Holloway Campus welcomes Icelandic performing arts students in cultural exchange

Students at Capital City College’s Holloway campus welcomed nine performing arts students and their teacher from Reykjavik, Iceland, as part of an Erasmus exchange programme.

The group of nine arts students and their teacher came from Borgarholtsskóli, a comprehensive secondary school of over a thousand students in the Grafarvogur district of the capital Reykjavik.

The school offers a variety of courses across vocational, academic and arts programmes, and is highly active internationally, with teachers and students participating in numerous projects each year through Erasmus+ and Nordplus. The visiting group are studying Vocational Performing Arts with a view to developing careers in performance, production arts, and backstage and creative industry pathways.

They spent two weeks in London visiting theatres, schools and colleges for performance exchange and discussion around final performance work.

The exchange brought the Icelandic group together with students from the Holloway campus studying across UAL Performing Arts qualifications, including Musical Theatre, Contemporary Theatre, Shakespeare, Contemporary UK Drama and Dance (including showcase work).

Performing Arts student Grazia-Maria Bowie shared her thoughts on the international opportunity: “I found it fun. It was also interesting to hear about how different the performing arts industry and performing arts education is in Iceland compared to here. The style of the shows they do is so different but also so similar at the same time, so it was really engaging to just learn about that.

“They don’t really do a lot of musical theatre in Iceland from what I heard. It’s mostly plays and drama – music isn’t usually that involved. Meanwhile here, as part of the performing arts, we do include a lot of interdisciplinary elements even when it comes to plays.”

The exchange was a fantastic opportunity for boosting international collaboration between British and Icelandic performing arts students. It allowed them to share training approaches, rehearsal processes, and performance practice, as well as deepening students’ understanding of different vocational pathways in the creative industries.

Staff and students from different cultures were also able to bond over a shared love of theatre, creativity and performance. It was also valuable in strengthening the international, diverse, and multicultural identity of the Performing Arts department at Holloway.

The visit came at an exciting time for the department. Over the coming months, students will carry out a range of performances as part of UAL assessment and showcase work, including Musical Theatre productions, Shakespeare, contemporary devised UK drama, and a dedicated Dance Showcase. These performances form part of the ongoing curriculum delivery and final projects at Holloway campus.

International exchange and creative collaboration are at the heart of what makes Capital City College’s Performing Arts department special. Find out more about the courses we offer, and where they could take you.

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