Dance and Professional Practice

BA Hons Dance and Professional Practice
Mode: full-time

This innovative course engages with current debates in dance and highlights the development of the skilled dance practitioner as an independent, creative and entrepreneurial individual.

The course is studio-based and practice-led, emphasising your growth as an articulate dance artist. You will engage with key areas of dance technique, choreography, performance, improvisation, and critical and cultural analysis.

Professional practice is central to the student experience and enhances future employability. Placement opportunities will be supported through our strong links with regional and national dance and arts-related
organisations.

This course engages with current debates in Dance and the dance profession and foregrounds the development of the skilled dance practitioner as an independent, creative and entrepreneurial individual.

The development of the articulate dance artist is central to the course.

Your direct experience of dance on this course will include; daily technique class, choreography and improvisation workshops, exploration of teaching and leadership in dance contexts, and regional performance opportunities through the University Dance Company.

The course has professional practice as a central component of the student experience and as a means of enhancing future employability. Direct engagement with the dance profession and the wider creative industries underpins the teaching of the course.

Placement opportunities and residencies will be supported through strong links with regional and national Dance and Arts organisations.

Areas of study include:

• Dance Technique
• Performance
• Composition and Improvisation
• Choreography
• Critical and Cultural Analysis
• New Media and Digital Technology

Why choose this course?

• Teaching staff have high-profile professional experience as performers, choreographers, artistic directors, and have gained internationally significant research awards
• Purpose-built dance studios and a 280-seat theatre and professional equipped theatre
• Media-related courses ranked 3rd in the UK, according to the Guardian 2007
• practitioners, and have gained significant research awards
• Opportunity to tour professional regional venues as part of the University Dance Company
• Studio-based and practice-led
• Focuses on the key areas of dance technique, performance, choreography, improvisation, and critical and cultural analysis
• Models of professional practice are embedded throughout the course as a means of developing students’ employment skills and entrepreneurial awareness

Teaching/learning methods and strategies

Your learning experience on the course is enhanced through access to on-campus professional performance work at the Bowen West Theatre, which is a newly built 280 seat professional venue.

There is a strong culture of student visits to professional dance and performance events at nearby venues in London, Cambridge, Warwick and Milton-Keynes.

You will also benefit from visiting artists and guest teachers, who have included:
Nigel Charnock Jonathon Burrows, Ultima Vez, Shobana Jeyasingh, KADAM, Juliyen Hamilton, Walker Dance, Vincent Dance Theatre, New Art Club, Sarah Rubidge, Igloo, Henri Oguike, Mavin Khoo, Mark Murphy, Sonia Rafferty, Thea Barnes, Kerry Nicholls, Willi Dorner.

Additionally brand-new dance studios, sports halls, gyms and movement laboratories enhance the student’s experience of daily learning in a friendly and supportive environment.

Assessment

Assessment is conducted through both practical and written assignments including group and individual performance work, choreography, screen-based media projects, essays, seminar presentations and reflective journals.

There are no written examinations on this course. Students are supported and encouraged to engage with self-directed study as the course progresses as preparation for future self-sufficiency and employability.

Dissertation/project and research

Research in Dance at Bedford has a strong and vibrant culture, emphasising practice-led activity in areas of performance, e-science, choreography and collaborative practice. Staff research is seen as central to developing and maintaining the excellent quality of teaching in the subject area.

Research at Bedford is achieving national and international significance through performance outputs and supporting conference presentations and publications, and it is gaining a high success rate in terms of applications for funding.

External funding has focused primarily on professional arts funding bodies such as Arts Council England and academic funding through the AHRC.