At that time, Kyriakos Mitsotakis met with representatives of arts organizations and trade unions in Megaro Maximos, a few dozen meters to the east, at the intersection of Rigillis and Vasileos Georgios II streets, where the second life cycle of the century began in December last year. the grand opening of the old Athens Conservatory took place, a protest rally of the Association of Greek Actors was in full swing.

The crowd was considerable, the lens included the “famous and famous” Yannis Stankoglu, Alexandros Burdumis, Mirto Alikakis, Zacharias Rocha, Homer Poulakis, director Vangelis Theodoropoulos. But none of them could have suspected that they had given a competitive nomination to the revitalized group of Ioannis Despotopoulos, which for the first time since last October has an ambitious undergraduate music study program in collaboration with an important foreign academic institution, the Goldsmiths. University of London. This means that in less than four years from today, the first graduates of higher educational institutions in the subject of music will become a fact in Athens as well; quite apart from what the Greek state ultimately decides with the remaining conservatory graduates, the dramatic arts. schools or dance schools. The nine freshmen of the College of Music, as it is called, will hold a degree that will be valid throughout the European Union and the UK.

Since 1992

However, they will not be alone. Since 1992, the theater department of the School of Fine Arts has been operating at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Attention: “Theater”, and not “Theater Studies”, as in Athens, is addressed to future theater experts, and not to actors, directors or set designers.

So all those who write about culture, we journalists, or even the Prime Minister himself, who promises the Higher School of Performing Arts by 2025, are wrong? We have a theater school at the university level and we don’t know about it? “Yes,” Victor Ardittis, a well-known director and theater critic, replies without hesitation. He has been a Resident Professor of Directing at the AUTh Theater Department, Head of Studies at the National Theater School and Artistic Director of the State Theater of Northern Greece and is one of the few Greek artists with such a rich educational experience. “Back in 2012, the informal Forum of Directors, after many months of study, formulated an urgent application for the creation of a Higher Theater School, where professions, art and theater theory would meet and learn: actors, directors, set designers, luminaries, playwrights, critics.”

Such a top-level school, argues Mr. Ardittis, should be established in Athens, belong to the realm of public education, operate under the supervision of the Ministry of Education, overcoming all the institutional problems and shortcomings of today’s fragmented, unclassified arts education. “Indeed, in Thessaloniki, since 1992, there has been a school that is very close to these ideas: the five-year theater department of the AVT School of Fine Arts. We will find its graduates throughout the Greek theater in a variety of positions: actors, directors, production designers, playwrights, heads of theaters and cultural organizations. Let’s take advantage of his experience, negative and positive, from the division of students into “directions” and from his burning inner artistic life.

“Talent without school”

We have a theater school at the university level and we don’t know about it? “Yes,” Victor Ardittis, a well-known director and theater critic, replies without hesitation.

At an unexpected time, a few days before August 15, 2014, a director, also trained in theater and former artistic director of the National Theatre, Statis Livatinos. The title of the article is more than eloquent: “Without education, Greece has no future.” This is the first thing he tells me when I ask him today to describe how he imagines the future “Academy of Arts”. He tells me that this topic has been on his mind for many years and that it will also find a place in the book he is preparing. It reminds me of a real story bordering on myth and parable. Stanislavsky in his youth studied with the great German teacher, whom he respected very much. When he saw Russian actors play at the end of the 19th century, he said a phrase that the founder of the Moscow Art Theater later wrote down in his notebook: “These young people have great talent, but they have no school. Stathis Livatinos mentioned that Sweden alone graduates 12 actors annually. “The common secret is that in Greece, theater education is largely in the hands of private schools, which makes access to the theater profession completely unprotected and easy, with over 500 unemployed young “actors” who pay very dearly in euros their right to unemployment”.

Wrong wrong

The Athens Conservatory is a unique educational organization covering the three main areas of art: music, theater and dance. I am talking to the Chairman of the Board and the initiator of the new era of the Conservatory, Nikos Tsoukhlos, as well as to the four directors of the organization: Konstantinos Arvanitakis, director of the School of Drama, Lila Zafeyropoulou (Dance), Dimitris Marinos, director of the College of Music and Philippos Tsalachouris (music). I ask them, what does the controversial decree actually change for their own students and alumni?

“This presidential decree changes little. But it does something much worse: it summarizes and fixes with absolute clarity an unacceptable situation that has been creeping into the field of art history for many decades.” They believe that it was the clarity of the law’s wording that contributed to its instant transformation into a powerful symbol the institutional discredit that young artists and their teachers are experiencing today.”The arrangement was perceived by all artists as directly offensive on a symbolic level, which is often the most important level in tense situations.” but public titles, unfortunately, are not the only problem of artistic pursuits.“First of all, let us leave behind the failure of identifying art education with secondary education once and for all, about the fixed concept of higher education to today’s conditions, and let’s finally remember that there is a very clear European structure of the relevant directives, a product of similar experience in other countries (for example, the Bologna Treaty). Another major problem, which, unfortunately, is not talked about much in the current rise, is the problem of institutional quality assurance for art research.

Indeed, could the current turmoil be an opportunity? “Yes, provided that from now on, disagreements will be expressed through institutional democratic channels and that there will be an honest and serious technical work of all parties involved in a constructive climate, ready to listen to each other, away from the shop floor or pre-election logic, refraining from insults and flattery and with due attention to the European example. It can be difficult to do, but we are certainly indebted to our students.”

With jewelers

I ask Nikos Tsouchlos and his colleagues if the partnership with Goldsmiths University London was a one-way street. The story they have to tell is another comic-tragic case of Greek exceptionalism. “The current administration, having a deep sense of responsibility for the timeless national investment in 150 years of society and the state that embodies the current Athens Conservatory, and considering that the value of this investment is completely out of proportion to the institutional embarrassment that surrounds its educational proposal in recent decades, it has applied continuous efforts in all directions to deal with this discrepancy, always within the limits provided by the current Greek legislation,” they tell me. For example, he tried to establish a dialogue of institutional cooperation in the field of music with the existing university institutions of Attica, each time offering practical solutions, not violating Article 16 of the Constitution; The Athens Conservatory is a private law entity and therefore not legalized under the Constitution to be an independent provider of higher education.

“Unfortunately, the relevant discussions were unsuccessful. At the same time, he persistently argued the need to create a state institution in the capital that would give free music classes, as is the case in Thessaloniki, and in Athens – dance and theater, to the creation of which he undoubtedly should have contributed.” This proposal (which at that time did not include an element of advanced training, but the organization of a model curriculum with high standards, credits, etc., taking into account its future classification) at some point attracted the attention of the Ministry culture, which even led to the signing of a memorandum of cooperation with the Athens Conservatory in 2016. “Unfortunately, from then until today, this idea has also not been developed. So, as a last resort, out of a sense of responsibility to students, as well as to many outstanding artists teaching at the Athens Conservatory, since 2018 we have started to go abroad, establishing, for example, relationships academic cooperation in music with the Geneva School of Music and the University of Leeds, and then, using existing college legislation, to create, in the context of a five-year cooperation with one of the most prestigious institutions of higher education in the UK, not just a franchise, but an original undergraduate program in musical performance – BMus (Hons) – fully adapted to both the academic requirements of the British and the long musical tradition of the Athens Conservatory. This collaboration provides us with valuable administrative experience regarding the important issues of structure, management and quality assurance of the highest level undergraduate program and international standards, which we see as an investment and further strengthening of the future offer of the Athens Conservatory in the field of music education in Athens. From now on, the question of how to use these investments is a critical question, doubly interesting for a historical organization that always remains publicly useful and non-profit, as its founders intended in 1871.