The aim of the four-year Acting diploma at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts is to promote creative actors with a mastery of classical and modern techniques, with the ability to reflect on aesthetic positions as well as their own contemporaneity in an artistic, historical and social context, and who are able to assume responsibility and show initiative both as a soloist and as part of an ensemble. Affiliation with the Hessian Theatre Academy guarantees proximity to theatrical practice at Hessian theatres as well as interdisciplinary co-operation with other fields of performing arts education. Joint projects with the Directing in Theatre programme are a fixed part of the course.
In addition to the in-depth training of acting skills, the programme also includes a large number of auxiliary workshops (e.g. mask work, performance and authorship, choral work, etc.) as well as different formats to train media skills (work in front of the camera, speaking with a microphone, making films, compiling demo tapes, etc.).
Thanks to the support of the Hessian Theatre Academy and other sponsors, the Acting programme at the HfMDK has been involved in a co-operation with the Schauspiel Frankfurt theatre since 2017. The Studio Year for Drama integrates third-year drama students into the work of the theatre. The students work in professional conditions and thus have an opportunity to gather experience during their diploma that will serve as a solid foundation for joining the acting profession later. Another opportunity to gain practical experience at HTA-affiliated theatres is the Period of Practical Training during the fourth year of the diploma when students guest at a theatre for a period of three to four months. Renowned theatre personalities – including David Bösch, Andreas Kriegenburg, Peter Michalzik, Birgit Minichmayr, Tobias Moretti, Christian Nickel, Udo Samel, Roger Vontobel and Susanne Wolff – are past and present contributors to the Acting diploma via guest professorships and excellence workshops.
Course director: Prof. Marion Tiedtke
Contact: Diploma in Acting Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts Eschersheimer Landstrasse 29-39 60322 Frankfurt am Main Germany
How do you conceive of and experiment with theatre when it’s subject to constant change? The Institute of Applied Theatres Studies at Justus Liebig University in Giessen sees its teaching and research as an attempt to always challenge the structures, natures and functions of theatre, to consider it negotiable, and to conceptualise it differently on the basis of risky and necessarily contingent models. This experimental approach turns theatre into a place of debate and analysis where one regularly risks his or her theatrical practice and ideas; a place of experience where ways of seeing, hearing, feeling and thinking are consistently challenged; and a place of the political where the community generated by the interaction of the subjects on the stage and in the audience has to be re-clarified each time – in short, a place that reinvents and questions itself at the same time every time.
At the Institute of Applied Theatre Studies, theatre is seen as an open space for all articulations of theatre, dance and performance. In the free composition of multifarious theatrical elements, even sound, light and objects, for example, can become equal partners to the voices and bodies of the actors, dancers or performers – or even have their own solo performance independently of the human body. New media such as video and the Internet can also be integrated into the theatrical scene. And last but not least, site-specific performances, installations, audio plays and other theatrical and performative formats and off-stage processes are also considered to be study and research areas. Opening up the definition of theatre comes hand-in-hand with a reprioritisation within the inquiry into theatre. On the one hand, particular focus is placed on contemporary performance aesthetics and theory formation as the locus where precisely this form of open theatre is negotiated. If historical contexts are appropriated then this is always with an eye on their significance for contemporary developments. On the other hand, this open definition of theatre shifts the specificity of theatre and its aesthetic difference in relation to life further to the foreground of scientific and artistic questioning.
Course director: Prof. Xavier Le Roy Contact: Institute of Applied Theatre Studies Justus Liebig University Giessen Gutenbergstr. 6 35394 Giessen Germany
The international Master’s degree Choreography and Performance at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen is offered in co-operation with the Department for Contemporary Dance at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts. Students can choose from a wide range of practical and theoretical classes in choreography and performance, and dance and theatre studies. The course combines body and practice-focused approaches with a critical and reflective access to dance and performance, which trains students to engage in an expanded notion of choreography. Forms of physical expression such as dance and movement are not only investigated and reflected on as an artistic medium but also in relation to their relevance for contemporary aesthetic, social and political contexts. In this sense, choreography, dance and performance are seen as body-related practices that have a deep connection with reflective thought and critical inquiry. In order to help students achieve an independent positioning of their working methods within the context of contemporary art production, special attention is given to an analysis of contemporary dance and performance art in an international context and associated working and production methods.
