Contemporary Craft and Dance

Contemporary craft and dance is an unusual and stimulating combination, pairing the material and making-focused discipline of craft with the physical and expressive discipline of dance. Contemporary craft is concerned with skilled, hands-on making in materials such as ceramics, textiles, metals, glass, and wood, with a focus on design thinking, material experimentation, and the creation of objects that sit at the intersection of utility, beauty, and concept. Contemporary dance explores movement as a creative and communicative language, developing technique, physical intelligence, and choreographic thinking.

This four-year, full-time programme at Liverpool Hope includes a foundation year that provides additional preparation before the main degree content, a placement year, and a year abroad, giving you the opportunity to develop professionally in both areas and to engage with craft and dance in different cultural contexts. In the craft strand you will develop design and making skills across materials, pursuing specialised project work and innovative approaches to craft practice. In the dance strand you will develop technical and creative skills in contemporary dance performance and choreography.

Both disciplines emphasise collaboration, creative risk-taking, and the development of an individual artistic voice.

Graduates of this combination pursue careers across the creative arts and the wider cultural sector. Craft makers work in their own studios, in residencies, in education, and as makers for galleries, theatres, and design companies. Dance graduates move into performance, choreography, dance education, community dance, and arts administration.

The combination also opens possibilities in arts education, community arts, and interdisciplinary creative practice where the skills of making and moving inform each other in unusual ways. Further study in craft, dance, or arts practice at postgraduate level is a natural extension for those who wish to develop specialist expertise or pursue research-based practice.