Theatre & Dance
Professor: WOMACK (Chair); Associate Professors PLATT, DAVIS, SRIRAM; Assistant Professor SANCHEZ; Lecturer HERMINJARD; Administrative Assistant QUINN; Technical Director MARTIN; Assistant Technical Director WENGER; Guests in Theatre and Dance: SPENCER, COSTELLO, LOWANS, AVRAMOV, OTAKE, SARKOWSKY, MCHENRY, JULES, DeJESUS, ARONSON, FALL, ECKWALL, LAUTHER
In theatre and dance, students learn fundamental practical skills, including acting, design, and dance technique in preparation for advanced seminars and interdisciplinary studio courses. Both seasoned majors and first-time performers have many opportunities to perform in our mainstage productions. In the classroom, we introduce diverse bodies of knowledge including dramatic literature, dance history, and critical theories of race, ethnicity, and gender to prepare students for contemporary artistic investigations. We are equally attentive to the present as well as the past by offering our students intensive experiences with renowned visiting artists. We also offer regular opportunities for academic travel so that students can experience singular performances and practical experience in off-campus destinations.
Major Requirements
Theatre
Theatre majors must complete a minimum of 11 units for the major:
Foundations – Three units
- Two units: TH103: Stage 1: The Performer Prepares and TH110: Fundamentals of Performance Design
- One unit of TH212: Theatre Mainstage Production or TH202: Student Theatre Think Tank or .5 unit of TH212 plus .5 unit of TH202
Creative Core – Four units
- Three units of 200-level creative process courses such as TH205: Acting, TH206: Directing, TH210: Intermediate Performance Design, TH217: Playwriting, or TH200: Topics in Theatre with Creative Process designation
- One unit of a 300-level theatre creative process course such as TH304: Advanced Performance, TH305: Advanced Acting, TH350: Design Practicum, TH300: Topics in Theatre or TH340: Topics in Theatre or TH340: Topics in Design
Critical Core – Two units
- Two units from the following: TH224: Contemporary Performance, DA/TH204: Feminist and Queer Performance, DA/TH200: Philosophies of the Body: Bodies and Power, TH229: Rewriting America, DA311: Global Encounters in Dance
Other interdisciplinary critical studies courses may be approved in consultation with your major advisor.
Capstone – Two units
Outstanding work will be rewarded with distinction upon graduation. Please consult the online Handbook for Theatre and Dance Majors for further information on the major.
Dance
Dance majors must complete a minimum of 11 units in the major:
Foundations – Three units
- One unit of dance adjunct courses (4 DS adjuncts at .25 units each)
- One unit from the following: DS105-106 Dance Fundamentals (extended format over 2 semesters), DA/TH103: Stage 1: The Performer Prepares, or DA125: Body in Motion
- One unit of DA212: Dance Mainstage Production or .5 units DA212: Dance Mainstage production with a .5 unit extended format such as Hip-Hop Performance, Choreo Lab, or Ballet
Creative Core – Four units
- DA221: Choreography
- One unit of a creative process course such as DA230: Video Dance, DA232: India Away, DA237: The Art of Insurgency, or DA200: Topics in Dance with Creative Process designation
- One unit of Design: TH110: Fundamentals of Performance Design, TH207: Lighting Design or TH218: Costume Design
- One unit of a 300-level creative process course for example DA304: Advanced Performance, DA311: Global Encounters in Dance, or DA300: Topics in Dance with a creative process focus
Other interdisciplinary creative process courses may be approved in consultation with your major advisor and the department chair.
Critical Core – Two units
- Two units from following: DA211 Historical Perspectives in Dance, DA/TH200: Philosophies of the Body: Bodies and Power, DA/TH224 Contemporary Performance, DA/TH204 Feminist and Queer Performance
Other interdisciplinary critical studies courses may be approved in consultation with your major advisor and the department chair.
Capstone – Two units
Outstanding work will be rewarded with distinction upon graduation. Please consult the Handbook for Theatre and Dance Majors for further information on the major.
