Course summary

The course explores the breadth of performance design and provides opportunities that you will give you the skills to succeed in an exciting and competitive employment market. The course consists of three levels, each one lasting one academic year with each level building in complexity and demands. In the introductory stages of the course you will undertake a series of basic skill gathering that informs your learning throughout the course. These consist of character drawing, model-making and design skills together with an introduction to research and writing skills through text evaluation and analysis. As the course progresses, artistic and intellectual enquiry deepens to adapt to individual needs and career aspirations within costume design for screen and scenography. The course will encourage you to test the boundaries of your ability in order to develop creative and pro-active responses to problem solving and team working. Through the delivery of teaching by a diversely experienced team and working with a wide range of external collaborators, the curriculum focus ensures the currency and relevance of the skills and academic knowledge of graduates. This learning is developed by a series of study units, both speculative and in a ‘live context’. In the first year, the course curriculum is partly shared between the BA Performance Design and Film Costume and BA Costume courses from week 1 – 24, when both performance design and costume production are explored equally. For the final six weeks of Level 4, you will either remain in the course on which they originally enrolled or you have the possibility to transfer to BA Costume through the usual transfer process. From this point onwards you are taught separately, although you are all collaborating on projects in a way that reflects industry standards and methods. The focus for both courses is to introduce you to the fundamental skills and behaviours required for the professional costume and performance design practitioner and for conceptual thinking and experimentation to develop. Studios and resources • dedicated design studios with enough space for each student to have their own work station in final year of study with plenty of space for design development and hot desking in levels 4 and 5 • laser cutting machine in the design studio for modelmaking and textile work. • access to a costume store and fabric archive • a course-specific computer suite with the latest software (Adobe, AutoCAD sketch-up) • bookable digital drawing tablets. • iPad Pros and iPencil with relevant drawing applications • an on-site workshop for prop making, fibre-glassing, vac-forming and 3D printing, • a large off-site workshop for set building and painting • a dye and textiles studio, where you can use dyeing and screen-printing equipment. • studio theatre for performances • sewing machines and associated costume making equipment • photo/ model box lighting booth • access to digital hub for textiles printing • access to film studios through live projects