Overview
BA World Performance is a unique, creative and challenging course that offers an intense training in western and non-western acting techniques, performance and devising skills, and the advanced study of global theatre traditions. You will develop the tools required to become both a performer and theatre maker, able to work in many fields, anywhere in the world.
Throughout the course, you study a variety of acting styles, voice, movement, dance-drama, clowning, masks, storytelling, world music, singing and a range of global performance techniques. You devise, create and perform projects reflecting the range of influences and styles encountered during your studies, while simultaneously developing skills in media, writing and directing. There is also an opportunity to study overseas, allowing the chance to fully immerse yourself in the performance culture of another country.
This course is taught at our vibrant and modern Southend Campus. With its lively, state-of-the-art facilities and close-knit international community, Southend is the perfect environment for living and learning.
View more undergraduate courses from East 15 Acting School, including further Actor training programs as well as behind the scenes courses in Creative Producing and Stage & Production Management.
Our expert staff
Our training is by professionals and for professionals, allowing our graduates to work successfully across the globe.
Our international, outstanding teaching faculty is made up of professionals from all areas of live and recorded performance.
Learn more about our staff here.
Specialist facilities
Our Southend Campus is based in the heart of Southend-on-Sea. A vibrant and modern British seaside town with excellent transport links.
Famous for its beach resort and pier, Southend-on-Sea stretches along seven miles of award-winning coastline. There are also over 650 acres of parks and gardens, a fun park, leisure centres, pubs, clubs, cafés and restaurants.
Southend Central railway station is opposite our Campus and the journey to central London takes less than an hour. Southend Airport, with flights to many European and UK destinations is just three miles away. We are also just one hour away from London’s Stansted Airport.
Our Gateway Building houses a purpose-built suite specifically for East 15 students. This includes fully equipped, state-of-the art rehearsal studios with panoramic views across Southend-on-Sea, plus seminar rooms, computer labs and media production resources including an Apple Mac edit suite for our BA Creative Producing (Theatre & Short Film) students.
A magnificent Victorian former church in the heart of Southend’s conservation area was converted into East 15’s Clifftown Theatre. It also houses a variety of unique spaces for rehearsals, technical and practical work and performances. The church nave, with its original organ and stained glass windows now provides an inspirational and atmospheric environment, re-designed to accommodate the needs of a twenty-first century performance space.
In ‘The Forum’ building, students have round the clock, secure access to the Learning Hub, which provides innovative IT and study spaces. The Forum also houses an integrated public and academic library, carrying books and other support materials. Students in Southend also have access to the East 15 Loughton Campus library and the University’s Colchester Campus library.
Outside of learning, the Students’ Union at our Southend Campus provides a dedicated space for students to meet, have a coffee, relax and watch films or sport. It runs a wide variety of entertainment throughout the term, such as international nights and open mic nights.
Your future
Graduating students will be equipped not only as actors and performers, but will also possess the skills to develop careers as directors, facilitators, producers and researchers. They also hold a particular knowledge of different cultures that will prepare them for working anywhere in the world.
Why we’re great
- Practical skills in global performance techniques.
- Visiting international practitioners.
- Opportunities for study overseas.
Structure
Course structure
We offer dynamic and unique courses for actors, directors, producers, technical theatre specialists and students of theatre practice. Training at East 15 draws upon 50 years of tradition combined with a keen sense of the world of stage and screen today.
Our carefully selected modules will give you the chance to explore and develop your specialist training.
Teaching and learning disclaimer
Following the impact of the pandemic, we made changes to our teaching and assessment to ensure our current students could continue with their studies uninterrupted and safely. These changes included courses being taught through blended delivery, normally including some face-to-face teaching, online provision, or a combination of both across the year.
The teaching and assessment methods listed show what is currently approved for 2022 entry; changes may be necessary if, by the beginning of this course, we need to adapt the way we’re delivering them due to the external environment, and to allow you to continue to receive the best education possible safely and seamlessly.
Teaching
Year 1
Your first year provides a foundation of performance and study skills, and introduces a range of cultural influences and performance possibilities. This includes:
- A physical training focused on the core skills required for engaging with world performance techniques as well as key academic tasks of assimilating and recording information and original research
- Discovering the role of music in world performance, allowing you to engage from the outset with a range of cultural influences, experiment with your own performance interests and abilities, and broaden your knowledge of different cultural contexts of performance
- Gaining an understating of Western performance practices and techniques alongside and in relation to performance traditions from elsewhere in the world, preparing you for the more intensive, multicultural performance training you will experience in Year 2
Year 2
For your second year you concentrate on a range of case studies that allow you to develop knowledge of different traditions, approaches and issues in world performance. In addition you have opportunities to:
- Develop and apply high-level performance skills
- Work intensively with visiting practitioners in a non-Western or intercultural performance form to produce and perform a major theatre piece
- Increase competence and confidence as an independent practice-based researcher, in western and non-western forms
Year 3
Your final year allows you to undertake a series of major independent group performance projects. These help to develop your skills and your understanding of collaborative work, while giving you freedom to pursue your own aesthetic, intellectual and professional interests.
You will continue to broaden your perception as a performance artist, able to connect the learned techniques and approaches to your own practical experience and future professional career.
Through research, and supported by teachings in organisational and entrepreneurial skills, you will develop a professional practice connected to a global perception of the theatre and performance industry in the UK and abroad. This project helps you to develop your own unique professional and artistic vision and prepares you for professional life after you graduate.