Minor Requirements
Theatre
Theatre minors must complete a minimum of 5 units in the minor:
Foundations – One unit
- One unit from a TH100-level Theatre course such as TH103: Stage 1: The Performer Prepares or TH110: Fundamentals of Performance Design
Creative Core – 2 units
- Two units of creative process such as TH205: Acting, TH206: Directing, TH210: Intermediate Performance Design, TH217: Playwriting, TH200: Topics in Theatre with Creative Process designation
Other interdisciplinary creative process courses may be approved in consultation with your minor advisor
Critical Core – 1 unit
- One unit from following: TH200: Philosophies of the Body, TH204: Feminist and Queer Performance, TH224: Contemporary Performance, TH229: Rewriting America
Another interdisciplinary critical studies course may be approved in consultation with your minor advisor.
Capstone – One unit
- One unit of the following: a 300-level theatre course or an independent project: TH325: Project in Theatre or TH350: Design Practicum
Dance
Dance minors must complete a minimum of 5 units in the minor:
Foundations – One unit
- One unit from the following: DS adjuncts (.25 unit each), DS extended format (.5 units each), DA103: Stage 1: The Performer Prepares, DA125: Body in Motion, DA212: Mainstage Dance Production
Creative Core – Two units
- Two units of creative process such as DA221: Choreography, DA230: Video Dance, DA232: India Away, DA311: Global Encounters in Dance or DA200: Topics in Dance with Creative Process designation
Other interdisciplinary creative process courses may be approved in consultation with your minor advisor and the department chair.
Critical Core – One unit
- One unit of a critical studies course such as DA204: Feminist and Queer Performance, DA211: Historical Perspectives in Dance, or a special topics critical studies dance course
Another interdisciplinary critical studies course may be approved in consultation with your minor advisor and the department chair
Capstone – One unit
- One unit of a 300-level Dance elective or DA350: Minor Capstone Project
Courses
Dance Theory
A basic technical theatre adjunct course connected to a main stage production. Covers the vocabulary, theory, skills and application within the technical areas of sets, stage management, and production crew. Emphasizes the collaborative nature of technical theatre in production. (Not offered 2025-26).
An introduction to practices fundamental to live performance through an exploration of movement, gesture, voice, imagination, and awareness as they serve the actor, dancer, and human being. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement. (Not offered 2025-26).
Examines the rise of spectacle culture in social events, popular culture, and mass media in the United States, such as Burning Man, Mardi Gras, Las Vegas, Halloween, carnivals, freak shows, professional wrestling, historical reenactments, fantasy cons, zombie walks, flash mobs, cult films, and mega-churches. Uses readings by Richard Schechner and Victor Turner to introduce fundamental concepts from the field of performance studies, including ritual, theatre, and play. Additional texts by scholars such as Joseph Roach, Umberto Eco, and Guy Debord are used to critique the role of race and gender in late capitalism and to identify the potential for performance as a form of political resistance. Students may expect frequent short field trips and participatory assignments. Meets the Critical Learning: AIM requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement.
Emphasizes the collaborative nature of 3-dimensional live performance design, its vocabulary, theory and application with a focus on aesthetic integration. Combines artistic practice with critical inquiry to engage simultaneously in creative development and analysis. Class projects introduce students to research, visual analysis, sketching, model making, and presentation skills. Historical and current performance design trends. No prior experience in theatrical productions expected
An introductory dance course taught through explorations based in the body. Employing basic kinesiology and anatomy, somatic practices, dance composition, and movement improvisation, it broadly investigates the interconnection between body and mind. How might our bodies be a source of knowing? How does movement communicate? Both experiential and theoretical, students will explore their movement potential, move extemporaneously, analyze movement and arrange movement using choreographic procedures. No previous dance experience is necessary to enjoy this course. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement.
Courses offered by resident and visiting faculty on specialized topics.
Examines how performances since 1960 by women and queer artists have challenged ideas about the body, sexuality, and selfhood. Uses theorists such as Judith Butler, E. Patrick Johnson, and José Esteban Muñoz to analyze the gender politics and strategic positions adopted by artists in drama, musical theatre, dance, and performance art.
Introduction to dance history as drawn from ballet, modern, social dance, and contemporary performance. Examines critical methodologies, key authors, and current research in the field of Dance Studies. Topics may address interdisciplinary concerns, social issues, or representations of gender, race, nationality and class. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. (Not offered 2025-26).
Student dancers develop rehearsal, collaboration, and performance skills in a faculty choreographed and designed dance performance. Technical theatre students develop skills and experience as stage managers, design assistants, technical crew, etc. in a fully produced production. Subheading indicates title of the production.
