Rose Bruford College now offers a course in Queer Performance.
At postgraduate Masters level, this trailblazing course is the only one of its kind currently available and will be delivered through distance learning and in-person events on both a full- or part-time basis allowing participants to continue making work whilst studying.
Delivered by queer artists, theatre-makers, academics and researchers, the Masters in Queer Performance will examine queer performance practices and explore its potential. Amongst those involved are drag and popular queer performance scholar Professor Stephen Farrier and renowned queer theatre maker Professor Brian Lobel.
Travis Alabanza, award-winning writer, performer and theatre-maker and Honorary Fellow of Rose Bruford College, said, “what’s so exciting about this MA in Queer Performance is that it’s offering the chance for our work to be archived, studied and dissected—to build rigour around a practice that has been influencing others for so long. Queer performance is a space where the most risks are taken and the most adventurous work is made, and I’m so excited at the prospect of a course that gives other people a chance to find the beauty that I’ve found in it. And I love the team at Rose Bruford College who are doing this—so who better!”
The course will start in autumn this year and applications are now open with the College, offering an online event on 30 March for those interested in further information on the Queer Performance Masters.
The course director is academic, artist and producer Dr Phoebe Patey-Ferguson, who said, “queer performance is where I consistently see the most exciting ideas for what theatre and art should be, but also for what the world should be and what the future should look like. This distinctive new course is a space to hold radical imaginings for where contemporary performance practice might be going next—as well as celebrating the diverse histories of queer makers and thinkers.
"From drag to performance art, playwriting to XR, we are launching an MA that is as inventive and multidisciplinary as the fabulous community which it celebrates. Queer performance is already everywhere—on stages, screens, streets, dance floors, galleries, fields and festivals—and now it finally has its own dedicated space in the academy at Rose Bruford College.”