Acting and Artistic Production
The BA Acting & Artistic Production is a leading international training programme for creative actors. The three-year practical course develops actors with the skills to push the boundaries of theatrical performance and to take charge of their artistic careers. Former students from the school have professionally active within every part of the performance industry as actors, playwrights, directors, scenographers, and composers. They work within many of Norway’s main theatre venues as well as for national and international theatre companies and film production companies. Independent production companies have been founded by former students and gained recognition, awards and critical acclaim.
Theatre Pedagogy
The journey of the education grows out of the pedagogy developed by Jacques Lecoq at his school École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq where many of our teachers were trained. This pedagogy, built on exploring and renewing foundational theatre traditions, aims to rediscover and explore humanity and the world through a process of observation, re-enactment and creation. The course is a highly structured journey where the importance of body, space and play are emphasised through work in movement, improvisation, and creation. This is allied to work on text, voice, film, music, singing, and professional development.
The Journey
First year
The first year explores and develops the actor’s body as an instrument. The goal is to increase the student’s awareness and flexibility, open new paths for movement, and experience the world and others in play. Students receive instruction in improvisation, movement, acrobatics, stage combat, mask work, text, voice, singing, and music. Each week, students create their own work to build creative skills and put into practice what they are learning.
Second year : Style Work and Creation
Students explore acting and creation through different genres and stylistic directions. Students devise original performances developed by exploring specific genres and styles: gestural theatre, physical storytelling, mask work (commedia del’arte), tragedy, bouffon, mystére, grotesque realism, drama, absurdist theatre, text work, comedy, and theatre-clowning.
Third year : Creative Actors
The course focuses on developing students as creative actors through workshop-based work in diverse artistic directions. Students work with text, both classical and contemporary, with object theatre, film, and their own productions. They are challenged to figure out what they want to say and how they can express this in an artistic form. The third year concludes with a graduation performances. In recent years, it has been performed for audiences in Trondheim, and Oslo.
Music
The programme includes various music subjects as an important part of the curriculum. Instruction is given in ensemble singing, solo singing, collaboration, and composition. Musical work is also integrated into parts of the theatre training
Industry Collaborations
We are in contact with academic environments in the Nordic countries, Europe, and beyond. We host visits from professionals as guest lecturers and theatre companies with extensive international experience. In 2019, we started a partnership with the Lecoq school in France, where 3rd-year students participate in a workshops.
As part of the 3rd year of study our we invite outside professional artists to collaborate with the students to create a full scale production. Some of the artists we have collaborated with are Simon T. Rann and French company Compagnie de L’Étre (2020 & 2024), American/Norwegian company Wakka Wakka Productions (2023), British company Theatre Ad Infinitum (2019), and New International Encounter – NIE (2017 & 2018), Figurteatret I Nordland, and France’s Compagnie Philippe Genty (no longer active).
