Performing Arts

Performing arts is a discipline that encompasses the full range of live performance traditions, from theatre and dance to live art, site-specific work, and performance-making that resists easy categorisation. It is a practice-led field, which means that making work is central to learning, but it is also a critically informed discipline that asks what performance is, what it can do, and how different traditions and practitioners have understood its possibilities. The ability to create, collaborate, and take creative risks is as important as theoretical knowledge, and the two are developed together.

At Leeds Beckett University, this part-time BA is a dynamic, practice-led programme that places creativity, collaboration, and experimentation at the centre of the learning experience. Whether your interests lie in acting, dance, live art, directing, devising, choreography, or writing for performance, the programme encourages you to develop your own artistic identity while building the practical and professional skills needed in the contemporary creative industries. You will be encouraged to take creative risks, think boldly, and produce work that reflects your individual voice and perspective.

The programme also includes a year abroad, broadening your performance experience and cultural horizons beyond the UK. The part-time structure is designed to be flexible, allowing you to manage other commitments alongside your studies.

Graduates from performing arts programmes pursue careers across the creative industries and beyond. Performance, direction, choreography, arts education, community arts, arts administration, theatre production, and applied performance work in health and social care settings are all common paths. The skills developed during a performing arts degree, including creative problem-solving, collaboration, communication under pressure, and the ability to engage diverse audiences, are also valued in many other sectors.

Many graduates build portfolio careers that combine performance and creative work with other professional activity. Postgraduate study in performance, applied theatre, or arts education provides a route for those who wish to go further.