A theoretical and practical investigation of contemporary dance composition. 1 unit. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement.
Contemporary performance is an interdisciplinary genre that crosses theatre, dance, music, and the visual arts. This course introduces artists working in this boundary-breaking field while exploring how performance catalyzes our individual creativity by engaging with play, including tricks, jokes, and improvisation. The course in turn examines how such artistic play intersects with ritual performances, which help participants to slow down and reorient their perceptions to new rhythms, trajectories, and affects. In doing so, we will also study how play in contemporary performance resists social imperatives on productivity, achievement, and competition. Students can expect to keep a detailed research journal and participate in creative experiments involving play and ritual. These experiments with performance require no skill, previous experience, or specific knowledge—only a willingness to take risks and try out new ideas. Students will delve into their personal inspirations and be asked to reimagine themselves as creative agents in their own lives, regardless of whether they are in the arts or not. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement. (Not offered 2025-26).
Experimental and Expanded Cinema Examines alternative approaches to cinema developed after 1960 by independent filmmakers and interdisciplinary artists working with animation, puppetry, video, performance, and installation. Uses readings by scholars such as P. Adams Sitney, Steven Shaviro, and Laura Marks to explore the visual and tactile qualities of film, the relationship between mainstream and experimental cinema, and social attitudes towards new technologies. (Not offered 2025-26).
Introduction to creating dance specifically for the video medium, also known as video dance. Investigates ways that choreographers might use video technology as a creative tool. Aspects include production of video, audio, and choreography with the aim of fusing these elements. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement.
The class takes place in a selected city and sees and analyzes a wide range of performances including drama, dance, opera, puppetry, solo performance, circus, site-specific work, foreign language performance and experimental work in all genres. Explores the social, historical and national parameters of the performances and the past and present performance history and significance of the city. 1 unit. (Not offered 2025-26).
The Nakedness of Being is an experiential and experimental performance course taught by distinguished guest artist, Eiko Otake, a New York-based movement artist. This course combines Eiko’s embodied creative practice with the study of postwar Japanese arts. Through the study of movement, readings, videos, and films students learn that space/time is not a white canvas that stands alone and empty. Here and now are continuous parts of a larger geography (space) and history (time) and as such are dense with memories, shadows, and possibilities. Viewings of art works and films from postwar Japan serve as examples of artistic representations of despair and perseverance. What is it to forget, remember, mourn, and pray? How do we transcend violence and loss? How does being or becoming a mover or dancer affect our emotional rigor, seeing/learning, and creativity? These are some of the many questions the class explores. This is not a dance class, nor is it geared only toward performers. The course encourages students to think about movement as a method of accessing human experiences and building knowledge, a way to explore sensations, thoughts, and reactions to a particular space.
Comparative (and connected) exploration of philosophies of the body and questions of power. In the west, we have inherited a model of the body as object, opposite to the mind - reinforced by a variety of everyday discourses including medical and health discourses as well as those around beauty, capability, and culpability. This course historicizes continental European theories of mind-body duality, and dives into several global traditions – embodied as well as textual – which offer different models for the thinking-feeling-subjective body. By addressing bodies (in motion), perception/cognition, and epistemology we ask the following: 1) How are our bodies navigating but also subverting or intervening in multiple matrices of power dynamics or knowledge systems through the ways in which we move through the world and 2) what radical possibilities open in the process. Ultimately, these various approaches force us to question what it means to even talk about “a body”. Meets the Critical Learning: AIM requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement. (Not offered 2025-26).
Investigates the arts’ relation to narratives of power--those stories that justify why certain structures dominate, and why alternatives do not. An examination into those arts that expose these narratives, reveal silenced alternatives, and present challenger stories that aspire to power themselves. Includes two weeks of study in Serbia and Bosnia. Course fee/Passport and Visa, where needed. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement. (Not offered 2025-26).
Courses offered by resident and visiting faculty on specialized topics. (Not offered 2025-26).
Prepares junior and senior majors for their thesis projects by investigating methods for creative research and collaborative practices. Includes immersion in the research and generative artistic practices of established artists. Students will collectively and individually explore elements of performance (visual, kinesthetic, audio, textual, temporal, and spatial) to formulate their intentions, investigations, questions, and creative processes for their theses.
