Dance and Drama BA (Hons)
Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) Gold award
Our commitment to high quality teaching has been recognised with a TEF Gold rating. The University has received an overall rating of Gold, as well as securing a Gold award in the framework's two new student experience and student outcomes categories.
Why choose this course?
The BA Dance and Drama at Kingston is designed with a strong practical emphasis, and a focus on London's vibrant multicultural arts scene. It allows students to engage critically with a range of approaches to the performing body as it moves across the related fields of drama and dance. As well as becoming skilled practitioners, students develop an understanding of the ways drama and dance engage with and shape identity, bodies and culture in the global city.
Drama at Kingston is a dynamic, challenging and supportive community, located in its own designated building, the Reg Bailey, which contains one large, fully-equipped, flexible black box studio, one smaller studio and a number of rehearsal rooms. The Dance studios are located in the Town House designed by award-winning Grafton Architects. It features three large dance studios, each equipped to professional standards with fully sprung floors, mirrors and barres. Students on the BA Dance and Drama will benefit from the use of both facilities.
| Attendance | UCAS code | Year of entry |
|---|---|---|
| 3 years full time | WW45 | 2025 |
| 6 years part time | Apply direct to the University | 2025 |
Please note: Teaching on this course may take place on more than one KU campus.
| Main Location | Penrhyn Road |
Reasons to choose Kingston
- You'll perform regularly in public at The Rose Theatre, the International Youth Arts Festival and national fringe festivals. These projects will develop your project management skills.
- Strong industry links within the performing arts, which embed employability and professionalism at the core of all modules.
- Our RIBA award-winning Town House building has a performance studio theatre and six dance studios, equipped to professional standards with fully sprung floors, mirrors and barres.
- 97.4% of students thought staff were good at explaining things (NSS 2023).
The Art School Experience
As part of Kingston School of Art, students on this course benefit from joining a creative community where collaborative working and critical practice are encouraged.
Our workshops and studios are open to all disciplines, enabling students and staff to work together, share ideas and explore multi-disciplinary making.
What you will study
You'll work on a range of workshops and across a wide range of performance styles. Through practical classes, you'll acquire analytical, choreographic, directorial, ensemble and performance techniques that will equip you to work in the performance industry.
You will be encouraged to develop projects through workshops, rehearsals and full productions. You'll also take part in Kingston's International Youth Arts Festival and the Camden Fringe Festival, gaining valuable professional experience and adding to your employability.
Modules
Each level is made up of four modules each worth 30 credit points. Typically, a student must complete 120 credits at each level.
Year 1
Year 2
Optional year
Final year
Core modules
Dance Techniques and Cultures 1
60 credits
This module offers students the opportunity to develop technical and performance skills in a range of diverse dance techniques which reflect the current global dance industry, and to acquire contextual knowledge of dance as a socially and culturally-produced practice.
Students will learn through intensive studio classes led by professionals in the field and interactive seminars. This mixed-mode delivery will enable students to enhance their fitness levels, expand their movement vocabulary, acquire the fundamentals of safe dance practice and engage with relevant case studies and themes within the cultural study of dance.
By integrating embodied knowledge of dance forms with active awareness of their socio-historical contexts, the module allows students to extend their technical and anatomical understanding of specific movement styles/techniques, while exploring how culture is practised through dance.
Students will develop a strong body of practice and techniques from a range of traditions. These will form a foundation for further development and study throughout the course. Students will be able to reflect on the language used in the dance sector and become equipped with the tools relevant for the discussion of the role of history and culture in the practice of different dance forms.
The Actor and the Text
30 credits
This module complements and extends knowledge and understanding of key concepts of performance developed in Making Theatre Happen by focusing on the relationship between the actor and the written playtext.
There are two interweaving strands and each is designed to serve as a foundation for your ongoing studies. You will explore fundamental components of drama such as plot, action, character and dialogue and examine ways in which each is presented in a series of written playtexts. These plays are studied in detail and each is identified as a pretext for performance. You are introduced to ways of interrogating the texts and develop a deeper knowledge and understanding of the relationship between what is written on the page and what is presented on the stage. The same playtexts are also used to explore a range of differing performance methodologies that can be utilised to identify the performance potentials of a text in a workshop environment. You are led through cycles of Preparation, Exploration and Realisation – understanding what these terms mean and the actions they consist of will be an important aspect of the module. You will not only learn appropriate ways in which to create intelligent and imaginative performance informed by a written text but also develop a range of acting skills necessary to perform them effectively.
