Performing Arts

Performing arts is a discipline that encompasses theatre, dance, and music as both practice and critical study. It is concerned with the live event: the encounter between performers and audiences that has been a fundamental part of human culture across every known society. But it is also an academic field that asks serious questions about how performance works, what it communicates, how traditions develop and change, and what it means to be a performer in the contemporary world.

A performing arts degree develops practical skill alongside critical and theoretical understanding, and it produces graduates who can both make performance and think rigorously about it.

At the University of Chester, this three-year, full-time programme gives you the opportunity to develop your performance practice across theatre, dance, and related forms, while engaging with the history, theory, and cultural context of the performing arts. You will develop skills in physical performance, devising, rehearsal, and production, working in studio spaces and theatre facilities that support practical work at a professional standard. Alongside performance practice, the programme includes the study of performance theory, theatre history, dramaturgy, and the cultural and social functions of live art.

Critical and analytical writing skills are developed alongside practical competence, so that you graduate able to contribute to the performing arts in multiple capacities.

The programme includes a year abroad, giving you the opportunity to engage with performing arts traditions and education in an international context, which can be a significant influence on your artistic development and your professional confidence.

Graduates from performing arts programmes work as performers, directors, choreographers, drama teachers, youth theatre practitioners, community arts workers, arts administrators, and in many other roles across the cultural sector. Some go on to postgraduate study in performance, applied theatre, dance, or arts administration. The discipline also develops communication, collaboration, and creative problem-solving skills that are valued across many professional contexts.