Performing Arts Courses for Beginners
Explore your creativity and build confidence with City Lit’s beginner-friendly performing arts courses. Whether you’re interested in acting, dance, voice, movement, or performance-making, our courses offer an inspiring and supportive way to step into the world of performance.
Led by experienced tutors, you’ll gain practical skills through engaging, hands-on sessions. Learn at your own pace in a relaxed environment—no previous experience required. These courses are ideal for anyone curious about the performing arts, looking to try something new, or hoping to reconnect with a creative passion.
From stage presence to self-expression, you’ll discover the joy and energy that performance can bring.
Explore our performing arts courses for beginners and take your first step into the spotlight.
- Debating: intensiveCourse start date: Wed 23 Jul 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Gavin IllsleyDebating requires the ability to speak English persuasively in public and, crucially, to respond rapidly to other people’s objections to what you say. In this shorter, intensive version of our highly popular course, we will cover the theory and practice of debating, and you will progress quickly in areas of content, strategy and style. A great mental workout. - Great composers: Louise Farrenc
Course start date: Thu 24 Jul 2025Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Trish ShawDiscover the musical life and work of Louise Farrenc (1804–1875), the celebrated French pianist, composer, teacher and scholar. Learn about her delightful chamber music, her important piano etudes, and her impact on French music and culture in the 19th century.Full fee £39.00 Senior fee £39.00 Concession £39.00 - Opera appreciation: an introductionCourse start date: Thu 24 Jul 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Pauline GreeneWhat is opera? And how do you approach watching and listening to it? Explore the ostentatious, sometimes overwhelming, world of opera through study of two major works and styles.Full fee £69.00 Senior fee £69.00 Concession £69.00 - Folk and pop guitar tasterCourse start date: Sat 26 Jul 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Tony RowdenLearn the essential chords that will begin your guitar career, and develop the motor skill to strum pop songs. Please bring an acoustic guitar.Full fee £29.00 Senior fee £29.00 Concession £29.00 - BurlesqueCourse start date: Sat 26 Jul 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Gwendoline LamourBurlesque is an empowering and expressive performance art. Learn the basics of burlesque movement and dance in this glamorous and fun one day workshop. We will explore the posture, deportment, style and elegance of showgirl movement.Full fee £69.00 Senior fee £69.00 Concession £48.00 - Classical guitar tasterCourse start date: Sat 26 Jul 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Tony RowdenEnjoy this introduction to playing classical guitar. Please bring a nylon-strung guitar.Full fee £29.00 Senior fee £29.00 Concession £29.00 - Drum kit tasterCourse start date: Sat 26 Jul 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Mark HuggettSpend time with our drumming tutor, meet the drum kit, sticks and practice pads supplied. Come and play. - Saxophone tasterCourse start date: Sat 26 Jul 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: David HarrisonDiscover how a saxophone class works, and learn about embouchure, breathing, and fingering. Bring your tenor or alto saxophone to this session.Full fee £29.00 Senior fee £29.00 Concession £29.00 - Mime: workshopCourse start date: Sun 27 Jul 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Sean CroftThere’s so much more to Mime than the striped jumper, beret and box!
The course will cover basic techniques in Mime towards developing and creating worlds alongside opening your body up to expressionistic styles. Through technique and improvisational based classes we will play and explore some of the most renowned exercises in Mime and build on them. Engaging your imagination and developing your awareness of your body as a tool for theatre craft.Full fee £69.00 Senior fee £69.00 Concession £48.00 - Piano taster Course start date: Wed 30 Jul 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Ana Claudia MagalhaesA fun introduction to the piano: learn the basics about the instrument, names of the notes and where they are, and how to play some simple tunes. Find out whether piano is the instrument for you!Full fee £29.00 Senior fee £29.00 Concession £20.00 - Music history bookclub: My Tango with Barbara StrozziCourse start date: Fri 1 Aug 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Edward BreenThe music history book club meets towards the end of each term to discuss novels and biographies with musical themes and references relevant to the music history programme.Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £19.00 Concession £19.00 - Come and sing: Mamma miaCourse start date: Sat 2 Aug 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Siobhan Blake, Richard Hartley-WilsonCome and sing all your favourite ABBA songs from the wildly popular jukebbox musical Mamma Mia at our friendly weekend workshop. There will be oppurtunities for solos over the weekend.Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £129.00 Concession £90.00 - Argentine Tango: introductionCourse start date: Sun 3 Aug 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Adriana PegorerAn introduction to Argentine Tango. Learn and practice the fundamentals of this famous partner dance in a supportive and fun environment!
No partner needed – come alone, with a partner or with friends. Suitable for both beginners and those with some prior experience.Full fee £39.00 Senior fee £39.00 Concession £27.00 - Great works: Beethoven's Symphony No 9 "Choral" Course start date: Tue 5 Aug 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Katy Hamilton, Trish ShawBeethoven’s monumental ninth symphony, first performed in 1824, has had an enormous impact on western classical music and on wider European culture. How did Beethoven come to write this work, and what does this symphony still mean to us two centuries after its first performance?Full fee £39.00 Senior fee £39.00 Concession £39.00 - Great composers: Gilbert and SullivanCourse start date: Tue 5 Aug 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Katy HomdenCreators of arguably the most popular and enduring opera in the English language from the 19th century, this course will introduce you to Gilbert & Sullivan’s musical legacy via biographical study and operatic highlights. tutor: Katy HomdenFull fee £59.00 Senior fee £59.00 Concession £59.00
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