Mission of the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts
Janáček Academy of Performing Arts (JAMU) accepts its role in disseminating culture and education, deepening the current knowledge and developing the tradition of higher art education in the Czech Republic, it takes complete responsibility for the above and it strives to fulfil this responsibility through its pedagogical, artistic, research and development activities and by applying the institution’s third role in society. JAMU is a bearer of ethical and aesthetic values and it knows how to pass them onto its students, graduates and anyone who is willing to listen. In the broadest meaning of its mission, it perceives and programs itself as a dynamic environment that promotes and disseminates ethical and aesthetic values throughout our entire society.
The JAMU’s central mission is the provision of education in the field of musical and dramatic arts through accredited study programmes. JAMU significantly contributes to the formation of standards of artistic education in the Czech and international environment and it also actively participates in research and development activities. Together with other art higher education institutions in the Czech Republic, it pursues the systematic promotion of art in the context of society’s perception and the recognition of artistic activities and artistic research as activities equivalent to research activities in other specialised scientific fields. JAMU values its employees, students, graduates and its good name and it respects all rights and freedoms arising from the principles of academic education.
It stimulates and supports the artistic and research activities of its students and teachers, emphasising the experiment, the development of the artist’s individual personality and the team-based nature of musical and theatrical work, the result of which is completely fulfilled only when communicated to the audience. It improves the quality of art, culture and life in the region and throughout the Czech Republic in direct connection with the European environment and the artistic environment, search and development elsewhere in the world. JAMU is aware of its exclusivity and indispensability in the development of individual creativity and in the promotion of artistic quality and ethics of creative activity in the Czech and European cultural environment. It is open to cooperation with a wide range of partners at the national and especially international level, and it knows how to be a reliable and stable partner.
JAMU is an art higher education institution and as such it develops the artistic talents of its students and combines artistic education, creation and research as various forms of learning about the world and cultivating and enriching the society. It strives to achieve this through its teachers, who are active artists, through the artistic and cultural activities of its graduates and through the creative activities of its students.
The JAMU aims to educate and create top artistic personalities who will co-determine the form of Czech, European and global music and dramatic arts in a wide range of applications – from employment in official professional art institutions to free and alternative types of creativity in the spirit of free art, seeking new forms and themes across all types and genres of art.
JAMU offers education to all applicants who demonstrate that they have the talent for the chosen field of study and the personal and ethical prerequisites for its development. The number of students admitted is also influenced by the need to ensure the conditions for highly specialised individual teaching on the one hand and team creative activity during the studies on the other hand.
The aim of education at JAMU is to teach its future graduates how to look for employment opportunities on the labour market in various creative positions and various – maybe even not yet known – creative fields and how to find many types of labour-law and copyright relationships, which are offered, allowed and required by the diverse range of traditional, emerging and brand-new activities in the field of artistic creation.
In addition to education, artistic and other creative activities, JAMU perceives its equally important role in its direct impact on the society. JAMU contributes to the dissemination of knowledge and values in society in many different ways and it itself implements professional activities in its sphere of effect. Together with other personalities and partners from the cultural and social sphere, it co-creates a space for public discussion and significantly contributes to its openness, critical nature, expertise and liberal culture.
JAMU has a rather exclusive position, because it is the only art university providing education in all fields of musical and dramatic arts in a two- and three-level system of studies in Moravia and it is also one of only two art higher education institutions offering such education in the Czech Republic.
JAMU wholeheartedly supports the equal status of arts in general primary and secondary education and secondary vocational education as well as in non-formal and lifelong learning.
JAMU purposefully enters into a dialogue with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, which is the leading professional guarantor of its artistic fields of study and the resulting development of the perception of art higher education institutions, evaluation of their quality and method of financing.
JAMU is aware of its co-responsibility for the current Czech and European cultural environment and it has accordingly decided on the most crucial objective of its mission. JAMU wants to utilise its unmistakable position to – through its pedagogical programming and work – cultivate ethical interpersonal relationships, to develop free life in the society, respect higher timeless values, protect the environment and sustainability, and to continuously cultivate and develop a just legal and democratic system within our society.
(extract from the Strategic Plan of JAMU 2021+)