Performance

Our BA (Hons) Performance programme is designed to help you become a creative maker, critical thinker, and work ready.

In your first year, you will be introduced to a range of practical skills and knowledge to help build your understanding of the fundamentals of making and studying performance. Your second year uses your new and established skills and strengths to learn to analyse and critically reflect on your practice and explore new approaches to what performance is and can be. Third year offers both continuing and Direct Entry students a range of opportunities to explore your own interests and specialisms, as a way of developing your own creative practice. Your final year is a culmination of your practical and critical learning, where you engage with student-led projects and industry mentors to serve as a strong foundation for entering your chosen career path.

To enhance your learning, the programme also offers masterclasses with visiting artists, workshops with leading industry professionals, and partnerships with national and international arts organisations and venues, providing you with valuable networking and showcasing opportunities for you and your work.

Programme Highlights

This programme is designed to develop your creative and critical thinking skills to prepare you for work in the contemporary performance industries, as well as a range of future career contexts that require effective communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity.

You will develop a wide-ranging critical appreciation for all elements of performance – from contemporary practice to histories of performance, from theoretical study to industry contexts.

Access to our on-site performance, television, and radio studios in Ayr will help you develop your practice across media and learn to collaborate across the creative industries.

You will have a wide variety of opportunities to work with and learn from key people and organisations in Scottish theatre and beyond alongside a teaching team of specialist researchers and practitioners. Key areas of specialism within the programme include contemporary performance practice, applied and community performance, historical and contemporary writing for stage and screen, and performance theory.

Programme Details

Whatever your eventual career goal, the Performance programme at UWS is designed to empower you to explore and build your creative skills and interests to pursue a variety of possible pathways. We recognise the important role that having practical, industry-focused experience has on securing a graduate career, which is why this programme offers a range of real-world professional settings to help you hone your practice.

By offering a combination of practical and theoretical study, this programme will provide you with the opportunities to work across multiple disciplines so that you can learn and create independently and collaboratively in a variety of contexts, from professional performance making, to community arts, education, and further research.

Careers

Our BA (Hons) Performance programme here at UWS will equip you with the knowledge and practical skills to kick-start the following career pathways:

Performer

Director

Producer

Writer

Community theatre maker

Teaching and facilitation

Postgraduate study and research

Course Modules

Year 1:

Reading Performance - T1

Performance Contexts: Production Aesthetics - T1 & 2

Practice: Text-Based - T1 & 2

Performance Histories - T2

Aspire - T1 & 2

Year 2:

Performance Contexts: Creative Processes - T1

Theory & Performance - T1

Practice: Devised - T1 & 2

Culture & Society - T2

Cross Media Collaboration - T2

Year 3:

Approaching Performance Research - T1 & 2

Practice: Creative Festival - T1

Applied Theatre - T1

Contemporary Performance in Context - T2

OPTIONS

Applied Theatre in Practice - T2

Digital Performance - T2

Advanced Performance Practice: Testing Ideas - T2

Year 4:

Creative Research Project - T1 & 2

Performance: Dissertation - T1 & 2

Performance: Networks & Promotions - T1

https://psmd.uws.ac.uk/UWS/Programme-Specifications/Undergraduate/Business-and-Creative-Industries/BA (Hons) Performance Programme Specification 25-26.pdf

The BA (Hons) Performance course at UWS is designed to equip the student to become a creative maker, a critical thinker and work ready. Drawing on the expertise of the teaching team and visiting lectures, you will gain insights into the contemporary performance industries and develop a robust understanding of how performance is made, the cultural and social significance of performance and performance theory.

Our focus on practice, history, theory and industry allows you to explore performance critically and practically and gain a deeper understanding of diverse creative and research practices. You will be encouraged to develop your existing skills and passions whilst engaging with a series of new skills. Core and optional modules will provide a grounding in performance and performance making whilst supporting you to develop your own path and enabling you to position yourself within a variety of performance-related disciplines.

The course is for emerging performers, performance makers and those interested in developing their practical skills, researching their discipline and thinking critically about performance and culture.