Master of Arts - Performance: Screen
- 2 years
- Duration
- 19,845 GBP/year
- Price
- September
- Start
- June
- Deadline
- Master
- Degree
- Campus
- Format
- London / United Kingdom
- Location
Program description
The MA Performance: Screen programme at Central Saint Martins takes a radical, interdisciplinary, and experimental approach, exploring the convergence of performance and moving image through critical thinking and studio practice. It encourages students to situate their work within contemporary social, racial, political, environmental, and economic realities, interrogating how images are produced, consumed, and exchanged.
Aimed at interdisciplinary moving image and performance makers, the course supports an expanding field that includes performance art, artists’ moving image, experimental film, and participatory practice, while promoting practical production skills in directing, cinematography, sound, and editing. It fosters a diverse, supportive community that celebrates difference and creative risk‑taking, preparing graduates for agile careers in performance, film, curation, research, and beyond, with a belief in performance’s potential to change society.
Program structure
- Unit 1: Film Practices (20 credits)
This initial practice block grounds you in the technical and practical aspects of single‑camera audio‑visual production, expanding your knowledge through collaborative experimentation with ideas and processes relating to camera, body, and space. It develops skills in cinematography, sound recording, lighting, editing, colour grading, and audio post‑production through practical workshops and conceptual experimentation, privileging the body and potentially yielding outcomes such as live art, video‑streaming, dance films, or expanded cinema.
- Unit 2: Cultures and Contexts (20 credits)
This unit introduces the contexts and critical values of contemporary and established screen formats by analysing key concepts and debates concerning the body’s relationship to performance and moving image practices. Through weekly lectures and talks by core staff and guests, you will develop your understanding of performance and moving image history and theory, submitting an individual written or audio‑visual essay on a critical topic of your choice. The unit establishes the expectation that research interweaves with practice to support critical thinking and creative opportunity.
- Unit 3: Creation and Production (40 credits)
The emphasis shifts to film form and individual approaches to creating lens‑based performance and moving image work, deepening your understanding of storytelling, narrative, and film language. This unit explores the wider conditions of global visual culture, interrogating how images are encountered, produced, and consumed, with potential outcomes including short films, multiscreen installations, or immersive VR, AI, gaming, and online projects. Unit 2 engages you with the expanding field of film and non‑conventional forms, exploding the potential of narrative and the experience of time, while providing opportunities for public sharing of work.
- Unit 4: Option Units (40 credits) Choose either: 4a: Community and Collaboration or 4b: Practice in Context
Unit 4 runs across two terms, focusing on gathering experience and evidence from independent enquiry and public engagement through two options. The Community and Collaboration option explores participatory practice, activism, and ethical representation, while the Practice in Context option involves critically evaluating and contextualising a chosen body of work through an extended research document to inform your Major Project.
- Unit 5: Major Project (60 credits)
The Major Project builds on your individual interests and knowledge to produce a significant body of work through in‑depth research, experimentation, and creative authorship in narrative, storytelling, sited practice, and editing. On completion, you will demonstrate a strong understanding of potential audiences, distribution strategies, and the ability to critically self‑evaluate your work.
Price
Tuition fee:
- 19,845 GBP per year*
*Tuition fees may increase in future years for new and continuing students on courses lasting more than one year. For this course, you can pay tuition fees in instalments.
You may need to cover additional costs which are not included in your tuition fees, such as materials and equipment specific to your course.
Requirements for applicants
The course team welcomes applicants from a broad range of backgrounds. Applicants are expected to demonstrate sufficient prior knowledge of and/or potential in performance and/or moving image practices to be able to successfully complete the programme of study and/ or have an academic or professional background in a relevant subject.
Applicants are most likely to come from disciplines that might include: performance and performance design, film and video, fine art, photography, theatre and dance, media or film studies, fashion, architecture, anthropology, or areas of interdisciplinary creative practice. This course is intended for those who want to pursue specialism in moving image and screen-related performance.
The standard entry requirements for this course are as follows:
- An honours degree
- Or an equivalent EU/international qualification.
Applicants who do not meet these course entry requirements may still be considered.
The course team will consider each application that demonstrates additional strengths and alternative evidence. This might, for example, be demonstrated by:
- Related academic or work experience
- A portfolio of creative practice
- The quality of the personal statement
- Or a combination of these factors
Each application will be considered on its own merit but we cannot guarantee an offer in each case.
English language requirements
- IELTS level 6.5 or above, with at least 5.5 in reading, writing, listening and speaking
About the university
The University of the Arts London (UAL) produces and encourages the creativity essential for a better future. Its colleges have been at the forefront of innovative education since 1842, creating work with a lasting impact on people and the planet, driven by curiosity, imagination, and purpose.
London is fundamental to UAL's identity, providing a vital context where the university connects and exchanges ideas with individuals from all walks of life. Globally, its creative network influences education, culture, business, and society.
Through innovative research and creative instruction, UAL's faculty and staff bring fresh perspectives to education. The university enables students to build the careers they desire by working with them at every level - from pre-degree to postgraduate, and from short courses to online learning.
UAL's colleges
Ranked second in the world for art and design, UAL comprises six distinct colleges:
- Camberwell College of Arts
- Central Saint Martins
- Chelsea College of Arts
- London College of Communication
- London College of Fashion
- Wimbledon College of Arts
Together, they form a community of creatives, innovators, trailblazers, and storytellers, united in their mission to reimagine the future.
Courses in the visual arts, animation, screen, communication, fashion, media, and performance are available at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
