The Folkwang University of the Arts is a university for music, theater, dance, design, and academic studies, located in four German cities of
North Rhine-Westphalia. Since 1927, its traditional main location has been in the former
Werden Abbey in
Essen in the
Ruhr area, with additional facilities in
Duisburg,
Bochum, and
Dortmund, and, since 2010, at the
Zeche Zollverein, a
World Heritage Site also in Essen.[1] The Folkwang University is home to the international dance company Folkwang Tanz Studio (FTS). Founded as Folkwangschule, its name was Folkwang Hochschule (Folkwang Academy) from 1963 until 2009.
History
The university shares its unusual name with the
Museum Folkwang founded in 1902 by arts patron
Karl Ernst Osthaus. The term Folkwang derives from
Fólkvangr, the
Old Norse name of a mythical meadow where the dead gather who are chosen by
Freyja, the
Norse goddess of love and beauty, to spend the afterlife with her.[2] The school's founders, opera director
Rudolf Schulz-Dornburg [
de], stage designer
Hein Heckroth and choreographer
Kurt Jooss, regarded this Folkwang as a symbol for the arts as a unified whole, rather than divided into separate classes. The Folkwangschule für Musik, Tanz und Sprechen (Folkwang School for Music, Dance, and Speech) opened in 1927 in Essen, and in 1928 a previously established school of design merged with the institution.
In 1963 the Folkwang school was renamed Folkwang-Hochschule (Folkwang Academy). In 2010 the institution began offering graduate studies and was renamed Folkwang University of the Arts. This coincided with
Ruhr.2010, the festival in which the
Ruhr district was designated the
European Capital of Culture for the year 2010.