Foundation alliance supports scholarships for the MA CoDE

The fact that four foundations are joining forces to do something for the future of dance education: This is a milestone not only for the HfMDK. Almost 15 years after launching its English-language Master's in Contemporary Dance Education (MA CoDE), the university is able to offer all applicants the prospect of a scholarship for the first time thanks to this funding. "What the Foundation Alliance is making possible for students cannot be overestimated," says course director Prof. Ingo Diehl, describing the new situation. The entire professional field will benefit from this.

The foundation alliance

The Aventis Foundation, the Crespo Foundation, the ODDO BHF Foundation and the Randstad Foundation are participating in the alliance. They are also involved in the long term: starting in the winter semester 2023/24, they will make the scholarship program possible for at least three years. In this way, they are creating the conditions for up to six students to receive 500 euros a month for the first three semesters of the four-semester masters program.

The MA CoDE program is aimed at experienced dancers, performers and choreographers who want to explore the foundations of their work in the context of contemporary dance education and who are planning a career change in this direction. Some of them have already had families and a first career and are not considered as professionals by the established funding programs simply because of their age. What's more, some of them come from abroad. Prof. Ingo Diehl says that applying is therefore always a fundamental decision, a life decision. "Our students are taking a big risk." They have to give up their job for the duration of the Master's course, a total of two years, and everyone knows how expensive Frankfurt is and how discouraging it is to work on a new career start - with an overdrawn bank account. "Thanks to the foundation alliance, the study conditions will now improve significantly. We are very happy about that!"

• Dancers and performers can only work actively for a very limited time. Between the ages of 30 and 40, they often have to reinvent themselves professionally. This is where the MA CoDE comes in and enables dancers, choreographers and performers and prospective students from social contexts to receive training that builds on their professional experience and expands their skills in artistic, social and academic areas.
• The aim is to train dance mediators who are able to combine their pedagogical work with the highest artistic standards, both practically and theoretically, e.g. as training leaders, choreographic assistants or dance teachers.
• Students develop a new basis for their work and the tools for concrete collaborations in the professional field. From day one, they experience what makes a networked degree program like the MA CoDE so special: contacts, projects, discourse, impulses. Firmly rooted in the arts, they become part of a lively, creative, international, professional community.