MA/MFA Creative Practice: Dance in Context is a flexibly designed programme for experienced creative professionals looking for immersive periods of critical engagement in dance

MA/MFA Creative Practice: Dance in Context is led by Trinity Laban (London) in partnership with Independent Dance and Siobhan Davies Studios. It is designed to provide a context of relational and exploratory artistic enquiry for a multidisciplinary cohort. As a bespoke programme of study, it offers a range of modules and pathways.

This programme is unusual in that it is partly based in a conservatoire – Trinity Laban – and partly in a professional dance context with Independent Dance at Siobhan Davies Studios. This offers a rare bridge between academic and professional spheres and enables practitioners to join a growing community of artists.

The programme works with an expanded notion of dance, taking account of social, cultural, aesthetic and political contexts. Whilst embedded in the principles of somatic movement and foregrounding relational, felt-sense enquiries, it embraces a diversity of forms and approaches. Guest artists of international renown lead practical and discursive sessions and seminars. Peer learning and support is integral, with students bringing and exchanging a breadth of experience and expertise. The programme promotes a fluid and generative exchange between theory and practice, in the belief that knowledge emerges through dance and movement practice itself.

This programme supports practitioners to develop their artistic practice in a stimulating environment of intellectual, collaborative and creative inquiry, and to:

• reflect on their professional experience and its role in their ongoing learning
• engage in intensive studio-based explorations, testing movement research ideas and dialoguing with significant dance or performance artists currently producing work in London.
• deepen their practice as performers/makers/facilitators and consider its relevance in wider socio-cultural contexts.
• develop their understanding of a range of research methodologies and pursue their own area of artistic interest
• become part of a growing international community of artists which continues to evolve beyond the programme

Embodied Practice & Investigative Practice modules

Two of the key modules on this programme are Embodied Practice and Investigative Practice; these are curated and delivered by Independent Dance and take place at Siobhan Davies Studios. These two core modules run as intensive 5-week blocks with the aim to make it more possible for students to continue professional commitments outside of the course during the rest of the year. They are based at Siobhan Davies Studios.

Embodied Practice aims to deepen and extend embodied understanding of movement and dance practice within a collective, relational environment and a broad cross-disciplinary framework of enquiry. Rooted in kinaesthetic awareness, perceptual learning, and experiential anatomy, the module cultivates curiosity through dancing, partner and group work, witnessing, and reflective discussion. It is led by Heni Hale with Gaby Agis and a number of guests artists with diverse practices. These have recently included Experiential Anatomy / improvisational practices with Amy Voris, Eva Karczag, Miranda Tufnell, Charlotte Darbyshire, Skinner Releasing Technique with Gaby Agis, Kirsty Alexander and Mary-Clare McKenna, Feldenkrais Method with Thomas Kampe and Caroline Scott, creative applications of somatic and critical practice research approaches with Sherwood Chen, Charlie Morrissey, Dr ‘Fumni Adewole Elliot, Frank Bock, Jean Abreu and Dr. Adesola Akinleye. In 2026/7 we invite Annie Pui Link Lok to share her work with relational movement and touch informed by Biodynamic Cranio-Sacral principles.

Investigative Practice develops this work to consider and interrogate a variety of contexts through which embodied practices and research can be curated. Students engage practically and in dialogue with a selection of guest artists whose work pushes boundaries in significant and diverse contexts. This offers the ground to deepen, challenge, and situate students’ artistic practice and vision within professional and research contexts. In 2027 Investigative practice will be led by Heni Hale and Carolyn Roy with intensive contributions from invited guest artists, Claire Cunningham, Gustavo Ciriaco, Heidi Rustgaard and curatorial engagement with Annie Pui Ling Lok, Kat Bridge (SDS co-directors) and the team and associate artists at Independent Dance. Investigative Practice has been redesigned in 2027 to focus on ways that students care for and contextualise their emergent practices in the professional field.

These modules are designed on the creative pedagogical approaches of Gill Clarke, who originally shaped them with Kirsty Alexander, Rosemary Butcher and Siobhan Davies. Kirsty Alexander continued the evolving development of this programme while she was Co-Director of ID, with support from Kathy Crick.

Students are based at Trinity Laban for other core modules; Research Lab (exploring research methodologies) and Project/Extended Project (the final research output) along with an elective module from options including Bodies Space Place, Performance Making, Dance and the Moving Image and Writing the Body.

Links

Get in touch

For more information about the modules delivered by Independent Dance, you can arrange a conversation with Lead Tutor Heni Hale to discuss your and the programme’s requirements and suitability of fit. Please arrange this via Independent Dance

For more information about the MA/MFA Creative Practice programme overall, please write to Associate Director (Dance) Dr Naomi Lefebvre Sell.

Term Dates 2027/28

Embodied Practice and Investigative Practice run as intensive five-week blocks in the spring and summer terms, respectively. Other modules run in varying models – see programme details above

Induction week 13 – 17 Sep 2027

Term 1 20 Sep – 10 Dec 2027

Term 2 10 Jan – 31 Mar 2028: Embodied Practice Module: 10 Jan –  11 Feb 2028

Term 3 24 Apr – 14 Jul 2028: Investigative Practice Module: 24 Apr – 26 May 2028

MA/MFA Creative Practice | Q&A 1

MA/MFA Creative Practice | Q&A 2

What some of our students have said

It was, without doubt, the most beneficial professional educative programme of study that I have undertaken in my professional career to date.