Dance MA / PGDip

This module looks at a range of research methodologies appropriate to the development of analytical and critical research skills.

The module will cover topics including, fieldwork methods, ethnography, practice based research, retrieval skills, referencing and academic writing. 

The aims of the module are as follows: 

• To enable students to understand the purposes of appropriate research methodologies
• To enable students to use appropriate research methodologies
• To ensure students are equipped to reference contemporary academic theory and practice appropriately

This module provides an opportunity for the student to give their artistic expression increased breadth and depth. This will take the form of a substantial project. The student will undertake extensive research to underpin this project. Students can work individually or may work with their peers, with undergraduate students of the department or with external contacts and agencies.

The aims of the module are as follows: 

• To facilitate the development of a large scale research-led project
• To enable the student to interrogate their own creative practice
• To encourage the documentation of methods and processes in order to engender a thorough understanding of themselves as a practitioner within their chosen discipline

This module facilitates the opportunity for students to produce an academically informed piece of research, subject to tutor-approval. Students are required to identify and justify a viable area for research, frame an appropriate question, exhibit extensive knowledge of previous research in the field, and make informed decisions about the appropriate methodology for the research, which should ideally involve some primary research. 

Topics can be wide-ranging; students may wish to examine the working practices of professional individuals or companies, a genre or trend in current practice or the manifestation of a body of theoretical concern. The subject matter of the inquiry may be the candidates’ own practice but would need to include reference to other contemporary practice to contextualise their work with that which is at the forefront of the discipline. 

The aims of the module are as follows: 

• To enable students to demonstrate advanced knowledge and sophisticated understanding of a particular aspect of their discipline.
• To facilitate opportunities for the student to apply various research methods and approaches to test a hypothesis and or offer original interpretation.
• To allow the student to demonstrate complex and systematic critical analysis skills and an ability to apply and critique theoretical ideas and concepts.

This module will provide students with the opportunity to explore and investigate compositional and creative practice, developing their own personal research agenda from which the production and presentation of new work will emerge and be shared. 

Seminars and a series of workshops either live or online will encourage students to connect with current debates and practices in relation to dance performance, choreography, perception and reception. From this students will develop a practice-led research proposal through which they will engage with all strategies and methodologies that translate their proposed work from intention through to realisation.

Students will evaluate the making and witnessing of work within critical and reflective frameworks. Formative sharing of work will take place throughout the module for students to receive valuable feedback in preparation for summative assessment. 

The aims of the module are as follows to: 

• Enable the implementation of a practical research strategy developing critical foundations in realising new performance work.
• Enable the students to produce work that engages with solo and/or collaborative dance authorship.
• Interrogate creative practice and new working methodologies.
• Examine the process of critical appraisal and feedback mechanisms within the context of praxis; to witness and read work in progress.
• Facilitate the investigation of methods of documenting, recording and evaluating dance making processes.

This module will provide students with the opportunity to expand upon and develop greater knowledge and depth of inquiry concerning a personal research agenda from which the production and presentation of new work will emerge and be shared. Seminars and workshops either live or online will explore more experimental and creative dance approaches increasing authorship of students own practice-led research process from proposal to realisation either live or online and equally expand students’ ability to document work using online and digital platforms. Furthermore, students will be able to investigate and align theoretical frameworks to their own research practice and at the same time increase their abilities in performance documentation.

The aims of the module are as follows: 

• To further develop the students' skills and knowledge in the planning, managing and execution of a creative platform event.
• To enable student to use theory as a creative tool in performance making.
• To develop the students' research methods applicable from intention to reception and the evaluation of the inquiry.
• To give student guidance in further developing strategies of documentation.

This module will provide students with the opportunity to interrogate dance practice within various contexts and cultural positions, mapping out emerging territories of current discourse, theoretical frameworks, and practice-based research. 

The module will act as a springboard from which students are encouraged to establish authorial engagement and ownership of discursive language, used to frame and navigate personal research, theory and practice.

Rather than working through a conventional syllabus, the module will work through a series of investigations into specific topics and frameworks that are of particular relevance to current activity in the fields of dance, e.g. conceptions of practice and theory, devising and creation, participation and democracy, empirical and practice-based research, and performance practice.

The aims of the module are as follows: 

• To identify and map out the territory of current dance practitioners, practices, and theoretical frameworks.
• To examine the relationships between intention(s), context(s) and reception(s).
• To facilitate the emergence of a personal methodology of practice supported by scholarly research.