Performing Arts

Performing arts at degree level provides training in the full range of performance disciplines, typically encompassing dance, drama, and musical theatre, and asks you to develop not just technical skills but the artistic versatility and professional confidence that a career in performance demands. The performing arts is a sector where practitioners rarely inhabit just one role: the most employable graduates are those who can move between forms, contribute to collaborative creative processes, and adapt to the varied demands of different performance contexts.

At the University of Sunderland, this three-year full-time programme allows you to personalise your studies between dance, drama, and musical theatre, following your evolving interests and aspirations rather than being locked into a single strand from the outset. A year abroad is incorporated into the degree, giving you the opportunity to encounter performance traditions and training methods in a different cultural and educational context. You will develop your technique in daily practical classes, engage with the history and theory of the performing arts, and build the professional confidence needed to enter the industry.

The programme is explicitly designed to produce versatile, experienced, industry-ready practitioners.

You will work on productions, devised pieces, and performance projects throughout the degree, developing a portfolio of work and the collaborative skills that professional performance environments require. Critical and contextual understanding of the performing arts runs alongside the practical work.

Graduates go on to work as performers in theatre, dance, musical theatre, television, and film, as well as in arts education, community arts, directing, choreography, and production management. Many pursue further professional training or postgraduate study in performance or education. The creative, collaborative, and communication skills the degree develops are also valued in a wide range of careers in the creative industries and beyond.