The alumni organization took its first breath during the Norwegian Theatre Academy (NTA) jubilee festival «The house and the lights» in the fall of 2016. This year the creative NTA alumni organizers have put together an impressive five day seminar including workshops, lectures and morning practice lessons. An open seminar, not only open to the alumnis, but also to the new bachelor students and the master students in acting and scenography who started their NTA journey in the beginning of August this year.
Since the very start up in 1996 a total of 187 bachelor students, 113 actors and 74 scenographers, have graduated from Norwegian Theatre Academy. The arts faculty which is part of Østfold University College recruits internationally and is now offering master programs in both performance and scenography in addition to the bachelor programs in acting and scenography.
Next admission at NTA is for the Master in Performance and Master in Scenography. Application deadline is December 1 this year.
- Networking for the future
Former NTA acting student, Nela H. Kornetova is head of the alumni organization and also a producer for the alumni workshop week. She is very happy to be back at the NTA premises in Fredrikstad to share experience and knowledge with her former fellow students and the current students.
- We will be future colleagues so this can be seen as a way of networking for the future, she explains.
But the purpose of the alumni workshop week is not only to mingle with fellow artists from the NTA universe. The purpose is also to pass on the NTA legacy to new generation of art students.
«NTA is like a temporary, open marriage
- to yourself, your classmates and your teachers.»
Artist Nela H. Kornetova, alumni leader and former NTA acting student
Due to a restructure of the NTA studies the next bachelor admission will be held in 2022. This means that the new acting and scenography students who started this fall have no senior bachelor students to lean on. In that perspective lies the importance of the alumni organization, according to Kornetova.
- The bachelor students will have not other students to relate to than us, she says and adds:
- The alumni organization is about how we can help each other.
Creating and important connection
Almost 30 people signed up for the alumni seminar. Among the workshop week contributors was Paolo Zuccotti who graduated from NTA in 2013. Zuccotti is a Stockholm-based performer, video artist and maker. Through the workshop Interactive installations he aims to introduce the participants in how programming and electronics can be used to produce automated and interactive artworks.
- This is basic programming and electronics. We want to make art and we are not engineers. It is important that we play and experience with this, he explains.
Like Kornetova, Zuccotti enjoys to be back at the NTA premises.
- It is very nice and I actually felt a bit touched. I thought this alumni week was a really great idea and I felt inspired to participate. But I also felt that I had to get some distance before I came back here, he says.
Zuccotti thinks the restructure of the NTA studies has strengthened the foundation of the alumni organization.
- It makes even more sense now to have this connection with the alumnis, he says and adds:
- You put so much at stake in this education so it feels nice to have someone there who really understands you.
NTA – daring and caring
According to Kornetova the alumni workshop week is not only an arena where former NTA students pass on knowledge and experience to new students.
I think we have put together a vibrant week full of interesting people. You are always learning from our fellow human beings. This seminar is a different way of learning – not from above - but from within, she explains.
She is convinced that a visibility of the NTA legacy and the sharing of this is crucial – both to students and alumnis, and also for NTA’s visibility nationally and internationally .
- This education is a bubble. I really think it is one of the best schools in contemporary art in Europe, she says.
Her advice to future generations of NTA students would be:
- Find you own curiosity and support each other. Learn from your failures, but do not get stuck in them.
And how would the current alumni leader describe NTA in only a few words?
- Daring, caring, vibrant and juicy, states Kornetova.
NTA ALUMNI WORKSHOP WEEK programme:
Interactive installations by Paolo Zucotti
Observation and Feedback as a Creative Method by Runa Norheim
Kandisia by Jarl Flaaten Bjørk
Morning practices:
The Resonating Body by Katrine Leth Nielsen
Get Danced by Tobias Shaw
Collective Dying by Armin Hokmi
Lectures:
Artivism (art + activism) by Paolo Zuccotti and Emma Örn
On Critique by Nicholas Zöckler
Final: Open exhibition