Course

During the course, you will travel to all kinds of places in the Netherlands and abroad to work with different communities. Because working in a particular environment and context – whether it is a neighbourhood or a school – is at the heart of what being an artist educator is about. There, in the world around you, you can inspire and enthuse people, and encourage them to do something. You will work in neighbourhoods and on location, in schools and youth theatre schools and in the educational field as part of existing theatre groups.

One of the ways in which we challenge you to develop your own style and vision is design thinking. You will conduct research in a design-based way. You may not have any experience of doing that, but it will become second nature during the course. Making comes first. Because through making, things become visible. And from there you can establish a dialogue and profile yourself.

You design your own learning pathway by adopting an enquiring perspective. The point of departure is a central question that emerges from your own urgency and is often linked to a topical theme. You explore that question, what knowledge is already present and what additional knowledge is needed. You then form ideas. They provide the basis for making prototypes. You work out those prototypes and try them out. So the emphasis is much more on looking for opportunities and solutions than on making an end product.

If you take the time for research, you can surprise yourself with new discoveries and so enrich your research and ultimately your end product.

Job Klabbers, student

Our labs challenge you to experiment, to build, to research and to make. There is a strong focus on new technology and immersive storytelling. As a future artisteducator, this gives you more tools, both digital and non-digital, to align your work with other clusters in education. It also enables you to respond to the increasing demand for moving image education, graduation films and media literacy. You will be challenged to try your hand at everything yourself: from filming and editing to setting up the lighting. This will make you a very self-reliant and creative theatre maker.

During the Artisteducator in Theatre & Media, you will have a lot of contact with the professional field, often outside the walls of the institution. You will work on practice-based projects throughout the country and learn how to design, develop and deliver education. You will do internships and where possible carry out assignments for and with an external client.

Theatre making calls for a high degree of independence and enterprise. During the course, you will work on developing an entrepreneurial attitude. Aspects covered will include: effectively putting into words how you see the profession, acting in public performance, dealing with media, writing, reflecting and visioning.

In addition, you will begin working in and with the professional field during the course. As a result, you will have built up a broad network by the time you graduate. In the main phase, we also focus on the financial sides of entrepreneurship.

You will be collaborating a lot with students from other arts courses, including students of ArtEZ Academy of Art & Design in Zwolle and the ArtEZ Academy of Music in Zwolle. In the first three years of the course, you will come together in a joint programme which includes various projects.

As you can see above, we expect a lot of independence from you: you need to be capable of designing your course yourself. But of course you will receive the best possible supervision. Throughout the course, you will have your own study career coach. They will support you in your learning pathway and artistic development and supervise your assessments. There is also a care coordinator to provide additional support, should that be necessary. If you have questions or issues relating to your course/study progress or personal welfare, you can get in touch with an ArtEZ student counsellor or confidential counsellor in Zwolle.

In short: your strength lies in being a making, multidisciplinary student who conquers the professional field based on social engagement and as an ambassador of the arts.

The main phase is all about connecting with the other. You will conduct research on the place where you will be going, because that will be your school and the people at the school are important. That could be abroad. For this reason, an exchange with foreign students is part of this phase. The core of the main phase is made up of four building blocks. Each building block lasts ten to twelve weeks and you choose the order yourself, based on what you want to learn. Alongside the building blocks, you will take part in Monday sessions, kickoffs and interdisciplinary projects.

Nomad building block
Working as part of a group at different locations
Research/mixed media building block
Artistic research and technology plus researching and executing a making process with external parties
Education and development building block
Making within education. Doing an internship via research in different intramural contexts.
Exile building block
With the assignment “Find a place outside the course where you can live and work for three months” you are ‘banished’ (exile) from the academy. For example, you could choose an internship abroad, take an external module or follow more in-depth training.

Labs

During the labs, you prepare for the building blocks and at the end you reflect. Regular components of a lab are an expedition, your own research, a methodology, a making process with a maker and building your network. In addition, the following questions are addressed: what do you want to learn and develop in the time ahead?

Research Art Together (RAT)

In the three-year interdisciplinary RAT (Research Art Together) programme, all students from years 1, 2 and 3 of the Music in Education, Artisteducator in Theatre & Media and Visual Art and Design in Education courses at the academy in Zwolle head out to conduct research together. Because after all, you will be ambassadors for the arts. You will learn about art in all disciplines, forms, periods, eras and the connections between them.

Mondays

The scheduled weekly Monday sessions continue throughout these years and offer you the opportunity to reflect on your own development. You will reflect on the course and ask for input from lecturers and fellow students. You will manage your planning and allocate your time.

In the graduation phase, you will specialise and design your own building block. You are free in your choice of assignment, working method, goals, activities, results and how you choose to demonstrate your learning outcomes. The associated context and complexity must be challenging and appropriate to professional practice. You will apply all the methodologies and instruments you have acquired during the course. In this way, you will develop your own signature, vision and position in the professional context.

At the academy you are trained to be a critical social thinker who devises their own creative expression. That might be teaching a class, but it could also be something very different. For example, one of my classmates makes theatre of spectacle, another works with an asylum seekers centre to introduce the residents to Dutch culture but without language, and a third is keen to teach, ideally at vmbo (preparatory middle-level vocational education) level. Those are three diverse things you could choose to do with the Artisteducator in Theatre & Media course in Zwolle.

Read the story of finals student Jolijn Amorison