Bachelor of Performing Arts

Bachelor of Performing Arts: Degree Completion Program (Fourth Year)

Offered jointly by Capilano University, Douglas College, Langara and Vancouver Community College
Starts May 2012

The Bachelor of Performing Arts (BPA) program is unique in Canada. Nowhere else in the country have four academic arts institutions partnered to offer a cross-disciplinary performing arts degree that has, at its heart, a commitment to collaboration and self-generation – elements which are crucial to young artists’ future success.

The program’s primary objective is real-world training. It is ideal for those who want to practice as a professional performing artist, arts manager, administrator or cultural entrepreneur, or those who wish to continue on to graduate studies in the performing arts. The program offers students the unique opportunity to create original multi-disciplinary shows while developing the entrepreneurial skills necessary to make a self-directed performing arts career feasible.

The BPA is designed to address a gap in most performing arts education: serious consideration of how students will develop the means to put their training to use once they graduate. There are many ways to do so, and most require the ability to create one’s own opportunities, often in collaboration with peers. Culture is always changing, and BPA graduates will be encouraged to define the nature of that change.

The admission process will begin in Fall 2011 for the first BPA cohort, which will begin classes at Capilano University in May, 2012. The program will run May – January, with classes during the summer and fall semesters, and the capstone Interdisciplinary Production (project) in January.