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Preston Campus
Level
Mode
Campus
Course Enquiries
University of Central Lancashire
Preston, PR1 2HE, UK.
Tel: +44 (0)1772 892400
Email: cenquiries@uclan.ac.uk
Preston Campus: Part-rime, two years, block teaching of 4-5 days, over 7 times per year. Moving Body Resources, NYC: Part-time two years.
Postgraduate
Taught
Campus, Part-time
Preston or NYC
October-UK / November-USA
MA
This is a unique, visionary and pioneering programme offering professional training in Dance & Somatic Movement Education. On the cutting edge of contemporary international practice, exploring the creative skills required to use movement with sensitivity, imagination and individuality, the course focuses on community facilitation. It offers the opportunity to study individual and group improvisation, kinaesthetic awareness and applied somatics philosophy to dance and movement studies. All sessions are taught in the spirit of self-discovery, non-judgement and reflection. The course develops somatic awareness with a focus on spontaneity, intuition and connection to others.
The MA Dance & Somatic Well-being course is taught on campus in Preston and has another section of the course taught in New York City, in the USA. Each section of the MA course covers the same course module content, and each course has unique dates, fee structure, and application process.
MA programme in New York is based at: Moving Body Resources, 112 West 27th Street, 4th floor, New York, NY 10001.
The Dance and Somatic Wellbeing programme is suited to mature graduates who are interested in the health, communal, and transformative aspects of dance. We are looking for students from various disciplinary backgrounds such as: Dance Studies, Arts, Health, Education and Community. All students applying for a place on this course based at the Preston campus will need to undergo a DBS check.
International applicants are required to have achieved an IELTS of 6.5 or above.
Here at UCLan, our aim is to encourage you to develop your potential and we offer a flexible approach to admissions, which reflects our commitment to all those who would benefit from our courses.
NYC Entry requirements
Students would be expected to have achieved a good lower second in a related area of practical study at BA (Hons) level. In exceptional circumstances and after audition/ interview, a place may be offered if it is felt that a candidate can evidence examples of meeting those learning outcomes through experiential learning. As this course is at postgraduate level of study, the interview panel must be convinced that the successful candidates are capable of engaging appropriately both physically and intellectually. Applications from people from a wide range of vocational backgrounds and subject specialists are welcome.
Find out more about Postgraduate courses at our Postgraduate Advice Event on 15 May 2018
Dance & Somatic Wellbeing: Connections to the Living Body centres on the lived-felt-body through explorations in the imaginal, sensuous, emotional, spiritual, and philosophical aspects of the body. This course sees somatic movement as a practical life tool through which to promote wellbeing, develop a more holistic sense of self, and a capacity to be in relationship with others and our environment. Sessions include group, dyadic, and personal explorations. Academically and experientially the course introduces students to the fundamentals of somatic practices and phenomenology.
Year one focuses on:
Year Two focuses on:
Modules taught at Moving Body Resources, New York City will be delivered in a slightly different order.
The MA Dance and Somatic Wellbeing offers and provides an unparalleled support for combined personal and professional growth. My work as a performer and an independent arts practitioner has developed alongside my understanding of myself in the world. I walk away with a firm, experiential understanding of the correlation between the two. Now, I am able to find my own resources to approach my life and work in supportive, new and brave ways.
Rachel Drazek, UK Graduate
The course covers the following within and across modular study:
The field is based on the belief that we have the capacity and personal agency to direct and/or re-direct our lives through gentle self-reflexive processes; becoming active agents in our experience, sensually alive, and co-actively engaged with our world. The following are key areas covered within and across modular study:
My time on the MA Dance and Somatic Wellbeing programme at UCLan was a very fruitful and supported experience in which I was encouraged to follow my own lines of enquiry within the given contexts of the programme modules. The overall journey felt considered and each module built on the last, allowing for my learning to grow and to become more autonomous as a student. The staff on the MA Dance and Somatic Well-being programme take a very person-centred approach to education which means learners can thrive in this supportive and innovative environment.
Laura Bradshaw, UK Graduate
Penny Collinson, MA, IBMT Dip, RSME
Penny is course leader on the UK programme, and contributes to the teaching and assessing of many of the modules. She also contributes to the teaching and assessing on the USA programme. Over twenty years of moving, as a facilitator and performer, within improvisation, Authentic Movement and Release-based techniques, has brought the body as central to all experience and supported her fundamental interest in sensing, moving and witnessing as tools for navigating self in the world. Penny’s particular area of interest and practice is embodied presence, and how through our engagement in deep bodily listening, we are awakened, clients and facilitators alike, to the lived felt experience of our sensory imagination. Penny is a senior lecturer and has been teaching at UCLan for 15 years. She has a Diploma from the Institute for Integrative Bodywork and Movement Therapy, and is a Registered Somatic Movement Educator with ISMETA. She runs a private practice from her home, facilitating somatic practice work which includes methods of awakening to our bodily nature, Integrative Bodywork & Movement Therapy and Authentic Movement.
