Master in Performing Arts

This MA is divided into two main fields, cinema and performing arts:

• In choosing Cinema, students will receive a solid grounding in film culture and the foundations for an approach, which is analytical when dealing with theory and creative when turned to writing. It also gives students knowledge of film archiving, the financial side of the film industry and the legal issues related to copyrights.

• Performing Arts focuses on building up knowledge, methodology and comparative approaches to performing arts, particularly to theatre. It offers tools for critical analysis, creation, practical implementation, production, management, organization and teaching of performing arts (theatre, dance, opera, street entertainment, and circus).

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The MA program in Screenwriting and Analysis aims at developing cinema studies at the University. Its goal, unique and innovative in Belgium and very rare in Europe, is to propose in a two-year program a double training in filmic theory and screenwriting practice. Students learn basic notions but also engage in in-depth studies of screenwriting and filmic analysis. Theoretical and historical courses form to history and theory of Belgian and international cinema, as well as filmic techniques and specific perspectives (archiving and conservation problems, economical networks, juridical questions). From the screenwriting perspective, the MA offers the possibility to follow workshops given by screenwriters-directors, but also specialized Master Classes that allow students to undertake real fiction or documentary scripts. The Emile Bernheim Master Class (2012) gives the student to learn from the practice of an internationally known filmmaker.

Far from staying inside the university, the MA opens to the world, through screenwriting seminars by famous American screenwriter like Robert McKee, workshops given by famous screenwriters (Jean-Claude Carrière), known directors (E. Scola, B. Podalydès, A. Delvaux, A. Wajda), as well as international congresses (Revisiting Film Melodrama in 2009 or 4^th Screenwriting Research Conference in 2011).

The MA program in Performing Arts focuses on an interdisciplinary analysis of all forms of spectacular representation and also aims at initiating the student to contemporary performance practice. An important part is dedicated to the development of personal work (seminars, internships, thesis) as well as to direct contact with the professional field, both aiming at providing students with the necessary tools for an intelligent, critical analysis of contemporary performance practice. It aims at understanding the spectular (« liveness ») as an integral part of our society, analysing its role and fonction within global culture, while at the same time investigating its relation with other arts and new media. A practice-based workshop (« Sensibilisation à la pratique artistique ») as well as a compulsory internship (8 weeks or 6 weeks) provide a solid basis for the development of reflexive experience. The MA program also offers the possibility to participate in the so-called Rencontres dramatiques internationales at Pont-à-Moussoin or in the Avignon Festival. The ULB program focuses on the development of professional skills by providing a number of specific courses : a dramaturgy course followed by a workshop of applied dramaturgy, two introductory courses on opera and dance and two optional modules of 15 credits each :« Publics et gestion » (15 credits) or « Critique et Rédaction » (15 credits). The European program offers the student the possibility to acquire specific, specialized competences (opera, dance, theatre anthropology, etc) within a network of 11 partner universities. Students will receive an international certificate of this European Master. The Didactic program prepares students for all functions related to education and offers theoretical and practical courses, exercices, tutoring for individual work and internships.

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