Departments Mission

The Department of Performing and Digital Arts (PDA) belongs to the School of Arts of the University of Peloponnese and its mission is:

1. To cultivate and promote knowledge in the scientific and artistic fields related to the performing arts (Performance, Dance, Theater) as well as the digital arts, with emphasis on the connection between them as well as the connection with various social applications and didactics. Performance, as the foremost field of innovation in the arts, is at the heart of the artistic, theoretical, historical and methodological courses offered at the Department.
2. To provide students with the necessary supplies that ensure their thorough training, in order to be able to document, analyze and compose integrated practices and actions during their artistic, scientific and professional career.
3. To provide special education and training to students for the teaching of artistic objects and artistic technological applications in primary and secondary schools.

The fields of theoretical research and artistic applications in which the studies in the Department focus are the following:

• Theory and history of performance and digital arts.
• Dance and Performance.
• Digital performance and arts.
• Light, scenery and new technologies.
• Production of digital content (Digital animation, Animation, Video game, Virtual reality).
• Digital Applications in Directing and Acting.
• Performance theory and social applications (indicative: anthropology of theater, activism, interactive and online theater, feminist and queer theory, educational applications, public space.)
• Creative Writing / Digital Storytelling / Digital Publishing
• Artistic technological applications in education.
• Performance applications in social, cultural, educational spaces (museums, institutions, associations, education, etc.)

Studies in these fields treat digital technologies as a means of artistic expression and performing arts as a fertile field of modern technological applications. Common field of reference, Performance, as intersubjective experience and construction. The aim of the studies is to explore the theoretical framework in which Performance is included, but mainly the fields of its artistic and technological applications in its interaction with the social environment.

Studies in the Department are distinguished in two informal directions:

1. PERFORMANCE ARTS

This direction aims at the theoretical and artistic training of students in the field of performing arts, focusing on the provision of knowledge and practice around its fields and capabilities connecting them to a variety of social applications and new technologies. Graduates of this direction will be able to realize (conception, composition, direction) a performing event centered on the show (performance, dance, multimedia applications in the theater, etc.), implementing innovative proposals in its field artistic expression and didactics.

2. DIGITAL ARTISTIC APPLICATIONS

This direction aims at the theoretical, artistic and technical training of students in the field of digital applications focusing on their ability to connect with the performing arts. Its graduates will be able to implement (conception, digital design, composition, direction, technique implementation) an artistic digital application (digital performance, interactive installation, digital scenography and lighting, video games and virtual reality, digital storytelling, digital editions etc.) utilizing the connection of performance and digital arts in the field of artistic expression and didactics.

The number of entrants per year in DPDA is defined each year by a relevant Ministerial Decision. For the academic year 2019-23 the number of admissions was set at 140. The minimum compulsory duration of study at PDA for obtaining the degree is set at eight (8) semesters.

The Curriculum of the Department of Pereforming and Digital Arts aims to further promote knowledge, the development of research and the arts and the satisfaction of educational, research, social and cultural needs of the country, with particular emphasis on contemporary artistic directions of performance and digital arts related to art, education and society. The studies it provides, prepare graduates specializing in the connection of performance and digital arts with each other but also with social components, combined with the provision of the knowledge required for their teaching and their implementation in educational and social institutions and related actions.

Although the physiognomy of the Department is mainly artistic, the studies in it also provide theoretical training background in the fields of Performing Arts Theory and Digital Media Theory, Art History, and Cinema, as well as the theory of Culture in general. At the same time, they cultivate familiarity with basic elements of informatics as well as principles of Technology Ethics and Research Methodology, as students will be invited at the end of their studies to write and present in public, a graduation lecture in the context of their dissertation (theoretical or applied / artistic research). In addition, The purpose of the Department is to collaborate with the Department of Theatrical Studies of the School of Arts as well as with other Departments of the University of the Peloponnese such as the Department of Informatics. This cooperation is ensured either with mutual offer of free elective courses, or with the provision for joint elaboration of dissertations.

The active attendance and completion of the study in the Department of Performing and Digital Arts, is expected to have the following learning outcomes for the students:

• To be able to promote artistic creation and research in the field of Performing and Digital Arts as well as the related scientific and artistic fields based on the modern developments of science, art and technology.
• To know traditional and modern forms of culture expression.
• To be able to connect the Performing and Digital Arts in many ways with the social parameters, as well as with the teaching practice in educational cultural and social institutions.
• To have the equipment to be able to meet the scientific and artistic needs of research and artistic institutions related to the Performing and Digital Arts in Greece and abroad, such as research, scientific and social centers, as well as cultural institutions (Ministry of Culture, museums and art centers, festival institutions, theaters, troupes, etc.), regional bodies, municipal authorities, media.
• To elaborate, propose and implement social applications of artistic actions by intervening creatively in sensitive social groups and spaces. To design creative educational intervention programs through the Performing and Digital Arts for the needs of a specific group depending on its characteristics.