Investigation of choreographic theories and practices with an emphasis on interdisciplinary inquiry. Topics include: Advanced Choreography, Site-specific Performance, Installation and Performance, Choreographies of Editing, Community and Performance. Can be repeated for credit to fulfill one elective requirement within the major.
In this course, we will be watching dance works by a number of artists, both from the US and international contexts working with a range of forms, aesthetics, and questions. Alongside watching these works, we will be reading key theorists from social theory, dance/performance studies and postcolonial studies alongside poetry and literary texts. These offer different frameworks or sets of questions, allowing us to think through dance works as kaleidoscopes - situated and shifting in significance given our perspective. Questions will include those around narrative, realism, abstraction, space, and utopia. We will focus on the elements of bodies, time, and space. 1 unit. May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures or Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement. (Not offered 2025-26).
Work in dance appropriate to the needs or interests of qualified students.
A creative or research project to fulfill the dance minor. A proposal must be submitted to and approved by the dance faculty. (Not offered 2025-26).
Advanced work in theatre and/or dance culminating in performance, written thesis, major creative or choreographic work, scenic or lighting design, or other work appropriate to the discipline. Proposal must be approved at the end of the Junior year by the department faculty. Offered in blocks 1-7 of the senior year.
Dance Studio
This course provides students at all levels with an overview of fundamental principles of ballet technique. The technical training will be supplemented with key historical and theoretical premises. No prior experience in dance is required.
This course provides students at all levels with an overview of fundamental principles of ballet technique. The technical training will be supplemented with key historical and theoretical premises. No prior experience in dance is required.
An introductory dance class that focuses on artistic and creative fundamentals that cross diverse dance genres and cultural practices. Both for students new to dance and for experienced students interested in exploring the different ways that diverse dance practices configure time, space, and movement. Students engage dance through embodied creative explorations and collaborative problem-solving exercises. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement.
An introductory dance class that focuses on artistic and creative fundamentals that cross diverse dance genres and cultural practices. Both for students new to dance and for experienced students interested in exploring the different ways that diverse dance practices configure time, space, and movement. Students engage dance through embodied creative explorations and collaborative problem-solving exercises. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement.
Provides students at all levels with an overview of fundamental principles of contemporary dance technique. The technical training will be supplemented with key historical and theoretical premises. No prior dance experience is necessary.
Provides students at all levels with an overview of fundamental principles of contemporary dance technique. The technical training will be supplemented with key historical and theoretical premises. No prior dance experience is necessary. (Not offered 2025-26).
An introduction to the basic moves of this popular Brazilian dance genre, its stylistic variations and its roots via the West African slave trade and African religious traditions, particularly of Angola and the Congo. (Not offered 2025-26).
Courses offered by resident and visiting faculty on specialized topics.
(Not offered 2025-26).
Draws on a variety of physical practices and dance techniques to develop skills in inversions, floorwork, spatial relationships, rhythm, and balance. Builds on capacities developed in Introduction to Contemporary Dance. (Not offered 2025-26).
Draws on a variety of physical practices and dance techniques to develop skills in inversions, floorwork, spatial relationships, rhythm, and balance. Builds on capacities developed in Introduction to Contemporary Dance.
Draws on a variety of physical practices and dance techniques to develop skills in inversions, floorwork, spatial relationships, rhythm, and balance. Builds on capacities developed in Introduction to Contemporary Dance. (Not offered 2025-26).
Draws on a variety of physical practices and dance techniques to develop skills in inversions, floorwork, spatial relationships, rhythm, and balance. Builds on capacities developed in Introduction to Contemporary Dance.
(Not offered 2025-26).
(Not offered 2025-26).
(Not offered 2025-26).
For experienced dancers in HipHop and contemporary fusion dance styles. Weekly rehearsals throughout the semester culminating in a performance in block 4.
Two-block adjunct course. .25 units. A variable topic practice course that explores the mind-body connection and therapeutic dimensions through embodied practices. Includes Yoga, Pilates, Gyrotonics, Feldenkrais, Tai Chi, Qigong. (Not offered 2025-26).
Two-block adjunct course. .25 units. A variable topic practice course that explores the mind-body connection and therapeutic dimensions through embodied practices. Includes Yoga, Pilates, Gyrotonics, Feldenkrais, Tai Chi, Qigong. (Not offered 2025-26).
