and two large, fully equipped performance spaces.

There are also three further studios in the Campus Centre. You can book rehearsal space and equipment including digital video cameras, sound recording equipment and edit suites.

All these facilities are on one campus surrounded by newly developed student accommodation, and it is just a ten minutes’ walk from the city centre and cultural quarter. Here you will find Curve Theatre and the digital media centre, Phoenix Square.

Library

The main Kimberlin Library is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year (other than in exceptional circumstances) and offers a huge range of online resources, all of which can be remotely accessed from anywhere you choose.

The library is run by dedicated staff who offer additional support to students, including help with academic writing, research strategies, literature searching and reference management and assistive technology, and mathematical skills for non-maths students. There is also a Just Ask service for help and advice, available via email or telephone.

Learning zones

Our Learning Zones and The Greenhouse also provide space for group or individual work and study.

There are 1,600 study places across all library locations, more than 700 computer stations, laptops to borrow, free wi-fi and desktop power outlets.

You can also book rooms with plasma screens, laptops and DVD facilities for group work and presentations, secure an individual study room with adjustable lighting or make use of our assistive technology.

Opportunities and careers

Placements

Several third year option modules provide you with the opportunity to gain practical experience working with organisations outside of the university. These include schools, community groups and local arts venues.

DMU Global

There are international opportunities built into the Performing Arts degree, in order to give you an insight into artistic practices beyond the UK. A yearly visit to a European arts festival (currently in The Netherlands) enables you to see a wide range of international performance work, take part in workshops with the creators, and attend lectures with the festival organisers. A third year option module, International Performance Project, includes a week intensive in an international Performing Arts School (currently Valetta, Malta), where you immerse yourselves in the local culture and artistic practice, using this to inform the development of practical work.

Graduate careers

This degree has employability at its heart. The interdisciplinary nature of the course equips graduates to work in a wide variety of fields such as performance, creating work, project management, teaching, research and community arts.

You will gain real-life experience of working as a creative maker, performer and manager, responsible for taking a piece of performance right through from creative brief to public performance, often in venues beyond the university campus. These experiences are hugely attractive to potential employers and invaluable for graduates who want to create their own work. Read about our graduates.

You will also be well-equipped to pursue further study at postgraduate level including the DMU Performance Practices MA.