The LAK offers various theater and presentation courses. You'll learn how to confidently perform, move, and transform into a role; you'll learn to play with status and emotions; how to use your voice, how to use the space, and how to perform a simple text in different ways. For the performing arts courses,…

The theater studio is a multifunctional space of 9.4 x 8 m, with wooden floor, mirrors and curtains. Music system and piano available.

This research project adresses the question how local and traditional European forms of parrhesiastic theater— events, actions, and performances staged by characters who courageously speak their minds through scenes of excess and laughter, that take place in public view and incite the spectator’s agency…

Linde Desmaele explores the role of US theatre nuclear weapons stationed in Europe. Moving beyond the deterrence vs. reassurance debate

Physicists from Leiden University wrote the script and ensured that every experiment in the performance was scientifically accurate. The kickoff of the major educational project of the Amsterdam Light Festival was a huge success — and there’s much more to come.

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

At the Lak you can participate in a large variety of artistic and creative courses taught by our professional teachers. We offer courses in the following categories: theater and presentation, dance, visual arts, music, photography and writing (literature). All staged art courses come to a close with…

LAK creative courses is part of Leiden University and can be found in the Lipsius building on the Cleveringaplaats. The abbreviation "LAK" stands for Leids Academisch Kunstcentrum (Leiden Academic Art Center)

Steven Frost defended his thesis on 6 June 2017

How can theatricality act as a mediating process between public space and public as ‘audience’? Does the presence of an observer change the nature of the observed and if so, how?

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

Bas Verberk defended his thesis on 6 September 2016

I would like to investigate what are the philosophical and practical consequences a reappraisal of the 17th-and 18th-century concept of taste may have for general and historical performance practice.

The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) provides artistic research and education in the arts.

Announcement of the publication of Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities, the first book-length study of women, modernity, and popular music in Asia (University of Hawai'i Press, 2017).

With our research and teaching, we help make the world a better place. We join in the academic and public debate, and seek answers to economic and social issues – not just at the local and regional level but at the global one too.

The focus of the research lies in the approach of reducing, denying, or taking away essential elements of music making in order to let the musician become theatrical.

Wim Klooster and Gert Oostindie present a fresh look at the Dutch Atlantic in the period following the imperial moment of the seventeenth century. This epoch (1680–1815), the authors argue, marked a distinct and significant era in which Dutch military power declined and Dutch colonies began to chart…

At the LAK, you can participate in a wide range of creative courses, supervised by passionate professionals. From drama and presentation to dance, visual arts, singing and music, photography, and writing – there's always something for you. You'll not only develop your talents but also meet like-minded…

The aim of this project is to study the influence of Longinus’s treatise ‘On the sublime’ on practice and theory of architecture and theatre in seventeenth-century Paris and Amsterdam.

Drawing on a broad array of sources, this project examines modern retrievals of Bacon’s idols, thereby testing Justus von Liebig’s intriguing observation, back in 1863, that Bacon’s name lived on mainly in mottos or stereotypical phrases. More importantly, it examines the rhetorical purposes served…

To strenghten ties with the public, press, other academics and wider society, LION employs an outreach officer.

Opportunities, challenges, and future perspectives of people-centered approaches in dynamic historic urban landscapes

De positie van kunst en kunstenaars in de westerse samenleving

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

This lecture will be hosted on Thursday, 21 May 2026 at 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm.

You will take courses at both the Leiden Institute for Philosophy and other institutes of the Faculty of Humanities.

The quantum nature of matter and light has grown into a broad and fruitful research field for theorists and experimentalists alike. It combines foundational research with toward applications, the most well known of which is the quantum computer.

The LAK offers a wide range of dance courses. The diverse program is suitable for both beginners and advanced dancers. Quality is our top priority, which is why we work with professional and passionate instructors. The LAK approaches dance as a performing art. At the end of the course series, you have…

This programme adopts a new approach based on the paradoxical nature of these responses in early modern Italy: it draws on rhetorical discussions of lifelikeness and living presence, and it uses the anthropological theory of art as agency developed by Alfred Gell.

Upcoming activities by ACPA PhD candidates Paul Houdijk, Gabriel Paiuk and Magda Dourado Pucci

What do we need to do for Leiden University to become a truly inclusive institution, where everyone feels at home and has equal opportunities? This is the key question at the annual symposium on diversity and inclusiveness on 1 December. If you would like to put your views, sign up now!

Until 15 May, Open Space will give room for artistic creation and experimentation in a partnership between artists and astronomers. The project is a collaboration among Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT), Korzo and the Leiden Observatory. Starting on 3 May, young dancers of NDT 2, three choreographers, three…

One way for governments to conduct foreign policy and promote national interests is through direct outreach and communication with the population of a foreign country. This is called public diplomacy. Historians such as Helmer Helmers and William T. Rossiter have shown that printed media were already…

How do first-hand narratives of war of commanders in the front line relate to the official narrative of the Eighty Years’ War?

There’s more to a master’s than studying hard; sometimes you just want to relax. It’s good to know that The Hague’s offering in the area of sport and culture is second to none.

There are various links between Rembrandt and Leiden University

Terms of use with regard to the use of LAK studios in Lipsius.

What was the relationship between women and modern media in different parts of Asia in the 20th century? Under what historical and social conditions did women achieve prominence in popular music in Asia?

Terms of use with regard to the use of LAK studios in Lipsius.

There’s more to life than studying hard; sometimes you just need to relax. It’s good to know then that The Hague’s offering in the area of sport and culture is surprisingly extensive.

The research project ‘The History of National Security, 1945-present', is funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), the Campus The Hague/Leiden University and the Netherlands Institute for Military History (NIMH). The project will run until the summer of 2013, when we hope…