Two-block adjunct course. .25 units. A variable topic practice course that explores the mind-body connection and therapeutic dimensions through embodied practices. Includes Yoga, Pilates, Gyrotonics, Feldenkrais, Tai Chi, Qigong. (Not offered 2025-26).
Two-block adjunct course. .25 units. A variable topic practice course that explores the mind-body connection and therapeutic dimensions through embodied practices. Includes Yoga, Pilates, Gyrotonics, Feldenkrais, Tai Chi, Qigong. (Not offered 2025-26).
Two-block adjunct course. .25 units. A variable topic practice course that explores the mind-body connection and therapeutic dimensions through embodied practices. Includes Yoga, Pilates, Gyrotonics, Feldenkrais, Tai Chi, Qigong. (Not offered 2025-26).
This course is for special topics in dance to be taught at an advanced level.
(Not offered 2025-26).
(Not offered 2025-26).
For experienced ballet dancers. Weekly rehearsals throughout the semester culminating in a performance in block 4. (Not offered 2025-26).
For experienced ballet dancers. Weekly rehearsals throughout the semester culminating in a performance in block 8. (Not offered 2025-26).
For experienced dancers in HipHop and contemporary fusion dance styles. Weekly rehearsals throughout the semester culminating in a performance in block 4.
For experienced dancers in HipHop and contemporary fusion dance styles. Weekly rehearsals throughout the semester culminating in a performance in block 8. (Not offered 2025-26).
(Not offered 2025-26).
(Not offered 2025-26).
(Not offered 2025-26).
(Not offered 2025-26).
(Not offered 2025-26).
(Not offered 2025-26).
(Not offered 2025-26).
Theatre
A basic technical theatre adjunct course. Covers the vocabulary, theory, skills and application within the areas of set design and construction, stage management, and production crew. (Not offered 2025-26).
This course is designed to act as a lab component of TH101. Students are required to crew the Theatre and Dance main stage production. Builds on the information and skills acquired during TH101 (Not offered 2025-26).
An introduction to practices fundamental to live performance through an exploration of movement, gesture, voice, imagination, and awareness as they serve the actor, dancer, and human being. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement. (Not offered 2025-26).
An introduction to practices in acting through an exploration of movement, gesture, voice, imagination, and spoken word as they serve the actor and performer. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement.
Examines the rise of spectacle culture in social events, popular culture, and mass media in the United States, such as Burning Man, Mardi Gras, Las Vegas, Halloween, carnivals, freak shows, professional wrestling, historical reenactments, fantasy cons, zombie walks, flash mobs, cult films, and mega-churches. Uses readings by Richard Schechner and Victor Turner to introduce fundamental concepts from the field of performance studies, including ritual, theatre, and play. Additional texts by scholars such as Joseph Roach, Umberto Eco, and Guy Debord are used to critique the role of race and gender in late capitalism and to identify the potential for performance as a form of political resistance. Students may expect frequent short field trips and participatory assignments. Meets the Critical Learning: AIM requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement.
Emphasizes the collaborative nature of 3-dimensional live performance design, its vocabulary, theory and application with a focus on aesthetic integration. Combines artistic practice with critical inquiry to engage simultaneously in creative development and analysis. Class projects introduce students to research, visual analysis, sketching, model making, and presentation skills. Historical and current performance design trends. No prior experience in theatrical productions expected. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement.
Courses offered by resident and visiting faculty on specialized topic areas, including theatre history, dramatic literature, dramatic theory, film and theatre performance practices.
Develops the dramaturgical skills and tools needed to read contemporary, modern, and classic plays towards crafting a theater season. Includes meetings with playwrights and reading/analyzing play scripts with an eye toward the annual Theatre Department season.
Examines how performances since 1960 by women and queer artists have challenged ideas about the body, sexuality, and selfhood. Uses theorists such as Judith Butler, E. Patrick Johnson, and José Esteban Muñoz to analyze the gender politics and strategic positions adopted by artists in drama, musical theatre, dance, and performance art.
Develop acting skills through observation, improvisation, intensive physical and vocal preparations, and the study of acting techniques such as Stanislavski, Grotowski, and Viewpoints. The emphasis is on exercises that release the imagination and instinct of the actor to approach any role. Work will culminate with a class performance of scripted scenes and/or monologues. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement. (Not offered 2025-26).
