Rationale for Award Title

BA Hons in Professional Practice (Performing Arts)

At the age of eighteen, I was awarded a full scholarship for the diploma course at Cambridge Performing Arts at Bodywork Co. Dance Studios. After studying there for three years, I achieved a Professional National Diploma in Musical Theatre (NVQ Level 6.) Before attending college, I always intended to pursue a career in dance, although the intensive training I received at Bodywork, in all three disciplines of dance, singing and acting, helped me to realise my potential as a triple-threat performer and the advantages this can bring.

I recognised that to become highly skilled in all three disciplines opened up many new doors to me in terms of work available, and the career I intended to pursue. Since leaving college last year, I have been living and working as a self-employed performer and have worked extensively within the performance industry, most recently playing the lead female role in Cork Opera House’s spring musical ‘Westside Story.’ This offered me the opportunity to experience working practically in all three performance disciplines within a professional company, which is something I have always aspired to achieve.

I have chosen my professional practice title to be ‘performing arts’, because this is a field of practice I have come to be immensely passionate about the more I learn and experience in the workplace. Since graduating from college, my horizons have been broadened with the scope of work there is available for trained performers. The performing arts can be applied to so many aspects of the industry: theatre, television, radio, presenting, recording, commercial tours, music videos and so on. I like the fact that my skills are transferable and do not want to be categorized into working solely within one discipline.

I hope that this title will demonstrate to future employers that I am a determined individual with a vast amount of vocational expertise and academic knowledge in this field, together with having gained a higher level of cognitive skills during the course.

At present I intend to continue my career as a performer, however my future aspirations involve passing the expertise and enthusiasm I have acquired for this subject onto others. I aspire to develop a successful performing arts school that will aim to teach and inspire students with the creativity of the arts. This is the area of performing that my research project focuses on, helping me to achieve my future goals.

My project title is: An investigation into the creation of a successful performing arts school and how the development of this school can be sustained. I hope to enhance my knowledge of how to create a successful business within the performing arts, enabling me to develop and sustain the interests of such a business in the future. The participants in the research will also gain valuable knowledge and insight from their involvement.

It is important that my award title incorporates my prospective ambitions as well as my current professional practice. My past experiences in education have all included the ‘performance arts’, so it is essential in my mind that my award title and research project correspond with this. I have been on such a journey to reach this point in my studies, I know that on completion of this course, the award title BA Hons in Professional Practice (Performing Arts) is very much appropriate with regards to my previous training, my present circumstance and most importantly my future progression.