Applications
Open
Course length
1 year. Jan-Dec.
Start date
January 2025

Develop your practice in dance filmmaking.

This trailblazing MA invites you to develop and refine your screen-based practice.

Screendance encompasses a wide range of practices and we embrace its multidisciplinary nature and subject it to critical investigation.

The course is practice-led; it will evolve your skills and perspectives. We will challenge you to think about your work in a contemporary critical context. What drives your work? How does your work interact with audiences, other arts sectors, and wider society? A wide range of guest artists will expand your practice and inquiry.

London Contemporary Dance School promotes learner-centred teaching. Seminars and personal tutorials build upon your ideas, interests, skills and artistic practice. We foster a vibrant community of learning among our students and faculty.

We attract artists from around the world, from film, dance, theatre, visual arts, and design. Our graduates lead and shape this flourishing art form.

Four women stand in a line on the diagonal, they are looking into the far distance and there is lots of bright blue sky above them
Screendance - Still of 'Currents' by Rebecca Olarescu

This course encourages you to:

  • Develop a confident, articulate independent practice
  • Combine practical experimentation, contextual research, and public-facing engagement
  • Evolve a wider vision of your practice and how it relates to the contemporary world
  • Contribute to the development of the field of screendance through practice and research
  • Critically assess what it means to create image-based art today

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE PROGRAMME FROM OUR COURSE LEADER KATRINA MCPHERSON

Things you need to know

What will I be studying?

1. Making Screendance (60 credits)

This module focuses on the fundamental elements of screendance making processes. It encourages you to apply discussion, self-reflection and critical thinking to the development of your creative projects. You will develop practical skills, synthesise research and investigate your practice.

2. Situating Screendance (30 credits)

Situating Sreendance, investigates how the study of screendance, with its interdisciplinary nature, draws on theories of art, photography, film, performance, video and digital technologies, as well as dance. You will engage with a range of texts and resources, while developing your own research interests and skills.

3. Communicating Screendance (30 credits)

This module invites you to think critically about how dance film work meets the public, and the creative, ethical, and practical concerns of selecting and screening work.

You will create a public screendance event - Frame Rush - with your cohort, inviting and selecting international work and connecting with professionals across the field.

4. Final Project (60 credits)

Integrates your practical, theoretical, and technical learning throughout the course. You undertake an independent research project focusing on a chosen area of inquiry within screendance, in a format of your own devising.

Equipment and resources

Our Audio Visual (AV) room provides students with a range of equipment to support their learning and artistic practice. A selection of excellent quality independent filmmaking equipment is provided via online booking for short-term loans and free of charge. This includes high-end equipment reserved exclusively for the MA Screendance students.

A full-time member of staff is available to advise on technical problems and support students in realising their ideas.

There is a wide range of equipment available, including:

  • Digital cameras (such as Canon 5D, C200 and Sony A7iii)
  • Manfrotto tripods
  • Video accessories (4 meters dolly, gimble, lights and monitors)
  • MacBook Pro laptops
  • Edit suite with iMacs
  • Sound equipment (recorders, booms and mics)
  • Projectors
Entry Requirements

The standard minimum entry requirements for this course are:

• BA (Hons) degree or equivalent academic qualifications

• Alternative qualifications and experience will also be taken into consideration

• Personal statement

• Showreel or selection of prior work

If you don't meet the above requirements, you might still be considered with additional strengths or alternative evidence such as:

• Related academic or professional experience in in dance, film, arts, media, fine arts, performance, or similar field

• The quality of the personal statement

• A strong academic or other professional reference

• A combination of these factors

English language requirements

IELTS level 6.5 or above, with at least 5.5 in reading, writing, listening, and speaking.

Student Visas

If you are an overseas student, you might require a Student Visa to study with us.

Examples of Prior Work in Application

You will be selected based on a collection of movement-focused, moving image works (e.g. screendance, experimental film, short film, installation) submitted via an online link (on Dropbox, Vimeo, YouTube, or your own website, for example). Please include examples of film, video, moving image or installation work you have already made. These could be as director, choreographer, cinematographer, performer, collaborator, and others. You will also need to indicate the role you have undertaken on the production and any other relevant information. Each submitted item must have original titles and credits.

Personal Statement in Application

You should also prepare a personal statement (200 - 400 words), discussing your interest in screendance, relevant experience or abilities, what you would like to achieve on the programme, your career aspirations, as well as why you think you are ready for a Master’s programme and your reasons for choosing London Contemporary Dance School.

Interview

You will be required to attend an interview (on-site or via Skype/ Google Meets). This is an opportunity for the us to learn more about you and your experience and interests, what you expect from the programme and how you intend to fund your studies.

If you are an overseas student who requires a student visa, you must study full-time and complete the course within 12 months. Part-time study is not possible.

How do I apply?

First, you are required to complete our online application form where you input details about yourself, your educational and employment history, examples of prior work and a personal statement about why you want to join our MA Screendance.

You will then be contacted by our Admissions Team who will let you know if you have been invited to a one-to-one interview with us. This can be hosted online or in person, depending on your location and availability.

After the interview, please allow up to 2 weeks to hear an outcome from our Admissions Team.

Fees

£11,500 – UK students
£23,500 – Overseas students

Find out more about our financial support for your studies.

What can I go on to do after graduating?

Graduates are working in a diverse array of fields and roles, as freelancers and as employees of cultural organisations. They have received commissions and awards.

Alumni are working as:

  • Independent filmmakers
  • Digital content creators for organisations such as Royal Opera House, English National Opera
  • Internationally touring work in visual arts, installation, and performance formats
  • Adapting work into a TV series
  • University lecturer
  • Podcast / vodcast creator
  • Guest editor of the International Journal for Screendance

What will you choose to do?

I don't want someone to teach me how to make a dance film, I want to make my own dance films and make them how I want to make them...that was exactly what The Place wanted me to do...I was able to really delve into my practice, tie all these strands together and weave them into a coherent personal practice.

- Jo Cork, Screendance Practitioner, MA Screendance Graduate

Meet the Team

Workshops with guest artists, filmmakers and creatives are an intrinsic part of the course.

Guests include Iris Chan, Annie Pui Ling Lok, Dr Marisa Zanotti, Khadifa Wong, Omari Carter, Gabriela Tropia, Dr Simon Ellis, Graeme Millar, Marinda Pennell, Martin Hargreaves, Marisa C. Hayes, Becky Edmunds, Caroline Mawer, Darshan Sing Bhuller, David Hinton, Douglas Rosenberg, Dr Erin Brannigan.

It was great to learn about how specific Anthony van Laast’s storyboards were, it was just incredible to get to see. After working with Anthony I think it's really pushed me to try and take that approach. I’ve definitely seen it take an effect in my creative process.”

MA Screendance student 2021-22 Alexa Stevens

Watch

Watch our most recent videos; student interviews, a live postgraduate panel discussion and the trailer for Frame Rush, the screendance event curated by our students. A great way to find out about the course and what our students think.

Find out about health and wellbeing at LCDS, where you can live and funding available to you:

Get in touch

If you have any questions about the course, how to apply, living in London or anything else, we are here to help