A practical and theoretical introduction to the basics of directing. Begins with investigation of past and present directing practice and techniques through the work of influential directors from around the world. Considers the essential tools of directing, choosing the material; producing and conceptualizing the ideas; pre-production work of analysis, design and planning; casting;rehearsal management; rehearsal techniques with actors; and steering the production through its final stages to performance. The course involves directing actors in scenes.
History, theory, and practice of lighting design for the stage. Script analysis, drafting, plotting, and color theory. Laboratory required: participation in one stage production. Limited to 15. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement.
Through vocal and physical exercises, participants learn to connect to their breath, increase natural resonance, and strengthen voice articulation. Different kinds of texts and language are explored to discover how to express clearly and truthfully thoughts and emotion
Intermediate work in performance design with an emphasis on the emergence of new approaches and innovations in scenic and performance design. Integrates traditional visual languages of the stage with the digital arts. Explores spatial designs for dance, performance installations and the theatrical stage. Includes model making, drawing, drafting and digital/video design programs. (Not offered 2025-26).
Student actors develop rehearsal, collaboration, and acting skills in a faculty-directed and designed play production. Technical theatre students and design assistants develop skills and in-depth experience in a fully produced production. Subheading indicates title of the production.
An exploration of the art and craft of playwriting through reading, writing, re-writing and self/peer critique. We will investigate the elements that comprise a script, including dialogue, monologue, subtext, character development, structure, and developing action through language and imagery. 1 unit Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement.
Costume Design for live performance, including theatre, opera, dance, and performance art. Explores color and line theory, script analysis, textiles and textile modification, rendering for costumes, construction and patterning techniques and other costume related skills. Limited to 10. Lab fee required. 1 unit - Ames
Contemporary performance is an interdisciplinary genre that crosses theatre, dance, music, and the visual arts. This course introduces artists working in this boundary-breaking field while exploring how performance catalyzes our individual creativity by engaging with play, including tricks, jokes, and improvisation. The course in turn examines how such artistic play intersects with ritual performances, which help participants to slow down and reorient their perceptions to new rhythms, trajectories, and affects. In doing so, we will also study how play in contemporary performance resists social imperatives on productivity, achievement, and competition. Students can expect to keep a detailed research journal and participate in creative experiments involving play and ritual. These experiments with performance require no skill, previous experience, or specific knowledge—only a willingness to take risks and try out new ideas. Students will delve into their personal inspirations and be asked to reimagine themselves as creative agents in their own lives, regardless of whether they are in the arts or not. May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures or Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement. (Not offered 2025-26).
Where does inspiration come from? How is it channeled? This class is a foray into the process of dramatic writing (writing for the stage: monologues, vignettes, plays) that emerges from the well of the subconscious. Our investigations and experiments will seek to liberate the imagination, discover the conduits to deliver our creative expression and deepen our capacity for creative exploration and appreciation. Mindfulness practices, dreams, ritual, silence, play may all be a part of our writing/making practice. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement. (Not offered 2025-26).
Experimental and Expanded Cinema Examines alternative approaches to cinema developed after 1960 by independent filmmakers and interdisciplinary artists working with animation, puppetry, video, performance, and installation. Uses readings by scholars such as P. Adams Sitney, Steven Shaviro, and Laura Marks to explore the visual and tactile qualities of film, the relationship between mainstream and experimental cinema, and social attitudes towards new technologies. (Not offered 2025-26).
This course focuses on marginalized theatrical voices from the United States. Our mission will be to examine the societal circumstances that birthed alternative styles to the mainstream American stage. Selected playwrights will cover a cross section of race, gender and sexuality, from Tony Award® winners to virtual unknowns. Equal parts historical analysis and creative writing workshop, students will create multimedia presentations and original plays based around their research. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPUS requirement.
This class explores the relationship between the actor and the camera. We will learn basic technical skills as well as cultivating the emotional adjustments, relaxation, and presence that serve to modulate an authentic performance in front of the camera. We will address audition technique, scene work and monologues through assigned, found, and original material. (Not offered 2025-26).
