Contemporary and Classical Dance at the University for Music and Performing Art Frankfurt am Main

ZukT! – The name says it all: Contemporary and Classical Dance.
ZuKt experiments with the joy of movement, refuses to commit itself to a single style, presents a broad concept of dance ranging from traditional to innovative. Students from a multitude of countries and completely different backgrounds are given individual coaching and encouragement for their artistic development throughout the program.

“Body awareness between technique and creativity” – This guiding principle is the basis of all aspects of our dance education. The Bachelor’s program Dance ends with a full university degree. The goal of the program is to help individual dancer personalities develop a high level of individual artistic expression, acquire artistic skills of creation, master a wide range of classical and contemporary dance techniques, employ these successfully and confidently and be able to reflect themselves and their art form in artistic, historical and social contexts. The program also aims at enabling students to act confidently and responsibly in a team environment, contribute to this team in a positive way and learn commitment to social and political causes.

Course of Study
In order to achieve the goals mentioned above, an educational model has been developed that rests on seven pillars, which are linked to each other and guide from a parallel to an integral education. The learning of techniques, body awareness and the theory of dance are just as much part of this program as the development of individual creativity. Project work in interdisciplinary contexts and numerous possibilities to perform also contribute very strongly to the development of each student’s potential to perform before an audience.

Lecturers
The Ballet department, first founded in 1961, was turned into the Department of Contemporary and Classical Dance in 1988. Since then, the directors - Prof. Dieter Heitkamp (Contemporary Dance, director of the department), Prof. Susanne Noodt (Folklore, Feldenkrais), Prof. Angela Schmidt (Classical Dance), Prof. Mark Spradling (Classical Dance), honorary professor William Forsythe and the répétiteurs James Schar and Tatjana Petercol – have continued to develop the Frankfurt educational model ZuKT. Moreover, the team of regular lecturers includes Nora Kimball, Jean Hugues Assohoto, Sabine Köhler, Hartmut Schöffner and Gabriele Wittmann. By working with international guest lecturers and choreographers and in interdisciplinary projects with other departments in the Hessian Theater Academy network, students learn to respond to different requirements in a flexible way. They also have the chance to gain further performance experience on tour and in three different performance series every year.