Dance BA (Hons)

This course is in clearing

Overview

Course options

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Degree

UCAS code: W590112 UCAS points

BA (Hons) Dance, home applicant, full time

  • Home Applicant
  • Full time, 3 years
  • Pound 9535 per year

BA (Hons) Dance, international applicant, full time

  • International Applicant
  • Full time, 3 years
  • Pound 15560 per year

Diverse dance practice with Jo Read

What makes this course different

1st in London

Our dance courses ranked 1st in London in 5 categories including “The Teaching On My Course” and “Learning Opportunities” in the 2024 National Student Survey. (National Student Survey 2024, Results published 10 July 2024)

Highly rated by our students

95% of students surveyed on our dance course responded positively to questions on “Academic Support” in the 2024 National Student Survey. (National Student Survey 2024, Results published 10 July 2024)

Hands-on experience

You'll be able to perform in and help organise COLL!DE - one of Britain's most vibrant and innovative annual student-led dance festivals.

Ranked 6th nationally

Our drama and dance courses are ranked 6th nationally in the Guardian University Guide 2025.

Guardian University Guide 2025

Course modules

As part of your dance degree, you'll study a wide range of dance forms, such as hip-hop, club and funk styles, capoeira, African contemporary, Afro-house, bharata natyam, kathak and kalarippayattu. This will provide a truly rounded introduction to your degree in dance.

Each year, you'll take modules in technique, choreography, professional development and research as part of our dance course. There'll be opportunities to focus on performance and choreography through film and video practice. You can work with music and theatre students to gain more experience and widen your dance career opportunities.

In your final year, you can take advantage of our excellent links with partner organisations such as East London Dance, Breakin' Convention and Stratford Youth Zone. You'll do a work placement and experience what it's like to build a career in the dance industry. Thanks to our reputation, you'll have lots of opportunities to work with acclaimed professional artists. Examples include famous choreographers Kenrick Sandy (Boy Blue) and Hofesh Shechter and top dancers such as house dance's Clara Bajado and popping and locking master Fred 'The Realness' Folkes. For those looking for a career in dance choreography, this is an especially useful experience.

NOTE: Modules are subject to change. For those studying part time courses the modules may vary.

Download course specification

Your future career

You will gain skills to prepare you for a career in the dance industry and the wider creative industries. This will happen through work placements, developing arts management skills and your involvement in creating and staging community dance projects. We're proud to have helped shape the careers of our students and support the growth of the dance industry.

Our dance course graduates run their own companies, work as dance producers and managers, deliver and teach workshops in communities and choreograph and direct works for stage and screen.

Industry links

Our dance degree is proud to collaborate with a wide range of industry professionals and organisations, many of whom guest lecture on the course. 

Our partners and collaborators include: 

  • Boy Blue
  • freeYOURstyle agency
  • Far From The Norm
  • Breakin' Convention
  • The Capsule
  • MOVE IT
  • Choreographers such as Kloe Dean, Elliot Parmar, Kenrick Sandy, Luke Lentes, Kieran Warner

Graduate employers

Graduates from our dance degree course have gone onto commercial work such as performing with Lizzo and Beyonce whilst others have secured roles in organisations such as: 

  • Breakin' Convention
  • East London Dance 
  • MOVE IT
  • Studio3Arts
  • Boy Blue
  • Far From The Norm
  • AMCK
  • Hub Studios

Job roles

Typical roles within the dance industry and the wider job market that our dance degree graduates now work in include choreographer, producer, senior manager, director, entrepreneur, performer, marketer, physiotherapist, talent agent, music production, academic, teacher, community practitioner, videographer and photographer.

Explore the different career options you can pursue with this degree and see the median salaries of the sector on our Career Coach portal.

Further study

You could undertake further study in MA Contemporary Performance Practices or learn how to set up your own dance practice with our MA Creative Enterprise.

Rema Khatun
As a university committed to your career growth, we've curated dedicated Career Zones across all of our campuses with practical services tailored to your success. From internships, personalised coaching, and employability workshops to volunteering, mentoring, placements, and enterprise opportunities, we offer a diverse range of support."
Rema Khatun

Career Zone

How we support your career ambitions

We offer dedicated careers support, and further opportunities to thrive, such as volunteering and industry networking. Our courses are created in collaboration with employers and industry to ensure they accurately reflect the real-life practices of your future career and provide you with the essential skills needed. You can focus on building interpersonal skills through group work and benefit from our investment in the latest cutting-edge technologies and facilities.