The class takes place in a selected city and sees and analyzes a wide range of performances including drama, dance, opera, puppetry , solo performance, circus, site specific work, foreign language performance and experimental work in all genres. Explores the social, historical and national parameters of the performances and the past and present performance history and significance of the city . Extra Expense. (Not offered 2025-26).
The Nakedness of Being is an experiential and experimental performance course taught by distinguished guest artist, Eiko Otake, a New York-based movement artist. This course combines Eiko’s embodied creative practice with the study of postwar Japanese arts. Through the study of movement, readings, videos, and films students learn that space/time is not a white canvas that stands alone and empty. Here and now are continuous parts of a larger geography (space) and history (time) and as such are dense with memories, shadows, and possibilities. Viewings of art works and films from postwar Japan serve as examples of artistic representations of despair and perseverance. What is it to forget, remember, mourn, and pray? How do we transcend violence and loss? How does being or becoming a mover or dancer affect our emotional rigor, seeing/learning, and creativity? These are some of the many questions the class explores. This is not a dance class, nor is it geared only toward performers. The course encourages students to think about movement as a method of accessing human experiences and building knowledge, a way to explore sensations, thoughts, and reactions to a particular space.
Comparative (and connected) exploration of philosophies of the body and questions of power. In the west, we have inherited a model of the body as object, opposite to the mind - reinforced by a variety of everyday discourses including medical and health discourses as well as those around beauty, capability, and culpability. This course historicizes continental European theories of mind-body duality, and dives into several global traditions – embodied as well as textual – which offer different models for the thinking-feeling-subjective body. By addressing bodies (in motion), perception/cognition, and epistemology we ask the following: 1) How are our bodies navigating but also subverting or intervening in multiple matrices of power dynamics or knowledge systems through the ways in which we move through the world and 2) what radical possibilities open in the process. Ultimately, these various approaches force us to question what it means to even talk about “a body”. Meets the Critical Learning: AIM requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement. (Not offered 2025-26).
Investigates the arts’ relation to narratives of power--those stories that justify why certain structures dominate, and why alternatives do not. An examination into those arts that expose these narratives, reveal silenced alternatives, and present challenger stories that aspire to power themselves. Includes two weeks of study in Serbia and Bosnia. Course fee/Passport and Visa, where needed. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement. (Not offered 2025-26).
Courses offered by design faculty and guests on specialized topic areas in performance design. Lab fee required. (Not offered 2025-26).
Courses offered by resident and visiting faculty on specialized topics. (Not offered 2025-26).
Prepares junior and senior majors for their thesis projects by investigating methods for creative research and collaborative practices. Includes immersion in the research and generative artistic practices of established artists. Students will collectively and individually explore elements of performance (visual, kinesthetic, audio, textual, temporal, and spatial) to formulate their intentions, investigations, questions, and creative processes for their theses.
Investigation of choreographic theories and practices with an emphasis on interdisciplinary inquiry. Topics include: Advanced Choreography, Site-specific Performance, Installation and Performance, Choreographies of Editing, Community and Performance. Can be repeated for credit to fulfill one elective requirement within the major.
Developing and furthering the skills from TH205: Acting with an emphasis on intensive scene work that will focus on a wide range of contemporary and historically significant playwrights. Work will culminate with a public presentation of scenes. (Not offered 2025-26).
History, theory, and practice of lighting design for the stage. Script analysis, drafting, plotting, and color theory. Laboratory required: participation in one stage production. Limited to 15. (Not offered 2025-26).
Work in special fields in Drama and Dance appropriate to the needs and/or interests of qualified students.
The class takes place in a selected city and sees and analyzes a wide range of performances including drama, dance, opera, puppetry , solo performance, circus, site specific work, foreign language performance and experimental work in all genres. Explores the social, historical and national parameters of the performances and the past and present performance history and significance of the city . Extra Expense. (Not offered 2025-26).
Courses offered by design faculty and guests on specialized topic areas in performance design.
An individual advanced design project either in connection with a department main stage production or another performance on campus. Areas of concentration might include properties, masks, sound design, video design, costume design or scenic design associated with the production. Must be arranged with instructor.
Advanced work in drama and/or dance culminating in performance, written thesis, major creative or choreographic work, scenic or lighting design, or other work appropriate to the discipline. Proposal must be approved at the end of the junior year by the department faculty. Offered in blocks 1-7 of the senior year. (Not offered 2025-26).