London Contemporary Dance School

As a specialist conservatoire, London Contemporary Dance School (LCDS) concentrates on contemporary dance. Robin Howard established it in 1966 to supply trained dancers to the London Contemporary Dance Theatre. The school is part of The Place, a dance centre located in Bloomsbury in central London, where it has been housed since 1969, together with studios, a production house for new work and a professional theatre seating around 280. Alongside RADA, LCDS helped to found the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama in 2001. Since 2022 it has been independently registered with the Office for Students, and the regulator recognises it as a world-leading specialist provider. It is small and intensive, with roughly 250 students.

Undergraduate provision comprises a preparatory Certificate of Higher Education lasting one year, the BA (Hons) Contemporary Dance Performance, whose validating body is University of the Arts London, and a transnational degree, the BA in International Contemporary Dance Practices, run jointly by LCDS and LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. Postgraduate options include several MA programmes, among them screendance and creative dance education, plus doctoral research. Siobhan Davies and Richard Alston, both choreographers, are among its alumni.

Information for International Students

International students account for close to 40 per cent of LCDS students and represent more than 50 countries. The school advises on visas and English language as well as on accommodation, finance and wellbeing. Applicants for the BA in Contemporary Dance Performance go through three stages: an online application, an admission workshop featuring creative and improvisation tasks, and a one-to-one interview. Workshops are held at The Place in London and in a number of cities abroad, and online options are also offered. Where English is not the applicant's first language, the usual requirement is IELTS 6.0 overall with a minimum of 5.5 in each skill. The BA's optional placement year is subject to visa conditions.

As LCDS has no halls of its own, students choose from shared flats, host families, private halls managed by independent providers, and flexible lettings of short or long duration arranged via a partner service. Accommodation support workers assist with searches, viewings and contracts, and the school collaborates with University of London Housing Services to check contracts. For non-UK students with no alternative, it can act as guarantor. The Graduate Route is open to eligible graduates.