Birmingham City University

Experimental Performance - Postgraduate Diploma

If you want to study experimental performance in the UK, with or without a focus on sound, then these are the ideal courses for you.

Designed for emerging arts practitioners, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire’s brand new PgCert, PgDip and MMus courses in Experimental Performance provide you with a unique opportunity to undertake independent artistic projects in a fully supportive environment.

Available for the first time in September 2019, they enable practitioners from a variety of disciplines (including, but not limited to, instrumental/vocal performance, composition, dance, choreography, theatre, visual and performance art, creative writing) to come together with likeminded people.  This course doesn’t ask you to justify yourself against the background of tradition but gives you agency. People from every discipline are treated equally with emphasis placed on rigorous conceptual thought and idea-development. By focusing on these non-discipline-specific aspects of performance you will contribute to a collaborative, discursive and interdisciplinary working environment.

The core of your study will be formed by your own artistic ideas, which are developed, through research and dialogue, into professional practical projects.

You will be allocated a mentoring team comprising a personal tutor who has experience in collaborative and conceptual approaches alongside additional specialist support according to your individual needs. Your mentoring team is there to help you realize your ideas into fully developed performances in the best possible way.

Our Experimental Performance courses will equip you with the skills you need to engage successfully with diverse contemporary creative practice. While our PgCert focuses exclusively on Experimental Performance work, complementary modules on the PgDip and MMus are intended to enhance your wider professional development. These will be chosen, in discussion with your personal tutor, from a varied list shared with other postgraduate Principal Study disciplines.

What's covered in the course?

• In-depth examination of your current artistic practice.
• Development of your ability to turn artistic ideas into effective performance material.
• Mentoring from specialist practitioners.
• Study within an interdisciplinary working environment that promotes collaboration and discussion.
• Regular group critique sessions.
• Using the wide range of spaces offered by BCU with privileged use of our new experimental performance space called The Lab.
• Understanding the context of your work and placing it in artistic and socio-political discourses.
• In PgDip and MMus, a core career development module designed to get you thinking about your future professional plans.
• In PgDip and MMus, the flexibility to choose from a broad menu of Professional Development modules designed to help you work towards achieving your personal career aspirations.
• In MMus, a core module designed to develop your skills as a researcher or informed practitioner.
• In PgCert, the ability to focus wholly on the Principal Study area.
• The possibility of transferring between PgCert, PgDip and/or MMus (as appropriate) once you have begun your studies (but before completion of your original course).