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OVERVIEW

The MA/MFA in Applied Theatre (performance as social practice) is an advanced enquiry into socially turned performance and how it is enacted for social justice. The MA is organized for practitioners of theatre with an interest in the effects of their work beyond the stage, practitioners with backgrounds in social fields seeking skills in creative methods, and graduates with an interest in these areas. This programme is for those who are excited by the potential of performance and culture to interact with questions of justice in the areas of race, class, gender, economy, migration and ecology.

The MA in Applied Theatre is a one year taught postgraduate degree with an MFA as a second-year option. The programme will prepare you to develop your practices in socially engaged theatre contexts; to facilitate and create projects in non-theatre environments; to experiment with forms and genres of social performance including activism, outsider art, performance as social action, performative conversations, workshops, critical interventions, live, narrative, durational, devised and participatory creative projects. You will be prepared to plan, deliver and evaluate your own projects and, to deepen your critical understanding of the social contexts and cultural politics of your work. The programme will ask you to think about your position as a cultural worker between communities and institutions through modules based on interdisciplinary projects, cultural politics, community and facilitation.

You will work practically with practitioners and companies through placements, reconsider definitions of performance in terms of how and where it takes place and be able to identify critical contemporary moments where the immediacy of performance can be used as a response. Your position as creator and cultural worker makes this programme unique to applied theatre in establishing you as a maker of performance that acts critically and literally in a world that is connected within networks of care and solidarity.

YOUR FUTURE CAREER

The field of socially engaged theatre constantly shifts as a reflection of societal change. Key skills for practitioners in this field are the capacity to work with people in precarious circumstances and where identities are contested; the skills to research and understand the contexts and needs of populations and to respond critically and creatively. A student undertaking the MA Applied Theatre could work in the following areas:

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• Applied theatre practitioner/facilitator

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• Artswork with subjects in crisis across migration, housing, environment and economic provision

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• LGBTQ advocacy

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• Decolonial participatory practices including environmental racisms

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• Community arts organiser /community development

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• Learning and participation managers in professional theatres

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• Cultural producer in independent theatre

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• Post conflict cultural work

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• Arts policy and arts administration

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• Theatre and Drama Education

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• Theatre in criminal justice, health and care sectors
• Research and teaching in the FE/HE sectors