Throughout the module you are also introduced to the basic principles of theatre lighting and sound and will be encouraged to explore the impact of these technical elements when used in a performance context.
Navigating Performance Production
30 credits
In this module, you will be introduced to the technical skills which form part of theatre production: lighting and sound design, scenography and stage management, as well as basic marketing skills. This will be supported through skill specific workshops leading to a collaborative performance production which fully considers the role of technical elements which make for effective theatre practices. You will be specifically encouraged to reflect in practice on your work's ecological impact and openness to diversity.
Core modules
Devising and Professional Development
30 credits
Devising and ensemble practice support the development of skills and competencies that are not only applicable for theatremakers of all kinds but also valued by employers in a range of different professional sectors.
Exploring the work of ensembles embracing a collaborative approach to the creative process and supporting the acquisition of skills and methodologies they engage with; the module demonstrates the value of motivation and commitment; self-discipline; adaptability and flexibility; creative problem solving and an ability to work under pressure.
Ultimately, these skills and attributes are brought to bear in the Explore element of the module which enables you to engage with students from other courses, schools and faculties, to create new and original interdisciplinary dramatic work.
Dance Techniques and Cultures 2
30 credits
This module provides students with the opportunity to further develop their technical and performance skills through engagement with learning, developing, refining and performance of dance techniques from contrasting styles (e.g. Hip Hop and contemporary dance styles). Students will learn through intensive practical classes led by professionals in the field, accompanied by seminars to support their ability to critically reflect on their development. There will be regular opportunities to present their work, experimenting with a variety of communication technologies and reaching multiple audiences.
Actor/Director: Stage and Screen
30 credits
This module gives you the opportunity to continue advancing your acting training and begin exploring the discipline of directing for live and filmed performance. These two electives complement each other allowing the student actors to be directed by the student directors.
This module will advance your understanding of the theatre industries through collaborative practice which develops specific skills and experience in direction, devising, script reading, but also transferrable skills of time-management, producing, critical thinking, active listening, communication, and presentation skills.
Within the acting elective you will explore the themes and principles of Naturalism in theory and practice on stage and screen.
Within the directing elective, student directors navigate contemporary theatre practitioners and theoreticians, and are given the opportunity to lead a group of creative artists towards their own unified vision for a performance. The role of the stage and film director is examined through the lenses of design, script analysis, working with actors, proxemics and semiotics.
Creative Practices
30 credits
This module provides you with the opportunity to develop your creative practice as a dance artist developing technical, creative and performance skills through one of two electives: choreography or hip hop performance practices.
Through a combination of practical and theoretical learning this module develops necessary skills and knowledge to become critically aware, articulate and accomplished practitioners in a specialist area of dance practice. The module will enable you to develop an applied understanding of the significance of the aesthetic, kinaesthetic and creative foundations of choreographic practice or hip hop performance practices.
Emphasis within this module will be placed on the need for risk taking during the creative process and you will develop your practices through project-based learning to develop a range of artistic experiments applying your contextual knowledge to develop work for a range of settings. There will be opportunities you to collaborate with students across electives through projects that explore different performance outputs, for example, site-specific performance and screen dance.
You have the option to take an additional year to study abroad.
Core modules
Dance Company
30 credits
This is a practical module designed to take students through the process of making a dance production, from initial conception to final performance whilst also further developing and applying advanced levels of dance techniques and dance training. The focus of the module is to provide students with the experience of being in a dance company and of working closely within professional contexts of training, creating, refining and consolidating final production pieces suitable for professional performance environments. Students will apply ideas and creative problem-solving skills acquired through prior learning, in more diverse performance settings. Students will work in company environments with their choreographer both in scheduled learning time and during independent study hours to create, rehearse and produce full-scale dance-based productions. Students will work in companies led by a module tutor with choreographic experience. The companies will be set by timetabled classes.
Drama Production Project
30 credits
This module is a core requirement for single honours students. It enables students to develop ideas and research and carry them through to realisation. The assessment for this module is a capstone project which allows students to draw together their learning from across the degree and apply it in a 'real-world' context through the creation, rehearsal and performance of a theatre production.
