Master's degree programmes in Music and Movement
In Trossingen, we offer the best of both worlds: a more pedagogically oriented course of studies Rhythmics/Elementary Music Education and an artistically oriented Master's course of studies Rhythmics/Performance. Here the focus is on the examination of body/movement/dance, scene, music/sound, media and the art of speech. Improvisation, dramaturgy, composition, scenic design and working methods for the development of a personal artistic signature and design idea are the central concerns.
Master of Rhythmic Performance
In the Master of Rhythmic Performance, the development and realization of your own scenic-musical concepts for stage and public space form the core area of the study. During the first three semesters of the programme, students work on the elaboration of their own forms of expression in the respective specialist classes. This results in final programmes with a subject-specific focus on language and music improvisation. Theory lessons in directing and dramaturgy accompany the performance lessons. In this way, students can develop and continuously hone their own artistic profile in music, movement and language based on specific tasks, with open interpretations and realisations.
The starting point for the creative processes are often existing works of visual art, literature and music with references to working and thinking methods from the performing arts and performance. A directing internship with renowned directors and at major theatres such as the Staatstheater Stuttgart, the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar, the Opernhaus Zürich or the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, but also with performance collectives such as She She Pop and God's Entertainment, gives students the opportunity to work and think along with the creation of a piece or performance over an entire production period. Their intermedia skills make them exceptional artists and interesting collaborators.
Rhythmics is usually regarded as a purely pedagogical discipline. However, there are numerous examples of exceptional artistic impulses, developments and personalities from the very beginning. Projects with special target groups of students in the Master's programme in Rhythmic Performance become exemplary or actual festival and competition entries.
Master of Rhythmics with Elementary Music Education
In the spirit of always artistically-orientated work, we also focus on the development of students' own expressive potential in the "Master's in Rhythmics with Elementary Music Education". Most of them come from bachelor's programmes in instrumental and vocal music and only in this master's programme do they begin to explore the media of music and movement. The four-semester Master's programme guarantees intensive experience through a fairly balanced distribution of music and movement modules (percussion, instrumental/vocal improvisation, rhythm, dance technique, bodywork), which prepares students well for the stage project with which the programme concludes, along with a written thesis and a subject-related presentation.
A parallel systematic study of the didactics/methodology of rhythmics also includes the content of elementary music education and provides thorough theoretical knowledge as well as extensive practical experience for the subsequent work in lessons with children (from parent-child groups, through kindergarten and primary school age to work with youth groups). During the four semesters of the programme, students are advised and supported in their reflections during two different teaching practice phases of sixteen hours per week each. The conceptual model developed especially for Trossingen shows how rhythmics can also be used for music high school students. The programme also offers modules on inclusion and music and movement lessons with primary school classes.