A new postgraduate MA degree course in Live Art with underground and stigmatised art forms is being introduced at east London’s Queen Mary University, the first of its kind in the UK.

East London Advertiser: Performance in the study room of Live Art Development Agency in Bethnal Green. Picture: Billy SassiPerformance in the study room of Live Art Development Agency in Bethnal Green. Picture: Billy Sassi (Image: Billy Sassi)

The programme in performance, theatre, dance and the visual arts at the drama department of Queen Mary’s School English and Drama in Mile End is to be run by professionals and high-profile artists.

“Ours is the first course of its kind in the country that includes underground, subcultural and stigmatised arts practices,” Queen Mary’s Dr Dominic Johnson said. “Art should challenge people, so it’s only fitting that Queen Mary’s also challenges the way art itself is taught.”

It encompasses a range of art and performance, a way of ‘thinking’ about what art is, what it can say and do, and where and how it is experienced, written about and remembered, through workshops, lectures, master classes, fieldwork and professional placements.

The university is working with Live Art Development Agency, based in east London, for its first students on MA Live Art this month.