The only dedicated Performing Arts Academy in the MENA region

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Our Vision

We will train, educate and produce graduates with a competitive edge in an international market, with all the necessary skills to develop a lasting and prosperous career within the professional Performing Arts industry.

At Sharjah Performing Arts Academy (SPAA), we will ensure His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan Bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Ruler of Sharjah’s vision of providing students with an opportunity to study, practice and take part in developing professional performing arts in the region is fully and successfully realised.

SPAA graduates will be strong, confident, independent individuals with life skills that enable them to make a significant contribution to society. Our graduates will be enterprising, creative and skilled artists, as well as entrepreneurial, socially mobile and generous human beings. They will be world wise and capable.

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Our Mission

At Sharjah Performing Arts Academy (SPAA) we fundamentally believe that the performing arts has the capacity to affect and benefit every single person. SPAA is an independent, non-profit, coeducational institution of higher education that promotes excellence in teaching and learning in a conservatoire.

SPAA provides a comprehensive education for the professional performing artist and for production and technical specialists. We encourage students to direct their natural gifts and abilities into developing the skills required for their chosen career. We provide students with specific and focused training and education, which includes individual coaching and mentoring by a dedicated, professionally qualified, motivated and caring staff.

We expand concepts of intelligence beyond academic ability, and most importantly we prepare students for professional work in the performing arts. Performing arts and performing artists includes all those involved in the collaborative process of making professional performance. Specifically, actors, musicians, singers, dancers, technicians, stage managers, designers, directors, choreographers, costume makers and lighting designers, for example.

Professional performing arts are collaborative and practical; our programmes embrace this ethos. The central component of the Academy will be people coming together to create and develop performance. The performing arts embraces a diverse range of performance environments and numerous styles and ideas. Freeing the imagination and developing creative individuals who are able to collaborate in any global context will be the focus of all strategic aims in the Academy.

SPAA informs, challenges, educates, questions, discovers and shares diversity in a safe environment, where everyone strives for excellence and the best means of storytelling by embracing all cultures and all styles.

Our Values

Creativity with focus
Freedom of thought and expression
The active participation of the Academy community in its life and development
Diversity of applicants, students, staff and partner organisations
The training of highly skilled and multi-disciplined graduates through coaching and teaching by active professional performers, production team experts, technicians, designers, directors and choreographers
Responsibility to the artistic, cultural and economic lives of communities beyond the Academy.

Our Goals

By 2023 Sharjah Performing Arts Academy will:

1.

Be a recognised and influencing force within professional performing arts training and education

2.

Establish new and unique ways of preparing students for professional performing arts with programmes that are fit for the performing arts industry in the 21st century

3.

Attract highly motivated and skilled students from all parts of the world

4.

Provide children’s classes in all forms of performing arts serving the local community and collaborating with schools in Sharjah and surrounding regions

5.

Provide public productions inviting local and regional audiences to benefit from a diverse and culturally rich programme of public performances

6.

Nurture and develop the intellectual and professional resources of its staff to the benefit of the Academy, its community, and the professional performing arts

7.

Collaborate with other performing arts organisations locally, regionally, nationally and internationally to further the primary aim of preparing students for professional work in performing arts

8.

Manage itself professionally, ethically, fairly and sensitively.

World-class Facilties

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Student Life

Sharjah Performing Arts Academy (SPAA) is located within Sharjah’s University City, a vibrant community home to more than 20,000 students and 15 higher education institutions. Established in 1997 by HH, Ruler of Sharjah, University City asserts Sharjah as a forward thinking emirate of education excellence, open to inviting academic exchange, curiosity and experiences in many fields of study.

Life in Sharjah

Let us lead you

Our team consists of some of the very best educators, professionals, directors, choreographers, designers, stage managers and theatre technicians from around the world.

Institutional Licensure and Programme Accreditations
Sharjah Performing Arts Academy (SPAA), located in the Emirate of Sharjah, is officially licensed from 6/05/2019 by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research of the United Arab Emirates to award degrees/qualifications in higher education.

A Centre of Excellence