Methods of professionalization in the performing arts - the high school model
Methods of professionalization in the performing arts - the high school model

Summary/Abstract: The present article aims to map the historical route of the theater-education tandem starting from the period of ancient Greece until the moment of the institutionalization of theater education at the university level and then at the high school level. We analyze the issue of the professionalization of the staff in performance institutions, at the level of high school studies, from the perspective of eloquent models. Therefore, we have identified the main stages in creating a curriculum for the study of drama arts in specialized high schools. The economic importance that the performing arts industry acquires in England and especially in the United States determines the development of a specialized schooling network at the high school level. England is developing a whole procedure and methodology for professional attestation in the performing arts industry, even offering overspecialization niches in musical theater. In the United States, high schools specializing in the study of the performing arts offer four-year programs of integrated study for individual majors in theater,musical theater, or dance. In France, at the high school level, there are study programs dedicated to performing arts, especially theater, but they cannot be compared to the magnitude of the phenomenon in the English or American world. The study highlighted the existence in a developed and complex configuration of some forms of professionalization in the field of performing arts at the level of high school education. The existence of these high schools is legislated by educational policies that encourage the early professional orientation of students. Serious professional and authentic knowledge of the field determines a documented motivation for a future course in in-depth study at the university level or a possible professional reconversion. At the same time, the extent of the phenomenon of development of high schools dedicated to the professionalization of teenagers in the field of performing arts is directly influenced by the economic factor and the extent of the entertainment industry in that area. As a consequence, the analysis of the three models of institutionalisation of education in drama presents the way in which theater education was first institutionalized at the level of university curricula so that to be introduced later on into the high school education system.

• Details
• Contents