The MA Ensemble is focussed on the creation of a postgraduate ensemble company. The programme is designed for working professionals within the industry, for trained teachers of Alexander Technique and for students from a creative, performance, directing, music, dance or theatre studies background who wish to engage in and develop advanced skills working with performers. Devised work forms the foundation of the course which focuses on movement, voice, text, story telling through performance, visual image, physical theatre, writing, sound and music and the collaboration between forms as well as between individuals.
All members of the Ensemble, including teachers of Alexander technique, attend classes together for a block of workshops and classes for the first seven weeks of the course before going into rehearsal process in which initially everyone learns through making performance. Weekly classes include movement, voice, text, dramaturgy, writing, musicality, design, professional preparation and research methodologies, and in addition these are supported by weekly indepth classes and seminars in your particular area of interest; Alexander Technique for performance, physical theatre/performance, directing, actor, musicianship, movement direction or producing.
In the second and third term students specialize in their chosen field. Teachers of Alexander technique can work within MA Ensemble as performers and teachers, and also have placements to work with actors at Rose Bruford College and at Arts Educational Schools London (ArtsEd), musicians at the Royal College of Music and with dancers at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance to learn about and experience working with actors, musicians and dancers in observations and placements. These are supported by weekly seminars in Alexander Technique for Performance and developing skills to work both in groups and individually with performers. This specialised practice based research strand has grown out of the work of Performing Self, a series of workshops for AT teachers working with performers.
Students also have additional workshops with visiting companies and individual specialists. This year the group have worked with many theatre directors and teachers including from Theatre Complicite, Punchdrunk and Song of the Goat as well as with The Bush, The Royal Exchange and RSC. Core teachers on MA Ensemble Theatre have included three teachers of Alexander Technique Bea Pemberton, Lucia Walker and Niamh Dowling as well as theatre and voice practitioners Irina Brown, Gabriel Gawin, Helen Chadwik, Andy Crook, Jeremy Harrison, Annabel Arden, Barbara Houseman, Max Webster and Struan Leslie.
Over the thirteen month period you and your fellow peers will work as an ensemble as performers and theatre makers; producers, teachers and directors expanding your practical and theoretical skills not only as a group, but also as an individual. The ensemble has the opportunity to devise and perform throughout the year at both venues in the College and other sites in London. Whatever your specialist field, this course aims to develop your existing skills and encourages you to engage in new abilities, in order to fuel your career as a professional collaborator within the professional industry. This course also gives students the opportunity to gain professional experience within specialist institutions outside the College during the placement module. Students will use this module to practice as assistant directors, teachers of Alexander Technique with performers, movement directors, producers, dramaturgy for new writing projects and others have gained professional credit for acting in professional theatre companies. There is also funding towards fares and subsistance for two or three month Erasmus placements in companies or training organizations in Europe.
The final module is a piece of independent practice and/or written research in a chosen area of research as practice.
Venue: Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance Lamorbey Park, Burnt Oak Ln, Sidcup, Kent DA15 9DF, UK
Fees: UK/EU students £9900, International students £16,000
Start date: October 2015 and October 2016
If you are interested to do this MA or to find out more about it contact [email protected] for details about interview process.
