University of the Arts London (UAL) and London Contemporary Dance School (LCDS) at The Place have launched a new PhD programme enabling researchers to benefit from the interdisciplinary arts research of UAL and the professional environment, advanced training and artistic research culture of LCDS and The Place.
The programme focuses on specialist Postgraduate Research (PhD) degrees, with the first group of researchers beginning in January 2025. We aim to promote dance, choreography, performance and movement research and to provide student-researchers with a distinctive sense of community.
Building on the existing validation partnership between UAL and LCDS, we offer a progression route for MA graduates and artists active or with an interest in research. The collaboration will build a cohort of postgraduate research students in dance and related embodied practices within a cross-arts and interdisciplinary framework.
Proposals and Dates
We welcome proposals that place dance, movement and choreography at the centre of their enquiry, while opening out to other research areas, arts practices and disciplines.
We are especially interested in projects with a close relationship to practice and we anticipate that proposals will seek to navigate some of the challenges of contemporary life, such as environmental sustainability, social justice, health and wellbeing, and the use of new and old technologies in art and life, as a way of generating wider evidence of the societal value of dance, movement and embodied practice.
The project is led by Professor Vida L Midgelow, Dean of UAL’s Doctoral School, and Dr Efrosini Protopapa, Director of Postgraduate Courses and Research at The Place.
PhD candidates will be registered with one of UAL’s colleges and will be supported by a joint team of supervisors from UAL and LCDS. Supervisors from UAL and The Place have strong expertise in practice research, PhD by published works (including practice), and collaborative doctoral awards with industry partners. See below potential areas of supervision.
Application Timeline
- Applications for Jan 2025 are now closed
- Applications for PhD projects starting in Sept 2025 are open now
- Application deadline to enrol in Sept 2025: 30 April 2025
- Applications for Jan 2026 will open in Jun 2025
- Application deadline to enrol in Jan 2026: 31 Aug 2025
Applications are welcome at any time of the year, and we aim to respond to you within 6 weeks of receipt.
The full assessment of your suitability and the availability of supervision can take some time, typically 2-3 months from submission of your application.
Applications submitted after 30 April will not be eligible for Sept 2025 entry, but will be considered for Jan 2026
How to Apply
Step 1: Click the apply now button to visit the UAL application page
Step 2: When starting your application, please select your preferred UAL college and state ‘LCDS/UAL’ programme when asked for the title of the project in the form
Other application routes:
- Transfer MPhil and PhD from another institution: If you're currently registered on a degree programme at another university and would like to discuss transferring to UAL/The Place, please get in touch with UAL's research team at researchdegrees@arts.ac.uk.
- Research degree by published work: We can consider applications for a programme of research degree by published work where applicants demonstrate research outputs that make a substantial contribution to knowledge. For further information and details please contact the UAL research team at researchdegrees@arts.ac.uk
Additional Information
We will be offering Online Information & Proposal Development Support Sessions in February/March 2025.
In the meantime, please use this guidance on writing a research proposal for a research degree.
Areas of Supervision
We offer supervision expertise in areas that include, but are not limited to, the following:
Creative practice and producing in context
- Conditions of production and postproduction, value and consumption, political economy and neoliberalism
- Improvisation and collaborative strategies and theories, authorship and collectivity
- Participation and communities, co-creation and accessibility
- Leadership in the arts, organisational structure and institutional critique
- Enchantment, perception, ritual, gesture, protest and carnival
- Outdoor practice and training, environmental arts practice and activism
Dance through a cross-arts and interdisciplinary lens
- The body in sculpture, fashion and design, film and video, literature, music and visual arts
- Dramaturgy, curation, dance in galleries and museums
- Sound and music in performance, sonic arts, contemporary music and movement
- Screendance, moving image, cinematography and documentary film-making
- Science and art collaborations, movement in digital arts practices and computing
- Radical pedagogies, experimental and critical approaches to education and training
Contemporary practice in relation to histories and archives
- Articulation of practice, scores, manifestos, performative and reflective writing
- Critical Approaches to the archive, embodied legacies, appropriation and repertoire
- Conceptual art, Fluxus, Judson Dance Theatre and histories of the avant-garde
- Video art, experimental film and television histories
Methodologies, contexts and theoretical approaches
- Practice research and performative methodologies
- Cultural Studies, Critical Theory, Performance Theory, Psychoanalytic theory
- Dance and Politics, Decolonialism, Racial Capitalism, Feminist, Marxist, Queer Approaches to Performance
- Dance anthropology, auto-ethnography, sensory ethnography, Story and Storytelling
- Posthumanism, ecology, ("new") materialisms and performing arts
Supervisors from LCDS include:
The Place is also able to support researchers whose projects would benefit from the expertise of our Public Programmes team, e.g. on topics related to producing, events management, touring.
Supervisors from UAL include:
Prof Maria Chatzichristodoulou
UAL is able to support movement-based researchers across the thematics listed with leading researchers in arts, performance, design, communication and creative computing.