Applications for MA Interdisciplinary Dance Performance are open. Develop your creative practice and create brand new interdisciplinary work with world-renowned artists and companies.
In 2025/26, students on this course will work with artists from Punchdrunk and Johannes Wieland, director and curator of b12 Festival.
Founded in 2000 by Felix Barrett, Punchdrunk has pioneered a game-changing form of theatre which places the audience at the very heart of the action. Recently listed amongst the 50 most influential artists of the last 50 years (Sky Arts, 2022) alongside Bowie, Sir Steve McQueen and Vivienne Westwood, Punchdrunk disrupts the theatrical norm, creating worlds in which audiences can rediscover the childlike excitement of exploring the unknown.
Its iconic “mask” shows, which redefined the genre of immersive experiences, have been cited amongst the 40 creative moments that changed culture (Creative Review), and have found phenomenal success across the globe, with record-breaking productions established in the US, UK and China. Sleep No More in New York has been playing to sell out audiences since 2011, and in Shanghai the show has been running since 2016, making it the longest running show in the city’s history. The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable broke the National Theatre’s box office records when it went on sale in 2013. Punchdrunk’s 2022 London production, The Burnt City, became the company’s longest-running show in its home city, coinciding with the opening of its first permanent venue at 1 Cartridge Place in Woolwich.
In 2024, Viola’s Room debuted in Woolwich, marking a bold shift from Punchdrunk’s signature mask performances. This intimate, barefoot sensory experience distilled two decades of the company’s immersive expertise, using binaural sound to create a deeply personal journey.
Alongside these landmark live theatrical experiences, Punchdrunk has taken its ground-breaking approach to cross-cultural collaborations in music, tech, fashion and TV: from projects with Rihanna to Jack White, Louis Vuitton to Alexander McQueen, and HBO to Brad Pitt’s Plan B Studios – most recently with TV series The Third Day, starring Jude Law, Naomie Harris, Katherine Waterston, Emily Watson and Paddy Considine which included the Bafta-nominated live event: The Third Day: Autumn: a 12-hour live episode, filmed in one continuous take.
Punchdrunk’s past theatrical works include: The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable (with the National Theatre, The Crash of the Elysium (Manchester International Festival), The Duchess of Malfi (with ENO), Sleep No More (with the American Repertory Theatre, Boston, Mass.), It Felt Like A Kiss (with Adam Curtis and Damon Albarn, Manchester International Festival),Tunnel 228 (in collaboration with The Old Vic), The Masque of the Red Death (with Battersea Arts Centre), Faust (in collaboration with the National Theatre), and The Burnt City.
Photo credit: Brinkhoff Mögenburg
Punchdrunk website“Thinking of coming to Leeds and working with curious minds in the framework of NSCD is already making my day! We will work with theatricality, improvisation, movement and text, counting on the amazing mixture of findings and many cool people in one room will generate.”
Conceived in Lisbon and born in Berlin, Johannes Wieland earned his BFA at the Amsterdam University of the Arts, going on to work in various companies with an extensive array of choreographers. After performing with the Béjart Ballet Lausanne, he relocated to New York City where he received his MFA in Contemporary Dance and Choreography at NYU/Tisch School of the Arts. while running the company ‘Johannes Wieland’ in New York, he built from scratch what is now known as the Contemporary Dance Company at the Staatstheater of Kassel, Germany for 15 years, holding positions as a Resident Choreographer, Artistic Director and Director of the Dance Department.
His continued cinematic interest led him to making movies. He continues to create cross-disciplinary work through his Berlin company Mind Eraser/Johannes Wieland. Aside from being commissioned and teaching for companies and universities, his critically acclaimed pieces have been invited to tour internationally to festivals and events. Johannes is also directing and curating b12
– the festival for contemporary dance and performance art (www.b12.space), which runs annually in Berlin.
He is a 1st prize winner of the Kurt Jooss Prize, and has been awarded numerous other prizes, recognitions, scholarships, and grants. Johannes is a nominee for the German theater prize Der Faust in 2016 for his creation You will be removed. He works on non-categorizing art.
Photo credit: Laurent Ziegler
Johannes Wieland Website
