MA Dance: Participation, Communities, Activism

London Contemporary Dance School, The Place

This MA is for students who want to develop a socially engaged dance practice which addresses the urgencies of our times. You will join a global community of artists and researchers working at the intersection of community dance and arts activism. You may have an emerging community, participatory or activist movement practice which you want to develop, or you may be an established maker who wants to interrogate and develop your practice in the light of the shifting discourses and challenges of the moment.This unique Masters, offered full-time or part-time, has an intensive residency model. You engage in two, 2-week live residencies per year based at LCDS in London. All other teaching and learning is online, allowing you to remain embedded in the communities with whom you practice, growing your work as you study. You are not required to relocate to London, indeed the course places the de-centred practice of the individual student in their specific context at its heart. The richness of the curriculum grows from the wide diversity of geographical, cultural and contextual situations of our students and staff.The course can be completed in one year full-time, or two years part-time, and the next cohort begins in September 2026. It is designed to allow you to study alongside work, caring responsibilities or your need to pace your learning to suit your individual needs.This course explores the potential of movement and dance to contribute to the creation of sustainable social structures, to support individuals and communities, to rehearse and perform collective actions and to challenge systemic inequity. You will situate your work in an international network of peers, artists, scholars and teachers, challenge and develop your individual practice and apply your learning in an individual creative project, supported by one to one mentoring.Develop your artistic approach to dance including its social, ethical, activist, aesthetic and pedagogical dimensions Be supported in your development working for the advancement of social justice across the fields of community and participatory dance and activism Encounter, interrogate and negotiate systemic contexts, activating dance as a methodology for change Locate your practice in historical and contemporary discourses around socially engaged arts practices Develop appropriate skills and knowledges to lead safe, creative, accessible, ethical and enquiring dance projects in a variety of settings Develop advocacy skills and activist values to influence the contexts in which you work Analyse and reflect upon the efficacy of your practice and its relationship with the communities of practice in which it is embedded