The seminars for the Master’s degree are offered by the Institute of Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen, the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts and other partners of Hessian Theatre Academy. A key part of the programme focuses on students’ practical work. Methods and techniques for autonomous artistic work are taught through a wide range of stage projects, practical courses, body training, dramaturgy and mentoring courses. Workshops with guest professors and lecturers from the field of contemporary art production allow students to engage with relevant discourses and positions. The programme’s links with numerous cultural institutions in the region, e.g. Künstlerhaus Mousonturm and Frankfurt LAB, offer students the opportunity to realise their projects in professional conditions.
Course director: Prof. Dr. Bojana Kunst Contact: Institute of Applied Theatre Studies Justus Liebig University Giessen Gutenbergstr. 6 35394 Giessen Germany
Being a professional classical singer not only requires solid technique, but in addition to a beautiful and unmistakable singing voice, musicality and performance skills, also diligence, discipline, physical and psychological stability, and strong social skills. Today’s profession expects confident mastery of song, oratorio and opera of all eras as well as the art forms’ own styles – from the Monteverdi trill to recitative – and knowledge of contemporary notation practice. Basic teaching knowledge is also necessary.
The aim of the Classical Voice/Music Theatre department at the HfMDK is to train personalities with their own form of artistic expression that they can use confidently thanks to the singing technique and other practical skills they have acquired on the course, e. g. body awareness, content-related and theatrical performance, and knowledge of different styles. Individual, intensive supervision is thus a key aspect of the programme. Comprehensive training in theoretical subjects as well as in the workshops supporting the course give students the ability to reflect on themselves and on their chosen art form in an artistic, historical and social context.
The integration of the programmes into the HTA allows students to test their own knowledge in practice and in professional conditions. The singers are thus given a very early opportunity to become familiar with professional practice, in order to prepare them for their later occupation in the best possible way.
Course director: Prof. Jan-Richard Kehl
Contact: Classic Voice / Music Theatre (BA) Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts Eschersheimer Landstrasse 29-39 60322 Frankfurt am Main Germany
The testing and developing of new teaching and transfer formats in unusual contexts is one of the contentual focuses of the Master’s in Contemporary Dance Education. In a professional field in which, in recent years, independent and nomadic artists/teachers in particular have been making a name for themselves, and in which institutional working contexts need to be redeveloped, the training is aimed at professional and experienced dance artists wishing to explore and expand their field of work. Students are equipped with the necessary skills to combine both their theoretical and practical teaching work with the highest artistic standards and to use their aesthetic knowledge and teaching skills in different institutional contexts. With this concept, the programme is responding to the growing demands and current artistic and institutional developments in the field of dance.
Diverse offers as well as links to the professional world via targeted projects and interdisciplinary exchange formats foster and support students’ personal interests in particular. Co-operation with the international MA CoDE network, which includes dance centres, festivals, degree courses and MA CoDE alumni, is embedded in the curriculum.
The integration and development of individual solutions as a considered artistic process is essential for the development for future-oriented, contemporary teaching. The MA CoDE thus emphasises the development of new formats in different settings. It positions its curriculum in the area of artistic research, theoretical contextualisation and practical application. In thematic complexes such as dance policy and cultural education, and in the analysis of current philosophical discourses, the various dance teaching methods are continuously developed further within a modular structure, at the same time integrating all the key questions relating to communication, methodology, documentation and transfer.The HTA network and its partner theatres are an important aspect of this, as is close co-operation with the BAtanz and MA Choreography and Performance programmes in the Department of Contemporary and Classical Dance training at the HfMDK.
