BA (Hons) Dance

Level 1

Dance Technique and Anatomy
In this module students will develop an awareness and understanding of human movement in anatomical, spatial and qualitative terms, applying this understanding to different dance techniques (e.g. Graham, Cohan, Humphrey, Cunningham, Release Technique and Contemporary Jazz). They will also learn how to work safely and care for their bodies by becoming familiar with safe dance practice and injury prevention.

Choreography One: Foundations of Practice
This module furthers the knowledge, performance skills and artistic development initiated in ‘Dance Technique and Anatomy’ in relation to choreography. The creative exploration of the relationship between investigation in movement, fundamentals of Laban theory and investigation of choreographic form will be addressed.

Dancer as Practitioner: An Historical Overview
This module will introduce students to the evolution and ethos of dance delivery and practice. The module shall address practitioners nationally and internationally in the field of Dance, working across many dance forms, ranging from popular to cultural to social dance genres. In addition the module will look at ways in which dance practitioners are supported by regional, national and international infrastructures.

Dance Production Skills
This module gives students a range of basic technical skills that will enable them to animate work for individual productions, community and group work. Students will study a wide range of introductory technical hardware and stage management skills essential for touring work to small-scale venues and use in their own studio projects.

Choreography One: Dance Analysis
This module will examine a range of dance performances, both live and on video/DVD. The student will develop approaches and frameworks for reading and understanding dance through a series of lectures and seminar discussions that examine both recorded and live dance work through different modes of interpretation.

Practitioners Duty of Care
This module provides students with appropriate knowledge about the effects of exercise and managing risk in practitioner settings. It will equip students with an understanding to make informed judgements around participation when working with vulnerable client groups. In particular, the module addresses the physical, social and emotional effects of exercise and the relevance of complimentary and holistic therapies to dance.

Histories of Dance
In this module students learn about the forms, practices, and social traditions of dance in European and non-European contexts from ancient times to the present day. They will examine the social uses, meanings, and relevance of performance at different times and in different cultures, including religious, spiritual, and political functions of performance, the particulars of the performance space, and the legacy for contemporary practice of the ancient world and more recent past.

Level 2

Intermediate Dance Technique and Somatics
In this module students will build on their technical understandings from year one and will progress to develop the essential skills of dance movement in relation to intermediate level dance technique classes at level two. A second social/popular/cultural dance form will be introduced at level two that will support the somatic learning and understanding of body organisation in relation to space and dynamics, such as South Asian dance techniques.

Choreography 2: Improvisation, Documentation and Reflective Practice
This module develops further the technical, imaginative and personal discoveries of Level One Choreography modules. The student will learn to interrogate dance works from more sophisticated critical, social, historical and psychological perspectives and will apply these skills to documentation and reflective practice.

Methods of Practice
This module deepens the knowledge and practice of dance delivery introduced in ‘Practitioners Duty of Care’. The module will cover aspects of working in more challenging environments, and examine how best to approach challenging behaviour, appropriate levels of participation and possible encounters when working with vulnerable people.

Dance Theories: Dance Identities
In this module students examine the work of choreographers and dancers who have significantly changed and radicalised performance styles and practices, reflecting how dance has changed form and direction from its classical roots to new directions in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This module approaches questions like: how are cultural identities made and displayed through dance? How does dance cross boundaries and borders? How does dance imbue communities with new identities?

Choreography 2: ‘Contact Improvisation; An Ongoing Research Lab
This module introduces Contact Improvisation as an inclusive community and performance movement art form, appropriate and accessible for participation by all sectors of the community. The module shall promote influences from body-mind practices related to Contact Improvisation by investigation of the work of artists and teachers working in these fields, nationally and internationally. Students will set up ‘lab spaces’ to explore questions arising about the form to be explored through practice and dialogue.

Dancing Communities
This module explores the structural, environmental, philosophical, critical, social and political dimensions of a dance event, and how these shape the intellectual and artistic justifications for its production and performance. The student will draw from resources of creation, analysis, documentation and create a work suitable for a specific staging and audience

Vocational Practice in Placement Settings
This module runs along side ‘Dancing Communities’ and enables the student to develop methods of delivery over a course of ten weeks. Developing from ‘Methods of Practice’, the students will work in pairs and identify a placement of interest. The University will ensure that all placements are suitable hosts for students and that projects are appropriately mentored. The students will develop and deliver sessions to enable growth, understanding, cohesion, trust and creativity of the group within their chosen placement setting; enabled through dance practice.

Level 3

Advanced Dance Technique and Performance
In this module students study a further western performance dance technique, such as Capoeira. Synthesis of somatic practices from Level Two will strengthen performance presence and will afford the student a greater range in style, musicality, commitment, individuality and sensitivity in performance. The module will equip students with opportunities to pull together all of the learning strands into the creation of a performance.

Choreography Three: Site Specific Dance
In this module students apply choreographic concepts to site-specific environments and non-theatre venues in the local community (e.g. art galleries, outdoors and village halls). The module will introduce opportunities offered by the concepts of site-based performance. Specific skills concerned with site specific work will be explored, such as reading sites from analytical, emotional, functional, contextual and historical perspectives. production projects synthesise all the skills learned on the module and prior choreographic modules to date.

Performance Projects
This module enables student to utilise all theoretical, technical, choreographic and practitioner skills gained throughout the first two years of study in a large performance project. The module invites the student to propose a performance project venture that will require project administration, co-ordination, research, creation and performance, and extended report. The project is in the tradition of an Independent Study.

Dance Theories: Cultured Bodies
In this module students investigate the anthropological theories underlying the practice of dance. They examine the social uses, meanings and relevance of performance at different times and in different cultures, including religious, spiritual, and political functions of performance, the particulars of the performance space, and the legacy for contemporary practice of the ancient world and more recent past.

Choreography Three: Dance and Camera
This module introduces students to the key issues and contexts for choreographing and working with video and new media. It explores key technical applications, the landscape of virtual space and the stylistics of different new media (e.g. digital technology), through theoretical and practical exploration and consideration of works by selected choreographers, such as Lea Anderson, Wendy Houston and Wayne McGregor.

Dance Theories: The Lived Body
In this module students investigate the aesthetic and phenomenological perspectives in the practice of dance. Students will examine the varying attitudes towards the creation, observation and performance of dance. By exploring the processes of acquiring knowledge students will begin to embrace the value and importance of perceptual and sensory awareness; gained through participation with and in the strands of the dance medium.

Lectures and seminars are supplemented by studio and workshop sessions to form an understanding of both the theoretical and practical aspects of dance. You will also work away from the University on outreach and community based projects, incorporating technical and vocational skills, in order to experience dance as a creative enterprise.

There are no written exams. Most units in the course are assessed through practical performances and written work that takes the form of notebooks, analytical essays, case studies and reflective reports. 

The course is run in the new £6 Million Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, which houses a 450 seat professional theatre and excellent studio spaces.

Graduates have the practical skills necessary for careers in a variety of dance contexts, including company formation, teaching, workshop leadership, arts management, dance and physical therapy and community and outreach activities, as well as the opportunity to undertake further postgraduate study and research.

280 points from a minimum of 2 A Levels or equivalent, 3 GCSEs grade C or above including English Language. We welcome applications from mature students with experience of dance.

All applicants will be asked to audition to assess suitability for this course.

For further information and funding your study please see our Fees & Funding pages.

Fees and Funding