How does interaction with the surrounding cultural landscape shape the performing artists of the future?
On the Master’s programme Performing Arts as Critical Practice at the Malmö Theatre Academy, partnerships with cultural institutions form a central part of the education. Here, artistic development and social reflection come together in close dialogue with the professional field.
Through the various forms of artistic expression, we can critically examine the society around us. On this Master’s programme, students use the performing arts as tools to explore and challenge the world in which they live.
Through collaborations with both established departments and independent organisations, students also have the opportunity to develop their artistic practices in partnership with industry professionals. In this way, points of intersection are created between education and professional life, where students can take their first steps towards a future as professional performing artists.
“To remain relevant, cultural institutions need to constantly learn new things — this may involve new working methods, new forms of artistic expression or new target audiences,” says Ditte Bjerg, senior lecturer on the programme.
By working closely with cultural institutions, students and alumni test their ideas. The result is processes and projects that help to expand the current and future role of the performing arts in society.
For the programme’s partners, these collaborations represent an additional commitment, where trust, time and curiosity are key.
“Time is a limited resource, and the departments need to see value in investing it. What we often hear is that they see it as part of their mission to support the artists of the future. At the same time, they feel that the students contribute new perspectives that can strengthen the departments’ own development,” explains Ditte Bjerg.
Malmö Theatre Academy and performing arts in Malmö
The students bring new perspectives to Malmö, and many choose to stay in the city after obtaining their degree. Through their experiences, languages and artistic practices, they contribute to a richer cultural life and create opportunities to reach new audiences and communities.
“For us as a department and for the independent cultural scene, the Master’s programme’s partnership represents an opportunity to collaborate with the performing artists of the future,” says Marie Norrthon from Skånes Dansteater
The students also bring with them international networks that can lead to future collaborations across national borders. In this way, the programme not only contributes to the artistic development of individual students, but also helps to strengthen Malmö’s position as an international and multifaceted city of culture.
One example is alumna Monirah Hashemi, whose work creates meeting places for groups who rarely see themselves represented in established cultural institutions.
Monirah Hashemi – performing arts, diaspora and representation
Monirah Hashemi is collaborating with Malmö City Theatre on the project A Night with Buddha, which will take place at Drömmarnas Hus on 1 December 2026. The project comprises three performances of Who Lights the Stars as well as a series of public discussions with a particular focus on the Afghan diaspora in Malmö.
Through theatre and discussion, the project explores issues of belonging and representation, particularly for groups who rarely feel included in established cultural institutions. Here, the performing arts become a space for forging new relationships between audiences and cultural spaces.
The project also highlights women’s experiences within the Afghan diaspora and emphasises the importance of reclaiming narratives beyond patriarchal structures – at a time when women’s rights and visibility in Afghanistan are under serious threat.
Filip Pawlak — dance, accessibility and new perspectives
Alumnus Filip Pawlak is the curator of the DansFunk festival at Skånes Dansteater, which takes place from 17-21 November as part of the European programme Europe Beyond Access.
The festival explores dance from different perspectives and challenges notions of the dancing body. The focus is on which bodies and identities are given a place on stage and why.
This year’s programme presents works by some of Europe’s most interesting dance artists with disabilities. The theme centres on safety and explores issues of care, support and independence. In addition to performances, the festival also features the DansFunk Forum, a full-day conference, as well as workshops and public discussions.
Filip Pawlak highlights the importance of the master’s programme and its partnerships for artistic development:
“My studio work with Skånes Dansteater allowed me to make mistakes in a safe environment — something I consider to be the greatest asset of higher education in the arts. The opportunity to go down a dead end in the artistic process may not be 'pure pleasure', but it is a luxury for which there is no place in the free market once you’ve left school. As part of the project I was developing during my residency, the time spent at Skånes Dansteater allowed me to make mistakes, but under the care and support of the theatre team, who focused on supporting the process rather than pressuring me to achieve a perfect result."
Elena Biner — the in-between as an artistic method
Current student Elena Biner explores in her work the spaces that lie between functions and meanings. In March 2026, she spent five weeks in the old Casino in Kungsparken in Malmö — a building that today houses activities organised by the Malmö Art Museum.
She worked on a former office floor that is currently unused – a kind of in-between space within the city’s structure. This type of place relates to the philosopher Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopias: spaces that exist alongside the orders of everyday life and open up other ways of thinking, meeting and being.
The work resulted in a site-specific performance installation that explored how a constructed scenario in this “pocket of suspended time” could function as a rehearsal space for human contact and togetherness.
Participants underwent a series of rituals and interactions that followed the logic of the former office layout. Their experience interwove both the building’s history and the stories of the park, creating a temporary community in a space between the past and the present.
Artistry in dialogue with society
By working at the intersection of education, artistic practice and society, the Master’s programme in Performing Arts as Critical Practice helps to shape a new generation of performing artists.
Here, learning is not just about developing one’s own artistic language, but also about understanding and influencing the structures within which art operates. Through engagement with departments, audiences and society, a form of performing arts emerges that both reflects and transforms its contemporary context.
Are you curious about the Master’s programme? Read more here