Course director: Prof. Ingo Diehl
Contact: MA Contemporary Dance Education Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts Eschersheimer Landstrasse 29-39 60322 Frankfurt am Main Germany
The aim of the BAtanz programme at HfMDK is to train and individually promote creative personalities with great artistic expression, solid dance technique, a wide movement spectrum in both classical and contemporary dance, and confidence in the use of their skills and qualities. Students are trained to be able to provide creative input into the shaping of artistic working processes; they are required to reflect on themselves and dance in interdisciplinary as well as historical and social contexts; and they are encouraged and helped to develop social and political engagement, to participate in groups confidently and responsibly, and to make a positive contribution to the development of group processes. The students come from different countries and continents and have wholly different backgrounds. They are supervised on a one-to-one basis throughout the programme and supported in their artistic development. Graduates of the Bachelor’s programme are qualified to work as dancers in a professional context and have acquired a solid basis for further qualification as dance teachers, choreographers, body and movement therapists, and to use their knowledge in other fields. To achieve these objectives, an educational model has been developed that is based on seven interconnected pillars – technique, creativity, body awareness, theory, project work, interdisciplinarity and performance – and leads from a parallel to an integral education.
The programme is aimed at people who wish to examine dance and its contexts on an experimental and interdisciplinary basis within the framework of an artistic degree course, and who wish to prepare themselves for the professional dance world and all its diverse themes, techniques, production conditions and working methods. In close co-operation with experts from Frankfurt’s and Hessen’s artistic environment, the MA CoDE at the HfMDK and the MA CuP at the Institute of Applied Theatre Studies at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen, and thanks to the participation of international guest teachers, the BAtanz programme offers students the possibility to prepare themselves for artistically creative employment in the field of contemporary dance.
Course director: Prof. Dieter Heitkamp
Contact: Department of Dance Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts (HfMDK) Eschersheimer Landstrasse 29-39 60322 Frankfurt am Main Germany
Theatre directors are like decathletes, as they have to be familiar with many different aspects of their profession. The aim of the Bachelor's degree programme is to train students to become theatre directors. The curriculum covers both the classical literary forms of the performing arts as well as contemporary developments in theatre and its related art forms. The programme is designed to equip students with the requisite skills both for theoretical reflection and practical theatre work. Relevance to practice and students staging their own productions are key aspects of the course. The interdisciplinary programme integrates teaching units from other disciplines such as philosophy, art and social sciences. Students can attend the theoretical and practical courses offered by the Hessian Theatre Academy study network in conjunction with partner institutions in Frankfurt, Giessen and Offenbach. They may also spend part of their training at the theatres affiliated with the HTA.
The first two semesters take place with students on the Acting diploma programme. The acting basics focus on character, scene, situation, methods for finding ways into a character, and looking at different dramatic tools and somatic and vocal techniques. The curriculum is complemented by a more in-depth look at theory. In the second year of the course, the Theatre Directing and Acting students develop their first joint productions in the Course Projects I und II. The third and fourth years of the programme include Course Projects III und IV as well as increasing students’ practical experience further with their first individual production, either at an HTA partner theatre or in an independent context. Mentors experienced in theatrical practice supervise the works for the entire production period so that students become familiar with the complex correlation between concept and implementation. Theories and the aesthetics of theatre are covered in both historical and contemporary discourses. Students are encouraged to share and discuss information, ideas and experience in a joint colloquium. The programme is completed with a theory-based written paper, a final oral examination and an autonomous production at an HTA partner theatre or in an independent context.
Course director: Prof. Hans-Ulrich Becker
Contact: Directing in Theatre (BA) Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts Eschersheimer Landstrasse 29-39 60322 Frankfurt am Main Germany
The concept of the Master’s programme in Dramaturgy, an inter-university co-operation integrating theory and practice within the framework of the Hessian theatre Academy, was a response to the major upheavals in theatre in the previous decade. In the face of experimental forms that traversed the boundaries of the traditional areas of theatre, visual arts and audio-visual media, and in view of new forms of musical theatre, dance and performance, the tasks of dramaturgy had become more complex. The programme quickly became a successful model and many of its students were offered engagements even before their studies had ended. Graduates are working in many municipial and state theatres as well as in production venues on the independent scene.
