Master-Macher: Theo Van Rompay (english version)

Next academic year, P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels celebrates its twentieth birthday. Soon after it opened, it became a reference in dance education in Europe and even beyond, if only because some of the best teachers worldwide were linked to the school. Theo Van Rompay has been its head almost from the very first day on, right after Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker decided to establish the school within her dance company Rosas. Last May, P.A.R.T.S. announced that the curriculum will be organized differently in the future.

‘However’, Van Rompay says, ‘we ideologically still hold the same views as the first day’. 

The change in curriculum is mainly due to practical reasons. Van Rompay: ‘Parts started as a 3-year program, with about 30 pupils per year. This soon led to a workload that proved unmanageable for the board as well as for the students. It also provoked an unwanted distinction between ‘older’ and ‘younger’ students. A new structure was put in place. It consisted of two complimentary training cycles of two years. The first one concentrated on dance training, the second on research. In that way, two groups of students each with a goal of its own, worked alongside each other’.

Even then ...