Institutional Research Plan (IRS), 2024-2026

At HAMU, four existing research units – Music Acoustic Research Centre, The Institute of Choreology, The Institute of Music Theory, and the Department of Composition – and one research team – based at the Nonverbal Theatre Department – were selected for support.

The Institute of Choreology was founded in 1998, and its research and publishing activities have been developing significantly since 2000. Other collaborators, graduates, and students, primarily in the field of dance studies, are involved in research activities, including doctoral students as well as master's and bachelor's degree students. The institute is one of the few institutions in the Czech Republic specializing in dance research. It cooperates with other research institutions, systematically with

the Ethnological Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, as well as with the Institute of Arts-Theatre Institute, the NIPOS-Artama organization, the Research Center of the Faculty of Music and Dance of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, and others.

Within the Institutional Research Plan, the institute focuses on the history and present of Czech dance studies as a discipline; on the position of dance in contemporary culture from artistic, pedagogical, social, political, and economic perspectives; and the theory and artistic practice of dance in a historical frame.

The Institute of Music Theory was founded on November 30, 1990, and has been the only specialized music theory center in the Czech Republic in the category of music research institutes. The primary mission of the institute is music theory research, which encompasses a wide range of individual and collective research topics. The activities of the Institute are presented in the form of conferences and academic publications. Since the early 1990s, the Institute has organized more than twenty conferences at HAMU, focusing on current topics in music theory research and on theoretical and pedagogical issues in the teaching of music disciplines at secondary and higher music schools. The publication platform was the anthology Živá hudba (Live Music), which was published at HAMU from 1959 to 2008 and is currently operated as a peer-reviewed online journal.

Within the Institutional Research Plan, the institute focuses on the examination of shifts in the concept of music theory with overlaps into history and pedagogy; on microintervals and cognition with overlaps into ethnomusicology and research into music notation in contemporary frames.

The Department of Composition is a research center with a long tradition. Its members have completed several research projects. Over the past decade, the Department of Composition has produced more than two dozen independent publications and a number of articles. Research conducted at the Department of Composition can best be described as artistic research. It is a specific form of acquiring otherwise unattainable knowledge, which is achieved by asking questions and setting goals and objectives related to one's own artistic creation, its realization, and reflection. Unlike quantitative or qualitative research, it is primarily performative. In essence, it includes aspects of both basic and applied research but removing it from its performative context would necessarily diminish its significance, breadth, and social contribution.

Within the Institutional Research Plan, the department examines sound and space, spatial orchestration, 3D modelling of sound space, issues of visual music, sound composition in contemporary media space, radio art, and spatial sound distribution technology in real and unreal time.

The Department of Nonverbal Theater is one of the youngest artistic and educational departments at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague's Music and Dance Faculty. Combining classical and newer genres, it builds on the tradition of Czech pantomime and offers a modern approach to mime theater that responds to contemporary issues.

Within the Institutional Research Plan, the department follows questions of scenology and performativity of nonverbal theater from its beginnings to the 21st century, specific chapters from the history and theory of nonverbal theater, issues of musicality and physical score, and body language in relation to objects in nonverbal theater.

Music Acoustic Research Centre (MARC) is HAMU´s scientific research facility was founded in 2005 by decision of the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports as part of the project "National Program for Research and Development Support - Research Centers PP2-DP1." In terms of personnel, equipment, and premises, MARC is the successor to the Research Department, which was part of the HAMU Sound Studio, where research into musical sound and musical instruments had been conducted since 1976. MARC is the only institution in the Czech Republic that specializes in psychoacoustic research in this field. MARC researchers are also HAMU teachers, so new findings are directly applied to teaching at HAMU's Department of Sound Design and Recording Direction, and students of this department are involved in research at MARC.

Within the Institutional Research Plan, MARC focuses on vocology, with the influence of voice training on voice characteristics and technical and interpretative skills; psychoacoustic aspects in procedures and technological processes designed for musical artistic practice; and the development of low-latency transmissions for remote education and artistic collaboration.