Bachelor of Fine Arts (Design for Performance)

Designers don't just shape the worlds of our stages and screens; they challenge and inspire us to engage more fully with our own world. The BFA (Design for Performance) sets you up with the knowledge, skills Opportunity to build a creative and versatile career across all parts of the performing arts, entertainment and screen industries.

As a Design for Performance student, you'll create set and costume designs for live productions, short films, music videos, devised works, installations and multidisciplinary projects. Working in small classes in professionally equipped studios, theatres and workshops, learning is embedded in individual and collaborative design projects. Students, teachers and industry mentors work collectively to create a rich learning environment that values curiosity, initiative, risk and experimentation Brings together the best critical thinking and immersive practice with a strong focus on intellectual enquiry and sustainability.

Good questions stretch our imagination and creativity. Design for Performance students are encouraged to question, dared to imagine new ideas and new worlds, and empowered to innovate change from the ground up.

Graduates from NIDA take with them a robust skillset, valuable industry connections and confidence about their future in stage and screen design.

Learning outcomes

• Apply critical, creative, and sensory skills to spatial, scenic and costume principles to create meaningful designs for performance contexts.
• Synthesise knowledge of current technologies, materials, methods, and techniques in the development, communication, and realisation of design concepts.
• Embrace collaboration and use effective verbal, written and/or visual strategies to communicate and exchange design thinking and technical information.
• Recognise the importance of curiosity and inform practice through knowledge of local, international, and historical perspectives, as well as personal experience.
• Apply innovative and entrepreneurial skills to develop leadership qualities and autonomous and collaborative practice.
• Recognise and articulate an empathetic and inclusive social, ethical, and cultural literacy, including sustainability, within design practice.