- UCAS course code
- WW34
- UCAS institution code
- M20
Bachelor of Arts (BA)
BA Music and Drama
Explore your passion for performance through the interdisciplinary study of music, theatre and film.
- Typical A-level offer: AAB including specific subjects
- Typical contextual A-level offer: ABC including specific subjects
- Refugee/care-experienced offer: BBC including specific subjects
- Typical International Baccalaureate offer: 35 points overall with 6,6,5 at HL including Music
Fees and funding
Fees
Tuition fees for home students commencing their studies in September 2025 will be £9,535 per annum (subject to Parliamentary approval). Tuition fees for international students will be £28,500 per annum. For general information please see the undergraduate finance pages.
Policy on additional costs
All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).
Scholarships/sponsorships
- Find out more from student finance
- Eligible UK students can apply for bursaries and scholarships
- Funding for EU and international students is on our country-specific pages
- Many students work part-time or complete a student internship
Course unit details:
Devising for Performance
Unit code | DRAM21042 |
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Credit rating | 20 |
Unit level | Level 2 |
Teaching period(s) | Semester 2 |
Available as a free choice unit? | No |
Overview
This module combines aspects of practical and improvisational engagement as a performer/theatre maker with embodied exploration and analysis of performance techniques in the field of devising. The module helps students to gain practical skills relating to the process and practice of devising for performance, and develops their ability to evaluate their own creative work in practice. The module is structured through workshops that explore a mainly body based approach to devising designed to build a working practical vocabulary and repertoire through which students can work towards creating original devised work in performance. Students are expected to read from the reading list provided and to research the work of contemporary companies and practitioners who make work through devising. This research will form the basis of an understanding of the wide variety of practice constituting devised theatre.
Pre/co-requisites
Pre-requisites: Any L1 Drama Practice course unit – Performance Practices 1; Performance Practices 2.
Co-requisites: Any L2 Drama Core Study course unit: Theatres of Modernity or Screen, Culture and Society
Aims
- To develop and deepen students’ working knowledge of approaches to devising for performance
- To extend students’ knowledge of key practitioners in the field of devised performance, and their ability to draw on these approaches to develop their own work
- To enhance the students' skills in devising theatre and their ability to evaluate their own creative and intellectual work
- To provide students with an opportunity to learn how to work effectively in a group-based process of theatre-making, from conceptualisation to realisation of a piece of group performance that is intelligible, playable, and challenging
Knowledge and understanding
- examine and test in practice some of the key components of the theory and practice of devised theatre
- develop effective strategies for collaborative group work
- demonstrate an ability to evaluate their own work and consider professional practitioners through critical reflection.
- demonstrate skills and a working knowledge base in devised performance practice
Intellectual skills
- display a critical and practical understanding of the various relationships possible between text-stimuli (including images, text and objects), body, actor, theatrical space and spectator
- analyse the creative process of others, student and professional, and measure the quality of their own work against professional standards
- draw theory and practice together through processes of creation and reflection
Practical skills
- collectively devise for, and present material to, an audience
- demonstrate their ability to take personal responsibility and take initiative in decision-making
- offer constructive feedback to peers and revise their own approach in response to feedback from tutors and peers
Transferable skills and personal qualities
- Demonstrate a good level of interpersonal communication and team-working skills
- Demonstrate creative group-work skills (problem-solving, thinking innovatively, drawing on creative approaches of others, evaluating creative approaches of others, giving and receiving feedback, time-keeping)
- Use effective leadership and group-work skills to solve problems and sustain a creative process
- perform with confidence and precision for specific audiences/contexts, making use of diverse creative approaches and media as appropriate to the module
Employability skills
- Group/team working
- Ability to work independently and as part of a group to conceive, plan, undertake and evaluate original, well-developed responses to briefs (overseeing a creative process from inception through production, post-production and evaluation)
- Innovation/creativity
- An enhanced ability to use reflexivity and emotional intelligence when working in groups (maintaining balance between taking initiative/leading and developing the ideas of others, supporting and challenging, ability to empathise with multiple perspectives, ability to adapt to distinct contexts etc.).
- Leadership
- Enhanced skills in managing a group-work process - leadership skills, ideas-sharing, giving and receiving feedback, taking initiative, negotiation, flexibility, compromise, collaboration, making contributions, reliability, time-keeping et cetera.
- Project management
- Maintaining professional standards as regards self-presentation, including ability to perform in front of an audience with confidence and precision, and to effectively adapt performance to specific contexts.
Assessment methods
Group performance: (60%)
Critical reflection: 40%
Work in progress presentation: N/A (formative)
Feedback methods
Work-in-progress presentation - oral and written: Formative
Ongoing feedback during workshops – oral, peer to peer and tutor to student: Formative
Feedback in ‘realisation’ phase of performance preparation - oral: Formative
Group performance - written: Summative
Critical reflection - written: Summative
Recommended reading
Colin, Noyale, and Stefanie Sachsenmaier. Collaboration in Performance Practice: Premises, Workings and Failures. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Gomez-Pena, Guillermo, Roberto Sifuentes, and Rachel. Roger. Exercises for Rebel Artists: Radical Performance Pedagogy. New York: Routledge, 2011.
Harvie, Jen, and Andy. Lavender. Making Contemporary Theatre: International Rehearsal Processes. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010
Heddon, Deirdre, and Jane Milling. Devising Performance: a Critical History. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006
Leupin, Rahel. “Making the Intercultural: The Rehearsal Processes of Gintersdorfer/Klassen.” Contemporary Theatre Review 28.4 (2018): 504–521.
Oddey, Alison. Devising Theatre: a Practical and Theoretical Handbook. London: Routledge, 1994
Study hours
Scheduled activity hours | |
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Practical classes & workshops | 33 |
Independent study hours | |
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Independent study | 167 |
Teaching staff
Staff member | Role |
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Cara Berger | Unit coordinator |