In view of the dramaturge’s rapidly changing job requirements, it is particularly important for the Frankfurt programme to convey content that prepares students not just for the theatre that already exists but also for a future theatre still unknown to students and lecturers. In addition to knowledge of the theatre as it actually exists, of its traditions and general framework, the characteristics that a good dramaturge should possess also include a social imagination, knowledge of other possibilities, a sensitivity for the new and the unknown, the ability to articulate these, and the willingness to assert them in the face of the economic and political obstacles of enterprise and society. We therefore place particular value on an international focus, tight networking with contemporary artistic practice in all areas of theatre and neighbouring arts, and the promotion of autonomous scenic research and students’ independent academic-theoretical practice. The Master’s programme in Dramaturgy is a programme of the Chair of Theatre Studies at the Institute of Theatre, Film and Media Studies at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt. At the same time, it is part of the Hessian Theatre Academy. It is this dual positioning of the programme that gives rise to its tight connection between academic and practical theatre work. The new international Master’s programme in Comparative Dramaturgy and Performance Research expands this network to include international programme partners at the Universities of Brussels and Paris-Nanterre, the Theatre Academy in Helsinki and the Oslo National Academy of the Arts.
Course director: Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Müller-Schöll
Contact: MA Dramaturgy Institute for Theatre, Film and Media Studies Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt Norbert-Wollheim-Platz 1 60323 Frankfurt am Main Germany
The Master’s programme in Performing Arts and Music Management in Frankfurt is the only one of its kind in Germany and offers in-depth, concentrated training for conceptual and management careers in theatre, festivals and orchestras, but also for independent ensembles and groups. Established in 2003, eight to ten students on academic or performance degree programmes – but also colleagues with professional experience – have been trained for middle and top management positions every year since. Prof. Thomas Schmidt and Prof. Norbert Abels have been the programme’s directors since 2009. Another sixteen lecturers – most of them from day-to-day theatrical practice and working in managerial positions at renowned venues, festivals and orchestras – complete the teaching team.
Students complete a comprehensive four-semester programme that conveys knowledge and the latest insights into performing arts and music management, drama and music, cultural policy and theory, business administration and law, scheduling and production, marketing, education and sponsoring. The aim is to create a link between performance and managerial skills in order to bridge the traditional separation of these two professional areas in theatres.
The programme adopts a critical approach to the current problems of Germany’s theatre landscape and has supported many of the current reform efforts, e. g. for more equity and participation, for the dismantling of power and for transparent structures, from the start, as shown in some of the recent publications by the programme direction (Schmidt: Theatre, Crisis and Reform, 2016, as well as The Informed Artist, 2017). The latest developments at municipal theatres and orchestras as well as on the independent scene are observed and analysed in this context, and in the seminars there are discussions on new options and reform models whose cornerstones include less power, more equality and co-determination, flatter hierarchies, more democratic models of leadership, and more gender diversity and parity. A more in-depth analysis of these themes is being targeted within the framework of HTA, so that the theatre as an institution and a cultural technique can be maintained and developed further.
Course directors: Prof. Thomas Schmidt, Prof. Dr. Norbert Abels
Contact: Theatre and Orchestra Management (MA) Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts Eschersheimer Landstrasse 29-39 60322 Frankfurt am Main Germany
The field of Stage Design and Scenic Space at the School of Art at the University of Design in Offenbach am Main differs fundamentally from the programmes run by other comparable institutions. The proximity and relation to the visual arts is of particular importance. Today, working with space is as central in the performing and performative arts as it is in visual arts. The programme accommodates the fact that the field in which stage designers/scenographers work has evolved from purely creating costumes and stage sets into an artistic mode of work that recognises the potential offered by an ever increasing range of creative tools, and is able to exploit it: aspects of interdisciplinary working are discussed and played through. Stage designers and scenographers work in theatre, film, museums and the virtual space, or as independent artists, develop narrative spaces in the form of installations, temporary architectures, choreographies and performances. On the project-based programme, students examine the classical and modern mechanisms of theatre.
The study content is diverse, ranging from the discussion of classical theatre space to experimental work. During the programme, students try out different techniques and media in order to develop the largest possible portfolio of tools as well as an understanding of their own artistic practices. The project work is based on in-depth research into literature, public space, everyday phenomena and their visualisation. The curriculum also includes working on a model in which scenic options can be displayed and the 1:1 implementation of a spatial model in mock-up set rehearsals. Questions relating to lighting design, sound, the research and processing of materials, and technical drawing and construction are also discussed in this context.
Course director: Prof. Heike Schuppelius
Contact: Stage Design / Scenic Space Department Offenbach University of Art and Design Schloßstrasse 31 63065 Offenbach am Main Germany
