Are you an artist and have you worked in the field of dance? Is embodied practice essential in your work? Do you wish to devote time to a set of concers and questions to deepen your artistic practice? Do you wish to gain new inputs, tools, and insights to expand your perspectives? The Master in Dance offers you the opportunity to carry out practice-oriented research, based on and guided by embodied artistic practices.
Master in Dance
The Master in Dance is a unique collaboration between the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp and DE SINGEL International Arts Centre. This two-year programme (60 ECTS credits) is designed to deepen the individual artistic trajectories of dance artists. The curriculum simultaneously functions as a residency at DE SINGEL.
The concept of Embodied Artistic Research forms the foundation of the programme. Dance and performance practices are primarily embodied practices – taking place in, through, and from the moving body.
The mission of the Master in Dance is to diversify and expand discourses on dance practice and research. The teaching staff consists of local and international artists whose work crosses the boundaries of practice and theory, performing and visual arts, each rooted in its own social, cultural, and political context. Through the lens of their teaching within our extensive curriculum, the master helps develop artists and researchers who are critically conscious of the interchange between practice and theory. The curriculum focuses on three key areas: embodiment, artistic practice, and research.
The values of the programme are defined by critical awareness, the pursuit of a distinctive embodied artistic practice, and the cultivation of a community of dance artists with global awareness. The Master in Dance is providing a place for dance artists to enrich their education, cultivate their embodied artistic practice, develop their professional trajectory, and subsequently return to the professional field with a deeper knowledge. You are invited to critically reflect upon your artistic practice and questions such as:
How to embody knowledge? Which knowledge to embody? When is such an embodiment artistic practice? How can we formulate strategies, frames, and methods to deepen this practice? And at what point during this process can we talk of research? What does artistic research entail when it is carried out through forms of embodiment? Which translations and other media than the body come into play when rendering artistic practice research?
Periods of individual residency, supported by artistic advisers, alternate with collective and intensive workshops. These broaden knowledge in areas such as dance, choreography, dramaturgy, sound, curation, scenography, lighting design, and the documentation/archiving of dance.
Collaboration with DE SINGEL
The collaboration between an educational programme and an international arts platform took shape in the Master in Dance. Together, they ensure a strong connection with the professional field and provide students with valuable networks. Within this program, students receive two years of guidance in their artistic development. Students present their graduation projects at the master dance residency festival in DE SINGEL.
Partnerships with other arts and educational institutions such as the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, the University of Antwerp, and Curatorial Studies (KASK), among others, embed the programme in a wider network.
Educational Master
If you would like to develop your teaching practice alongside your artistic practice, you can follow the educational Master in Music & Performing Arts, specialisation Dance. The full-time programme consists of 120 ECTS-credits and combines the programme of the Master in Dance Residency (60 ECTS-credits) with the programme of the educational Master in Dance (60 ECTS-credits). You will be trained to become a Teaching Artist, whereby your embodied artistic research as an artist and as a teacher are combined. You will develop pedagogical and didactic skills to share your practice with different participants. For the educational Master in Music & Performing Arts a Dutch language proficiency level B2 is mandatory.
It is possible, in consultation with the artistic coordinators of the educational programme, to put together an individual trajectory in order to spread the programme over time.
Picture: Master Dance End performances 2025 - Rudy Carlier