This module is largely undertaken through independent group-based rehearsal, although there is also a series of presentations and workshops addressing specific areas such as group work strategies, problem-solving, rehearsal planning and scheduling, managing budgets and publicity and marketing. Students form groups, select roles and choose scripts, themes and modes of performance based on a 'pitch' they make and the feedback received at the end of Teaching Block One. The size of groups may vary but groups should not be made up of fewer than five students or more than 12. Each group will have a designated supervisor and a budget allocated on the basis of group size. The rehearsal process will be constructed around a series of formatively and summatively assessed stages such as work in progress performances, group and individual reflective exercises, submission of design and technical plans and presentation of publicity materials. Performances will be scheduled across a number of weeks in consultation with the Drama Technical Production Manager.
Dance Project
30 credits
This module provides you with the opportunity to develop and produce a dance project of your choice. It will enable you to develop leadership, communication and organisational skills whilst experimenting, innovating and producing an output that aligns to your interests by following one of three electives: choreography (live and screen), hip hop, or research and practice as research.
The module also enables you to draw on all aspects and disciplines explored throughout the course to support your emerging professional identity as a future leader and becoming an articulate and socially aware entrepreneur in the dance industry. This prepares you to seek work in the private commercial and public arts sectors as a choreographer, dancer, dance artist, teacher, producer or researcher.
Preparing for the Industry: Applied theatre and performance
30 credits
This is an employability-focused module that encourages students to consolidate their individual approaches to career management and future learning by continuing to enhance their reflexivity, plan their own personal and professional development, and formulate their exit strategy from the university.
Please note
Optional modules only run if there is enough demand. If we have an insufficient number of students interested in an optional module, that module will not be offered for this course.
Future Skills
Knowledge to give you the edge
Embedded within every course curriculum and throughout the whole Kingston experience, Future Skills will play a role in shaping you to become a future-proof graduate, providing you with the skills most valued by employers such as problem-solving, digital competency, and adaptability.
As you progress through your degree, you'll learn to navigate, explore and apply these graduate skills, learning to demonstrate and articulate to employers how future skills give you the edge.
At Kingston University, we're not just keeping up with change, we're creating it.
Entry requirements
Teaching and assessment
Scheduled learning and teaching on this course includes timetabled activities including lectures, seminars and small group tutorials.
It may also include critiques, project work, studio practice and performance, digital labs, workshops, and placements.
What's it like to study drama at Kingston University?
Who teaches this course?
Many of the Dance teaching team are current practitioners, with extensive experience and professional links: they will help you to develop your skills, networks and gain access to industry contacts. Their expertise and knowledge is closely matched to the content of the modules on this course.
After you graduate
Our Dance and Drama graduates currently work in the creative industries as performers, writers, choreographers, directors, stand-up comedians, community artists, outreach workers, technicians, producers and events managers.
In addition to pursuing careers in Drama and Dance, they work in publishing, journalism, advertising and marketing, arts management, new media, fitness instruction, public relations, business, and therapeutic fields. A significant number of graduates go on to postgraduate study in related fields or to teacher training.
Links with business and industry
Course fees and funding
Additional costs
Depending on the programme of study, there may be extra costs that are not covered by tuition fees which students will need to consider when planning their studies. Tuition fees cover the cost of your teaching, assessment and operating University facilities such as the library, access to shared IT equipment and other support services. Accommodation and living costs are not included in our fees.
Where a course has additional expenses, we make every effort to highlight them. These may include optional field trips, materials (e.g. art, design, engineering), security checks such as DBS, uniforms, specialist clothing or professional memberships.
Facilities
The drama department at Kingston is a dynamic, challenging and supportive community. It is located in its own designated building, the Reg Bailey, which contains one large, fully-equipped, flexible black box studio, one smaller studio and a number of rehearsal rooms.
Kingston's new Town House, designed by award-winning Grafton Architects, features three large dance studios, each equipped to professional standards with fully sprung floors, mirrors and barres.
Students on the BA Dance and Drama benefit from the use of both facilities.
Key information set
The scrolling banner(s) below display some key factual data about this course (including different course combinations or delivery modes of this course where relevant).
Course changes and regulations
The information on this page reflects the currently intended course structure and module details. To improve your student experience and the quality of your degree, we may review and change the material information of this course. Course changes explained.
Programme Specifications for the course are published ahead of each academic year.
Regulations governing this course can be found on our website.
