Performing Arts

Cat Webb studied Dance and Theatre Arts at Birmingham University before working as a dancer and choreographer with Bloom Dance and in a freelance capacity.

Cat’s passion is Dance Theatre inspired by artists like New Adventures, Frantic Assembly and Balletboyz and has choreographed and devised original performances of The Hunger Games, Plastic Jungle, Electric Circus and Maze Runner. Alongside this Cat has choreographed numerous musicals and pantomimes and still creates work with Flux Dance.

As a teacher she has inspired many dancers and performers over the past 18 years working with both FE and HE and is currently course leader for the FdA in Performing Arts validated by DMU. Cat prides herself on the innovative and creative dance work created at the Melton Campus and by the Ignite Performing Arts students.

Katie grew up in Hertfordshire and went on to study her acting degree at Bretton Hall Drama school. Working for a while to establish a career as an actor she soon realised her passion was in using drama as an educational tool.

After a short stint working with young offenders using drama as a rehabilitation tool she went on to study to become a teacher, having worked as a teacher and Head of Department for 18 years across various secondary schools she has found her passion at SMB teaching HE and FE and is enjoying the opportunity of directing work with Level 3 and Degree students to perform at the Melton theatre.

Katie has a passion for physical theatre and her specialism is exploring how movement can be used to create visual and powerful theatre, being most inspired by practitioners such as Gecko, Frantic Assembly and Complicite. Her directing work has included productions of ‘Earthquakes in London’ , ‘The Tempest’ and ‘All the little lights’ and Berkoffs ‘The Trial’.

Peter specialises in teaching acting, drama and theatre and has been lecturing in performing arts for over twenty years. He has directed student productions in a wide range of genres and theatrical styles from Shakespearian tragedy to contemporary comedy. Before this, Peter worked as an actor in a variety of contexts, including theatre-in-education, heritage theatre, children’s theatre, voice over work and in new plays on the London fringe.

Peter teaches on the degree level courses (validated by De Montfort University) and on the Level 2 and 3 programmes, mainly focusing on actor training and staging dramatic texts. His teaching includes 20^th and 21^st century acting and theatre practitioners, naturalism and realism on stage and screen, political theatre, and contemporary and classical tragedy. He also teaches applied, community and educational theatre, performance analysis, and supervises students on the BA Year 3 research project module.

Peter has a BA in Drama from Aberystwyth University, a PGCE in Drama from Central School of Speech and Drama, an MA in Theatre Studies from Royal Holloway, University of London and a Theatre Studies PhD from Warwick University.

The work of the renowned contemporary British playwright Howard Barker is a particular specialism of Peter’s and his research on this theatre practitioner includes a chapter on ‘Howard Barker and the Return of Religion’ in the book Howard Barker’s Theatre: Wrestling with Catastrophe (Methuen Drama 2015). Peter’s PhD, entitled ‘Sacred Tragedy’ (2014), examines the relationship between Barker’s Theatre of Catastrophe and classical Greek tragedy.