MA / MFA Dance Performance
Course details
Introduction
The MA/MFA Dance Performance fosters a supportive and dynamic environment to challenge and explore your creative voice, agency and artistry as a dance performer.
Students form the membership of Trinity Laban Dance Collective (TLDC), a framework for working which foregrounds your experience as an individual performer, whilst also highlighting collectivity and collaboration as modes of artistic enquiry.
Throughout the year, TLDC undertakes a range of different creative projects, workshops and classes, delivered with exceptional guidance from faculty and guest artists. These projects culminate in a range of performance opportunities, artistic outputs, dialogues and debates.
Key Features
The MA/MFA Dance Performance offers you the opportunity to research and explore the role of the performer in the artistic process and to deepen your understanding of both the artistic and technical complexities that form part of dance performance.
You’ll be immersed in an intensive year of physical and creative exploration. You’ll be invited to reflect on your own performance practice and that of your peers, to ask questions, and to identify and give voice to your own interests and ambitions.
Regular classes in embodied dance techniques provide the groundwork for exploring different movement styles and methodologies. Creative projects with guest artists may have a range of different outputs from theatre performances to site specific events, durational installations, film work and other creative performances. Guest artists and collaborative opportunities help you to broaden and develop your professional networks.
Across all activities, the experience of the dancer as an individual is centred and celebrated. Ongoing dialogue and debate create space for critical reflection alongside regular feedback and independent research.
You will become part of the wider postgraduate community at Trinity Laban, with shared activities and opportunities to collaborate across both music and dance faculties. Facilities in our award-winning building include an outstanding library, state of the art studios, a 300-seat theatre and access to our fitness gym and Pilates studio alongside costume, production and AV support.
Key Facts
- UCAS
- MA 705F / MFA 704F
- Location
- Laban Building
- Duration
- MA 1 year (full time), MFA 2 years (full time)
Fees
Audition fees
Please note that there is no audition fee for this course. You will only need to pay the UCAS Conservatoires administration fee of £28.50 for the 2025 entry cycle.
2025-26
- Dance audition fee 25/26
- No charge
- MA Dance Performance (Full-time)
- Home £10,950 International £23,200
- MA Dance Performance (Part-time)
- Home £6,160 International £13,040
- MFA Dance Performance (Full-time)
- Home £6,350 International £14,320
- Info 25/26
- Fees represent 2025/26 year only, programmes with more than one year are subject to fee increases after the first year
2024-25
- MA Dance Performance (Full-time)
- Home £10,630 International £22,250
- MA Dance Performance (Part-time)
- Home £5,930 International £12,540
- MFA Dance Performance (Full-time)
- Home £6,110 International £13,770
Key Dates
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Induction
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Autumn Term
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Activities Week
-
Spring Term
-
Activities Week
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Summer Term
-
Activities Week
Detailed Information
The MA Dance Performance is a one year (full time) taught programme, culminating in an independent research project.
The MFA Dance Performance is a two-year (full time) programme. It shares the first year with the MA. An extended independent project forms the second year, providing time for in-depth research and realisation of a substantial body of your own work.
Please note we do not allow deferred entry on the Dance Performance programmes.
The majority of the learning for this programme takes place in the context of group studio practice led by faculty and guest artists. A range of performance experiences will also provide different learning opportunities.
Invited artists will vary from year to year. Guest artists and companies in previous years include Clod Ensemble, Company Wayne McGregor, Becky Namgauds and Temitope Ajose-Cutting.
Seminars and lectures will also be part of the course alongside group discussion and reflective practice. You will also have regular individual tutorials and mentoring throughout the year. In the final term, you will engage in independent study to pursue a particular research idea with mentoring support.
This is an intensive programme, and you can expect to have around 25-30 contact hours per week for much of the year, depending on the activity.
Assessment will take place through a variety of modes, including practice-based formats, presentation, performance, reflective documentation and portfolio submission.
Entry Requirements
- Normally a UK undergraduate degree in an appropriate or related subject, or an overseas award of equivalent standard.
- Applicants without formal qualification, who may have the appropriate levels of professional experience are invited to complete Trinity Laban’s recognition of prior learning (RPL) process.
- If English is not your first language, you will need to achieve an IELTS score of 6.5 overall.
These programmes are suited to both recent graduates and to more experienced performers who wish to refresh and reframe their performance practice alongside gaining a postgraduate qualification. You will need to demonstrate a level of dance performance practice, either at an audition workshop or through video application, that is commensurate with study at master’s level
We are looking for applicants who are excited by the prospect of working intensively as part of a Collective to explore and deepen their skills as performers. Students will need to be willing to collaborate, take risks, be ready to explore new creative ideas and to work as part of a team. Students will also need to be self-motivated and bring with them an ongoing curiosity about their own movement practice and performative potential.
We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and we particularly encourage applications from different underrepresented groups.
Once we have received your application, you will be either:
- invited to one of our audition workshops, or
- sent more details about how to submit your recorded material, if you are unable to attend in person.
You can submit recorded material via Embark. Please upload the following:
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Showreel/portfolio of work, maximum 5 minutes. This could be footage of you performing, working in the studio, outside, etc. You should be clearly visible in the video. It would be useful to think about how your choice of footage represents your work as a dance artist/performer.
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Solo task: take a look at this famous solo created and performed by Trisha Brown in 1978 (see here).
Your task is to film yourself dancing a 60 second response. You are not expected to learn or reproduce any of the material, instead we are asking you to choreograph a new solo or simply to improvise freely for 60 seconds, working with movement ideas from the film. Here are some things you might want to think about, but feel free to use your own ideas:
- Taking impulses/directional change from different parts of the body.
- Moving in and out of pedestrian and more complex movement vocabulary.
- Finding a play between physical clarity and freedom/fluidity.
Your solo might look very different to the one on film, and that’s okay!
3. A recording of you speaking to camera explaining why you want to apply for this programme and telling us about your choice-making in the solo task. This should be maximum 2-mins.
4. If your video application is successful, you will be invited to an online interview with the Programme Leader.
MFA applicants must include a project proposal, outlining the following:
- The reasons why they wish to carry out an independent project over one academic year (their second year of study)
- The nature of their intended research and a draft projected timeline with indicated outputs of research (which is understandably subject to change)
- Their suitability for extended independent research in the context of an MFA Dance Performance.
Staff
Teaching Staff
Hilary Stainsby
Programme Leader
Zoi Dimitriou
Lecturer in Dance
Giacomo Pini
Lecturer in Dance
Sara Ruddock
Lecturer in Dance
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