E-mail: pscollinson@uclan.ac.uk
Mary Abrams, MA, RSME
Mary is course leader of the MA Dance & Somatic Wellbeing: Connections to the Living Body from UCLan in the USA at Moving Body Resources in New York City, and also teaches on the course in the UK. She brings passion, skill, and an inquisitive spirit to her nearly 30 years of teaching. Mary offers dynamic and detailed attention to breath, sensation, emotion, and creative personal and social development. Mary is owner and program director of Moving Body Resources, and has been an Authorized Continuum Teacher since 1999. She has a thriving private practice and teaches workshops across the USA. From 2002-2011, Mary served on the board of directors of International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association (ISMETA), serving as president from 2005-2009. Her background includes 30 years of dance training and performance, study with Emilie Conrad (found of Continuum), Susan Harper, and Gary David, Ph.D. incorporating body awareness and movement with the fields of Epistemics and affect script theory. She holds a BA in Dance Education with Departmental Distinction from St. Olaf College, and a master’s degree with Consciousness Studies concentration (consciousness as embodied movement) from Goddard College.
Contact: UCLan c/o Moving Body Resources, 112 West 27th St., Ste. 400, New York, NY 10001
Email: mabrams@uclan.ac.uk / mary@movingbodyresources.com or movingbodyresource.com
Tim Lamford
Tim is an Associate Lecturer at UCLan on MA Dance and Somatic Well-being.
He is a dancer, choreographer and teacher with forty years experience in movement arts, specialising in the teaching of dance skills, creativity and somatic awareness. He trained at the London Contemporary Dance School, studying contemporary techniques with Jane Dudley, William Louther, Kazuko Hirabayashi, Noemi Lapzeson, Robert Cohan (all Graham Company); Danny Lewis (Limon Company); Albert Reid (Cunningham Company); contact improvisation with Steve Paxton; release work with Mary Faulkerson; choreography with Nina Fonaroff (Graham company); Pilates with Alan Herdman, and Tai chi Chuan with Gerda Geddes. In the 1970s performed with X6 dance collective; Second Stride and Mantis.
Career highlights include: Artistic Director of the pioneering dance in the community company, Spiral Dance, Liverpool; Professor Visitante at the Institut del Teatre Barcelona; introducing contemporary dance to the Polish conservatoire system; lecture tour for the Australia Council on the theme of the creative role of a dance artist in education; and directing the graduate performance course at London Contemporary Dance School. He has also been Tai chi coach at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
Tim has been an External Examiner for the universities of Leeds and Kent at Canterbury; an External Adviser to Royal Academy of Dancing; member of regional and national arts panels; member advisory panel setting industry standards for “Dance”, and “Creativity in the Arts” (GNVQ); and conducted research as an Academic Adviser for the Northern School of Contemporary Dance.
After developing and teaching a programme exploring traditional and contemporary body mind practices (Body/Mind/Movement) at Middlesex University, he now teaches body awareness for the International Opera course at the Royal College of Music;
Research interests include somatic perspectives on the practice of Tai chi Chuan; symbology of long form yang style Tai chi Chuan; Jungian and Post-Jungian perspectives on body mind unity.
Email: TJLamford@uclan.ac.uk
You can apply for many of the postgraduate UCLan courses using our Online Application System.
For other postgraduate courses you can apply directly to UCLan by downloading a Postgraduate Application Form (.pdf 190KB) please also see our Postgraduate Application Guidance Notes (.pdf 158KB).
For detailed information about studying this course at UCLan, please see the course handbook for your year of entry:
For information on possible changes to course information, see our Important Information.
Apply now or see further information about postgraduate study and research. International students should visit our international pages.
Full-time: N/A
Part-time: £3,250 per year for first 2 years (UK/EU)
Tuition Fees are per year unless otherwise stated.
The USA course is US $27,000 over 2 years. For student loan information enquire with www.salliemae.com and look for the Smart Loan.
Further information:
For 2017/18 fees please refer to our fees page.
Details of the UK Government postgraduate loan scheme for students commencing a Masters Postgraduate programme for the 2017/18 academic year.
This course will involve access to children and/or vulnerable adults. You will be required to obtain a satisfactory Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service clearance (formerly termed CRB) and we will guide you through this process.
MA Dance & Somatic Well-being is an Approved Somatic Movement Training Programme of the International Somatic Movement Education Therapy Association (ISMETA).
The MA course fulfils all the educational requirements needed to become a professional member of ISMETA. To complete the professional practice requirements students need at least 150 extra hours of practice, post graduation.
The programme is predominantly delivered through studio work, lectures, seminars, and tutorials. Given this is a body-based vocational course, most classes take place in the studio where creative ideas are explored through movement and other art forms. We provide a lively learning environment and encourage you to participate actively in all aspects of the course delivery.
Methods of assessment include workshop facilitation, essays and other written assignments (Critique of workshops and self-evaluation, Reflective Journal, Chapter review), class presentations and a research project.
Please email Penny Collinson, to register your attendance. If you can't make these dates staff will be happy to meet you another time.
On completion of the course it is envisaged that students will go on to work as independent artists-scholars who are able to work within a number of different body / movement and arts-based contexts. This may be through enhancing their current jobs with the additional embodiment and inter-relational skills developed throughout the programme. It may also be as freelance Somatic Movement practitioner/Educator once additional professional hours have been gained (please visit the ISMETA website for guidelines towards this).
There is also the opportunity to pursue further study up to and including PhD.
I have gained a huge amount of knowledge in a short space of time not only about the field but about myself as a practitioner and a human being. This course has an excellent balance between theoretical and practical elements. With the flexibility to choose for oneself how that balance should be applied.
Nicola Herd, UK student