Performance at Leeds Met

Hi, just wondering if anyone has studied performance at Leeds Met & how they found it, any feedback or opinions would be very much appreciated :smile:

Reply 1

Bouffe

I studied Contemporary Performance Practices there for a year (top-up BA).

First thing I can tell you is that I wasn't overly satisfied with the level of teaching on some of the modules, as well as from some of the lecturers there. Two of my lecturers were rather condescending and were very reluctant in explaining their ideas or opinions more clearly on a given subject, which wasn't very helpful when I wanted clarification/a discussion on understanding certain concepts or methods of working.

There's also this very misplaced view and ideology that they encouraged us to think with that I didn't agree with; that students enrolled on the course should consider themselves to be 'artists'. No, we were students studying a practical-oriented subject within an academic framework and institution, we were reflecting on and analysing the contemporary art world, and presenting back and demonstrating our understanding of performance as part of our assessments. To say we were 'artists' developing new pieces of work would be incorrect, as we were not contributing anything new to the greater arts sphere, we were regurgitating what we were taught and saw from other artists in order to get a certain grade at the end of a module. I was quite frustrated with this as I really wanted to create new and original pieces of work, which is what the course description said we would be doing (and I did do that anyway on my own outside of the course), but everything you make has to fulfil certain criteria, has to submit to narrow expectations, and almost certainly has to contain references to other artists and works. Originality was acceptable in form, but not necessarily in content. All the practical work made was really exercises in performance making techniques, with snippets of other artists work thrown in. I am against the encouragement of stealing other peoples work, but this is all that I saw other students making on the course and they were being praised to no end for it. We were not being shown how to develop an individual practice that would allow us to pursue an independent career when we come to graduate.

You'd also need to have a lot more spare time than what is stated on the timetable. The course leader at the time explicitly said to us at the beginning of the year that having a paying job outside of the course is discouraged as you need to be available at all times to do work for the course, which would include attending impromptu rehearsals, seeing shows (that you have to pay by yourself to go see) any extra or re-scheduled lecturers (some tutors changed the times of their lecturers at short notice, or doubled up lectures to make up for missed ones, pissed a lot of people off, happened only a few times though). Luckily I survived on savings during the year, but people with jobs really struggled to make it to half of the things on the course.

Although, on the upside, it was good if you wanted to generally learn more about performance practices and to gain a better awareness of the general landscape of the subject. There are opportunities available to participate in projects or workshops outside of the course, as well as to present work in local festivals or in local venues to the general public, as well as meeting local artists and conversing with them. Even opportunities to go abroad to do projects.

There's better places to go to study performance, I wouldn't recommend Leeds Met if you really want to make a career as a practitioner. I used it as a stepping stone so that I could get on to doing an MA in Theatre and Performance at Queen Mary's, which has a much better department, better resources, and tutors that are a lot more distinguished and don't live in their own little closed off bubbles.

Sorry for the negative rant, I really wanted to stress how displeased I was with the majority of the course content, and I would encourage you to find somewhere else if you really are interested in a career as a performance practitioner. Are you looking into anywhere else by any chance? I would be more than happy to advise you on other places to go and study performance if you'd like. If you have a firm place here for 2013 then, well... bear all this in mind and really look hard at what you want to do after the course.

Leeds Beckett University

Leeds

Reply 2

Shonasheep

Thankyou very much for your response, it was very informative :smile:

I've also got an offer for Salford and have been struggling to decide between the two.
The 3 tutors that ran the audition/interview for Leeds Met (2 women & a man) seemed very nice and it felt like a warm, welcoming atmosphere, which was one of the main reasons I was so stuck between them, but hearing your experience with the staff has definitely made me consider this more.
Well done on Queen Mary btw! Are many of your classmates working in the industry?
Thanks again :biggrin:

Reply 3

Bouffe

I think that out of a class of about 18, only 1 has their own independent practice as a freelance dancer, and she was doing that even before doing the course. 5 have gone on to do the Performance Works MA at Leeds Met, which one of the tutors on the course is a leader of and advertises a lot. Another person has gone on to do an MA in Art Education in Chicago, and two others are doing/have done a PGCE to be a school teacher.

Besides the dancer, nobody that was on the course has made work as a performance practitioner. Instead everyone has either gone on to do a further course or settled for a job in an unrelated area.

I know that I'm making it out to be a terrible course. But I guess I just had a different expectation/generally bad experience of it, plus I really didn't like the attitudes a lot of the other students had. I just consiser it to be a stepping stone, and good for improving on your ability to analyse and reflect on performance, and as point of departure for exploring your own career interests. Do not think of it as something that will prepare you for work in the industry, there's a huge gulf of information left out that can only be filled by individual and independent experience on your own OUTSIDE the academic institution.

I won't tell you not to go do it, you may very well have a more positive experience than I did ( I graduated in 2011), but I hope that it has informed your decision somewhat. Which courses exactly did you apply for?

Reply 4

Shonasheep

Ah right, thats useful for me to know, I definitely want a course that gives me the best possible opportunity in the industry, thankyou again for being so informative!
And it's either Performance at Leeds Met or Drama & Creative Writing at Salford :smile:

Performance at Leeds Met

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