Bachelor or Master in Dramatic Arts

Drama - Theater Direction

Your training in details

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Theater Direction

Accompanied by renowned theatre makers, you gain insight into the various techniques and media connected to the performing arts through workshops. In the theory classes, you analyse the different theatre traditions and contexts and develop your own conceptual framework. But it is mainly on the stage where you examine what the theatre of the future might look like and where your own urges and desires lie from which you want to address an audience.

In these workshops we ask how we can introduce society into the theatre, which urgencies of our time we can get to people through theatre and what is needed today to stimulate the public's imagination. Can theatre bombard the digital society with a vital experience? Can we still make Shakespeare urgent or should we rather connect Breakdancers and Dada? What do we put at stake and how do we get someone to play? Can we create a place through theatre where it is pleasant or challenging for the spectator to stay?

In practical exercises with your fellow students from other disciplines, you convert your acquired expertise from the techniques and your findings from the workshops into performances.
You are a maker who steers, coaches and inspires playfully, but also dares to lose track, scans your own boundaries and constantly (re)discover yourself. Throughout this process you learn to be the instigator of theatre projects with a particular and significant signature.

This training makes you resilient for a fascinating and influential career in the theatrical field.

Master

The “ Theater Direction” track (language: Dutch, English or French) – we tend to prefer the broader neologism “theatre maker” – focuses on the development of your individual work and will take the form of a coherent hands-on research track that will be elaborated by means of two fully-fledged artistic projects (public presentations). This track presupposes considerable experience in the concerned artistic activities.

This MA programme is hosted by the theatre department of RITCS | School of Arts, which also organizes BA programs in acting, directing and theatre technique (production, light design, set design, sound and video). Our MA programme welcomes prospective candidates with a Bachelor degree in Performing Arts. The RITCS Master of Theatre is internationally acknowledged and accredited by the NVAO.

You will work in an interdisciplinary environment aimed at the development of your personal work as a performer or theater director whether this work is developed individually or in close collaboration with other artists. You will work within the broad field of (music) theatre and performance art. The backbone of this tailor-made MA programme will be taken up by your practice-based artistic research, which will be developed in permanent negotiation with an audience and the broader context of the arts world. At the end of the academic year the graduation projects are presented in a festival which the school organizes in collaboration with Kaaitheater (www.kaaitheater.be) and KVS (www.kvs.be).

Program

Teaching staff

The Master in Theatre is coordinated by a mentor who will act as your artistic and intellectual sparring partner throughout the year, together with a team of staff members.

The programme works with a wide variety of artists, dramaturges and academics, including: Dirk Verstockt (dramaturge, director, critic), Eurudike De Beul (singer, Peeping Tom), Ruud Gielens (actor, director), Karel Vanhaesebrouck (theory), Klaas Tindemans (dramaturgy), Bart Capelle (dramaturgy), Sanja Mitrovic (director, performer), Tom Dupont (writer, director) and many others. Students in the directing track can propose their own coaches. The theory seminars are taught by our in-house professors Lieven De Cauter and Dominiek Hoens.

You can find an extensive list of our teachers on the Dutch website page.

About the admission test

Master Directing is an international program (Dutch, level B2 English) focusing on the development of your personal work as a director, theatre maker or performer. Each year we have a limited number of places for external candidates for our MA program. These students will join a small group of students who have been trained in our BA program.

Artists holding a bachelor’s degree in higher training in theatre and/or performing arts (theatre, acting, directing, physical theatre, musical theatre, theatre in education, etc.) can apply for the program. Proved relevant professional experience is certainly an asset but is not required. In all cases, the jury can decide to impose a preparatory program in our Bachelor program (usually two years) before you are granted permission to take up the one-year MA program.

The admission test is centered around two key moments: an audition and a workshop week.

You can choose between an online audition via Zoom or Teams on Thu 05.05.2022 or a live audition on Mon 27.06.2022 in Brussels.
At the end of the day you will be informed if you can participate in the workshop week from Tue 28.06.2022 to Fri 01.07.2022.
We ask you to be available during this week, so that you can do the admission test without any problems. Admission tests that are only partly finished are not sufficient to succeed.

You can find more information on the content of the admission test in the brochure that is enclosed in the confirmation mail.

Admission deadline: Monday 25.04.2022

Any question?

drama-regie.ritcs@ehb.be