Autor: Petra Riou

Festival Commedia dell’arte
We would like to invite you to the Festival Commedia dell’arte, organized by the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts within the Blended Intensive Programme.
For five days, from 23 to 27 June 2025, workshops, street performances, parades and performances will take place in the Gardens under Petrov.
The festival is a celebration of collective creation and live theatre in the spirit of commedia dell’arte, where actors and actresses enliven the stage and the streets for their own and the audience’s enjoyment.
We welcome the world-famous Italian master of commedia dell’arte, Carlo Boso, together with his students from the Académie Internationale Des Arts du Spectacle in Versailles. In addition, Nando Llera from Vigo and his students, Martin Woldan from Graz, Pablo Carrera Simón, the leader of the ensemble, and forty students from seven European countries will come to Brno.
The event is supported by Erasmus+ funding.

Erasmus time – new episodes of the JAMU podcast
Now you have the opportunity to listen to 3 new episodes of the JAMU podcast.
The first new Episode of Erasmus Time is hosted by Alba López, a Spanish Erasmus student from ESAD de Galicia. In this episode Alba would like to explore the process of creation. We are going to talk about creative processes in the field of the arts. Alba also interviews two students of the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts – Martin Manko and Alba de los Ángeles (an Erasmus+ student from Spain). You can listen to the podcast here.
The second episode of the Erasmus Time series contains an audio poem by Bárbara Godinho, an Erasmus student from the ESMAE in Porto, Portugal. In the podcast, Bárbara explores the untranslatable Portuguese term “Saudade”, which refers to the melancholic longing or yearning. The music (jingle and clarinet) is a composition of Camila Salomé, played by Bárbara. This episode also contains a poem written by Whitney Hanson. Enjoy listening to the podcast here.
In the last episode we can meet Alba de los Ángeles Soto Macia, student of Device and Physical Theatre at the Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático in Murcia. Her production Comeflores IV was conceived as an interdisciplinary project combining photography, installation, puppet theatre, and audio theatre. In the project, Alba explores how identity, from early childhood, can be shaped around beliefs such as “being evil.” Listen to Alba’s podcast here.

Barbara Maria Willi will be the rector of JAMU in the period 2026-2030
At Monday’s meeting of the JAMU Academic Senate, which took place on 9 June 2025 in the hall of the Orlí Street Theatre, prof. Barbara Maria Willi, Ph.D., MBA, was elected to the position of Rector.
In the final vote, Barbara Maria Willi received seven votes and thus became the newly elected Rector of JAMU. Her opponent, Petr Francán, received five votes.
„I can promise that I will devote myself to my new position with great energy and love in order to contribute to the further development of our Academy. I believe that even though our views may sometimes differ, we will pull together,“ said Barbara Maria Willi immediately after her election.
Prof. Barbara Maria Willi is currently in her second term as Dean of the Faculty of Music. She is professor of Harpsichord at JAMU and is the founder of the Department of Organ and Historical Performance.
We congratulate the professor Willi, who will succeed the current rector Petr Michálek from February 2026, and we look forward to working together.

Erasmus time – new episode of the JAMU podcast
In the last episode on the JAMU audio channel, you can listen to the podcast about a movement performance for the deaf called „Domoff“, which depicts three stories of Ukrainians who came to the Czech Republic
The interview was conducted by Anna Dubois, a theatre production student from the HKU Utrecht, and the interviewees are three actors from the performance ➡ Alba María Lopez Osorio, an acting student from the ESAD de Galicia, Ziedonis Redmanis, a film post-production student the Latvian Academy of Culture, and Paweł Nowak, a film production and acting student from the Krzysztof Kieślowski Film School in Katowice.
You can listen to the full interview here.

SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER – Marta awards
Congratulations to all the winners of the 35th International SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUTER Festival and thank you all for your participation and all the partners for their support.
Save the date and join us for the 36th edition of SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUTER, we will see in Brno from 14 April 2026 to 18 April 2026.
The Marta awards 2025 go to:

The Erasmus+ applications for incoming students 2025/2026
The application deadline for both semesters of the next academic year 2025/2026 is 30 April 2025. Erasmus+ applicants for the academic year 2025/2026 should submit an application via our mobility administration system ISOIS.
For more information please consult our Fact_Sheet_2025_2026 or here.