Career Zone

This digital platform provides you with careers and employability resources, including:

  • Jobs board for internships, placements, graduate opportunities, flexible part-time work
  • Mentoring programmes for insight with industry experts
  • 1-2-1 career coaching services 
  • Careers workshops and employer events
  • Learning pathways to gain new skills and industry insight

Mental Wealth programme

Our Professional Fitness and Mental Wealth programme issues you with a Careers Passport to track the skills you've mastered. Some of these are externally validated by corporations like Amazon and Microsoft.

Our Mental Wealth programme

We are careers first

Our teaching methods and geographical location put us right up top:

  • Work-based projects
  • Networking and visits to leading organisations
  • Support in starting a new business
  • London on our doorstep

How you'll learn

You'll learn as you dance. Our dance students have had exciting opportunities, such as the chance to perform for the Queen at the televised 60th anniversary Buckingham Palace concert.

There's the opportunity to help organise, choreograph and perform in our acclaimed student-run festival COLL!DE - a wonderful day-long, international celebration of dance.

You'll be taught by a team of professionals, featuring skilled academics, specialist dancers and choreographers as part of your dance degree.

They're multi-talented, like Course Leader Carla Trim-Vamben. She's a professional performer and researcher, trained in contemporary, African and club dances such as waacking. She has years of experience as a community dance practitioner. She has taught dance nationally and internationally.

We're located in University Square Stratford. It has advanced performance studios and more than £750,000 of new specialist equipment. It's close to Stratford Youth Zone, East London Dance and Theatre Royal Stratford East.

They're among our partners, who work closely with us to offer professional development, performance viewings and workshops.

You'll have the chance to take up dance work placements here in the UK as well as abroad.

Guided independent study

When not attending timetabled lectures or workshops, you will be expected to continue learning independently through self-study. This will typically involve skills development through online study, reading journal articles and books, working on individual and group projects and preparing coursework assignments and presentations. 

Your independent learning is supported by a range of excellent facilities including online resources, and specialist facilities, such as edit suites, the library, the full Microsoft Office software, including MS Teams, and Moodle: our Virtual Learning Environment.

Academic support

Our academic support team provides help in a range of areas – including learning and disability support.

Dedicated personal tutor

When you arrive, we'll introduce you to your personal tutor. This is the member of the academic course team who will provide academic guidance, be a support throughout your time at UEL and who will show you how to make the best use of all the help and resources that we offer.

Workload

Each year you will spend around 280 hours of timetabled learning and teaching activities. These may be lectures, workshops, seminars and individual and group tutorials. Contact hours may vary depending on each module. 

The approximate workload hours for this course per year are:

  • Scheduled teaching - 284 hours
  • Guided independent study - 916 hours

Your timetable

Your individualised timetable is normally available within 48 hours of enrolment. Whilst we make every effort to ensure timetables are as student-friendly as possible, scheduled teaching can take place on any day of the week between 9.00am and 6.00pm. 

For undergraduate students, Wednesday afternoons are normally reserved for sports and cultural activities, but there may be occasions when this is not possible. Timetables for part-time students will depend on the modules selected.

Class sizes

To give you an indication of class sizes, this course normally attracts 10 - 30 students a year. In the classroom, you will be taught in groups of 10-20 students. However, this can vary by academic year.

How you'll be assessed

We'll assess you through practical performances, rehearsals and dance technical developments. We assess theoretical work through essays, workbooks and journals that reflect on progress and performance. Second and third-year modules contribute to the final degree award classification. In your final year, you'll undertake a compulsory written dissertation and a placement with a dance organisation or company.

Campus and facilities

Docklands Campus, London, E16 2RD

Who teaches this course

This course is delivered by School of Arts and Creative Industries

The teaching team includes qualified academics, practitioners and industry experts as guest speakers. Full details of the academics will be provided in the student handbook and module guides.

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Statistics for BA (Hons) Dance Degree, Full Time

Statistics for BA (Hons) Dance Degree, Full Time

What our students and staff say

Dancer with hands in the air
I chose UEL because its urban dance course is the only one of its kind in the UK. The most memorable thing has been seeing myself and others finding our style and also progressing academically."

Scott Dean

BA (Hons) Dance: Urban Practice

Education Studies
I went from starting in September with a huge bout of imposter syndrome to finishing the year with tremendous confidence that I can actually go on and achieve a degree."

Nicholas Garbett

Graduate