Experimental Performance - MMus / PgCert / PgDip

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 realise 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).

Why Choose Us?

• This course has been created by artists who actively work with an interdisciplinary mind-set. Working in an interdisciplinary way to us means that you don’t settle for a particular artistic genre but you are interested in finding the best way of expressing an artistic idea. What form your realisation takes, what genres it borrows from would always depend on the particular idea.
• We know how frustrating it can be when, instead of discussing your work in depth, you have to start by justifying why you work in the way that you have chosen to work. We understand that you might want to perform text on stage without being trained as an actor, or you might want to dance without having had lessons. We are interested in your ideas. We will listen to you, help you to think ideas through and find appropriate concepts for successful realisations in performance. We have considerable experience in this area and enjoy discussing people’s work and ideas.
• This is a course that supports people who want to advance their artistic practice, whether this will ultimately lead to an advancement of your professional artistic career or to prepare yourself for PhD study with an emphasis on practice-as-research.
• In addition to our significant expertise within Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, we are also able to work closely with colleagues in areas of artistic practice outside music – for instance, in theatre, visual art and media.

MMus/PgDip

Audition requirements

English language requirements

• IELTS overall score 6.0 (5.5 in all components) or equivalent is required.

An intensive 12-month MMus route may be proposed by an audition panel for any candidates who demonstrate an exceptional level of achievement in their audition and who can provide evidence of a consistently strong previous academic record. It is not possible to apply for direct entry to this intensive programme.

Completing your application

Further information on writing your personal statement can be found on the UCAS Conservatoires website.

Course structure

Whichever course you choose, work in the Principal Study area lies at its heart. For Experimental Performers, the Principal Study modules each culminate in a portfolio of original work. Preparation of this is supported by individual specialist tuition, as well as by a variety of related activities,including sessions with performers, workshops with artists, professional development sessions, discussion-led seminars and a regular group critique session, which will provide an opportunity for discussion of each other’s work.

If you are a MMus or PgDip student you will take a Career Development module, which will require you, near the beginning of your course, to reflect ambitiously yet realistically on your professional aspirations, and to formulate a plan that helps you stand the best chance of achieving your goals. You will also choose, in addition, some Professional Development Options from a varied list. The following gives an indication the kind of optional modules which may be offered in a given year, including some offered by Birmingham City University’s Schools of Art and Media (note, not all will run every year).

MMus students will additionally choose a 40-credit option from one of two categories: ‘The Emerging Researcher’ or ‘The Reflective Practitioner’.

Part-time options

There is some room for negotiation in how the course unfolds for a part-time MMus student over three years, or in the case of part-time PgDip students, over two years.

OpportUNIty

OpportUNIty: Student Jobs on Campus ensures that our students are given a first opportunity to fill many part-time temporary positions within the University. This allows you to work while you study with us, fitting the job around your course commitments. By taking part in the scheme, you will gain valuable experiences and employability skills, enhancing your prospects in the job market.

It will also allow you to become more involved in University life by delivering, leading and supporting many aspects of the learning experience, from administration to research and mentoring roles.

Royal Birmingham Conservatoire has a growing community of international students from across the world.

We appreciate the challenges of moving to a new country to live and study and aim to be as supportive as possible.

Aside from being friendly and welcoming, we have various support mechanisms in place to help you settle in as an international student, including:

• An international students' 'orientation week', including a special Conservatoire welcome event
• A dedicated international student admissions administrator
• A full-time staff member employed as International Student Support Programme Director (who speaks Mandarin)
• A mentoring system in which you, as a new postgraduate international student, are mentored by continuing postgraduate international students who will be supporting you both pastorally and academically though weekly workshops
• Additional supporting classes for international students that are particularly designed to help you further develop your English reading, speaking and comprehension skills
• Additional academic skills support provided by expert tutors from the BCU's Centre for Academic Success

Further information for prospective international students is available on the University's international pages.

Royal Birmingham Conservatoire’s £57 million music building opened in September 2017, and is located on Birmingham City University’s City Centre Campus in the Eastside ‘learning quarter’ of the city.

This brand new music facility include five public performance venues – a 500 seat Concert Hall, 150 seat Recital Hall, Organ Studio, Eastside Jazz Club and the experimental black box performance venue known as The Lab. As well as these stunning performance venues, we have nearly 100 practice spaces; including 70 small practice rooms and larger ensemble rooms and workshops.

Our new home is the first conservatoire built in the digital age, and as such it has been vital to ensure that the technical infrastructure installed is on par with any advanced commercial facility. We have seven recording studios, a mastering suite, a distance learning hub, and all of our performance venues feature high specification audio-visual equipment that enables interconnectivity and advanced functionality throughout the building.

These impressive modern facilities guarantee that we are excel in our unique dual purpose of providing the highest standard of music education deserved by our students, as well as meeting our role as a concert and performance venue for the people of Birmingham; taking our place in the vibrant cultural landscape of the UK’s second city.