Courses
Undergraduate Study
Higher Education Courses
Two courses of the School are designed normally to form a single three-year programme. The two courses are:
- Foundation Degree in Ballet and Contemporary Dance (two years)
- BA (Hons) in Ballet and Contemporary Dance (one year)
Both courses were introduced in September 2005, validated by the University of Kent
UK/EU students are required to pay standard tuition fees, which are £3,145 for the 2008/09 academic year. The degree courses are open to non-EU students who will, however, be required to pay full tuition fees. Please contact the school for further details.
The degree courses include the study of Ballet and Contemporary Dance technique, pointe, pas de deux, choreography, solo and repertory work, as well as conventional and academic methodology and skills, research and written work.
To qualify for entry, all students must be 16 or over by 1st September in the year they wish to start.
These degree courses focus on the processes of learning and applying a progressively sophisticated body of dance knowledge, understanding and related skills, so that students are able to dance Ballet and Contemporary Dance to at least a professional level and, in many cases, well beyond that. Other aspects of the programme either derive from or support this central process.
The study of choreography within the courses is grounded in the process of learning to dance and in a choreographer's own expertise as a dancer.
See Education and Training for further details
Postgraduate Study
MA in Advanced Dance Performance with specialisation in Ritual
To begin January 2011, subject to validation
The MA will provide for those with intellectual ambition and research interests. Of equal significance, the programme will, from a vocational perspective, develop the dancers in terms of their technical skills, performance skills and expressivity.
Through a year of study and practice, beyond the BA level, the programme will combine dance performance improvement with intellectual expansion and research accomplishment.
Postgraduate Diploma
The option of a Postgraduate Diploma is available. This diploma route involves taking three of four modules and so engaging in only little written work.
Ritual
Danced ritual is understood within the following context of hypothetical thought:
There exists a distinct category of experience identified as “the numinous” (Otto, R, 1958). This, in the past and at present, has been understood as the experience of the divine. This experience is available to individuals who do not believe in conventional notions of God or of Gods as well as to those who may. It is available even if such divinity is absolutely non-existent. Such experience is, in C. G. Jung’s terms “psychically hygienic” (Jung, CW vol 11, p 532).
Ritual is understood here as a process through which such experience can be accessed as a regular and devised practice.
Download/Read the course description (this is a PDF document)
A Performance Company
Participants will, as a company, rehearse, produce and perform danced ritual or pararitual events. Performance venues will include theatres and cathedrals. The work will be informed by, and will inform, a study of research and scholarship dealing with modern and ancient dance and theatre ritual and ritual-like practice.
Significant experiments in the creation of modern theatrical ritual will be of concern like those of Jerzy Grotowsky, Peter Brook, Antonin Artaud and their schools. The nature of religious and mystical experience and the relation of this to ritual will be examined. Thus the work of thinkers within this area like Victor Turner, Richard Schechner, Arnold van Gennep and C G Jung will be important.
Attention will be upon surviving traditional ritual and on anthropological accounts of ancient ritual. The relation of these to myth and religion is clearly of importance.
Entry Requirements
Students require:
- a genuine interest in the subject
- a good BA (Hons) degree or equivalent
- a professional standard in dance technical ability
- developed performance quality and dance expressivity
You can download the application form here or request one from the School.
Completed Application Forms should be submitted by Friday 26 March 2010. Auditions will be held Wednesday 21 April and Thursday 22 April 2010. Alternatively, overseas applicants may submit a DVD which should include any recent work/performances demonstrating expertise in both ballet and contemporary dance and a short contemporary dance solo.
