Open Arts Curriculum (OART-UT)

This introductory level, hands-on workshop explores the art of makeup for film and television as a key storytelling element. It is designed for students wishing to develop techniques that they can use on their productions, special effects makeup students seeking an overview of character/beauty makeup, and anyone who has an interest in learning more about the art of makeup. In this course, students will learn how to break down a script and how to research/design/execute makeup looks for film and television to create successful characters and aid in telling the director’s vision. Homework will include research, designing mood boards for characters and assigned viewings to analyze makeups and their role in storytelling. In class, projects will include how to properly color match skin tones, corrective makeup, historical/period makeup, Hollywood glamor, drag, aging effects, and more. Students will also learn how to achieve continuity and progression of storytelling through makeup. The University Bursar will assess a lab fee for this course and students will be supplied with their own specially designed makeup kit and additional class materials necessary to complete all class assignments. No artistic background required.

Analog Photography is a course designed for students eager to learn the traditional methods of making photographs with black & white film and crafting prints in a darkroom. Using a 35mm SLR camera, students will learn how to properly and creatively expose film, process their own black & white negatives and use gelatin silver paper to make prints in a darkroom with an enlarger to produce museum quality archival photographs. Emphasis is placed on the application of technique in terms of personal expression through the selection and composition of subject matter. The course consists of technical lectures and demonstrations, working sessions in the darkroom, photography and written assignments, lectures on historical and contemporary photography, discussions about readings and assignments and several group critiques. Smaller photography assignments begin the semester; each student will work on a single larger project after mid-term. Each student must have access to a camera with manually adjustable focus, aperture and shutter speeds by the first week of class. In addition to the lab fee for this course, students will need to pay for a minimum of 7 rolls of film and 100 sheets of photographic paper.

A camera is a powerful tool for capturing moments, expressing artistic visions, and documenting the environment around us. Most of us carry a camera in our pockets daily, but sometimes, merely pulling out our phone and snapping a photograph isn't enough. This course focuses on the technical and creative exploration of photography. We'll discuss understanding and controlling depth of field to manipulate focus area, mastering shutter speed to capture motion or freeze time, and color and composition theories to enhance viewer engagement with your work. The class will view and produce in various photographic processes, from portraiture and collage to pinhole and documentary styles. By examining the works of influential photographers and the medium's evolution, students will gain insight into photography as an art form. By the end, students will confidently navigate manual camera settings, edit images with Adobe Suite, and conceptualize projects that capture their vision. The tools and practices discussed in this class will help in the making of photographs and all visual art practices.

This class used to be called Intro to Special Effects Makeup. This is an introductory level hands-on workshop designed for students wishing to explore their artistry, experienced makeup artists seeking advanced techniques, non-makeup artists just starting out, and anyone who has ever wondered “how’d they do that?” This course explores the art of special effects make-up. Topics include “out-of-kit” makeup effects including contusions, bruises, burns and frostbite; skin safe molding procedures; casting and painting silicone replica props, frozen death makeup; and designing and creating a 1:4 scale character maquette. Anatomical reference and safety using materials is also addressed. University Bursar will assess a lab fee for this course. Students receive their own specially designed makeup kit with all materials necessary to complete all in-class assignments. No artistic background required.

While grocery shopping, have you ever wanted to talk to a cucumber? Encounter a red radish or pet a pizza? You can. Puppets are everywhere and highly effective for bringing impossible ideas into reality. Following the idea that puppets are "any performing object" and that objects can be useful as stand-ins for human beings, this hands-on puppet building course explores anthropomorphism, character development, narrative and performance. Through weekly assignments and a final project, we will bring life to objects that we create, transform or find. Drawing inspiration from different styles of mainstream and avante-garde art, music, entertainment and puppetry we will develop original concepts of our own. Exercises explore a range of technologies and materials, from simple sock puppets to marionettes and shadow puppets, to hand puppets and body puppets, to abstract and kinetic objects. We'll spend time looking at how to successfully integrate interactive elements from other realms such as music, special effects, physical interfaces, lighting, video and more into our performances. Every week we perform, with the class culminating in a final public performance bringing together the best of student work.

PRE-REQUISITE: OART-UT 14 Special Effects Makeup 1 or special permission from instructor. This course expands upon Special Effects Makeup I in an even more rigorous and challenging hands-on workshop environment. It is designed for students who have already successfully completed Special Effects Makeup I and wish to further develop and build upon the skills and techniques learned in the class for their own film productions, photo shoots, or fine art projects. Special Effects Makeup II projects are character driven and include designing, sculpting, molding, casting and painting. The University Bursar will assess a lab fee for this course. Students will receive all materials and tools necessary to complete each in-class assignment. (NOTE: This class uses latex. Please contact the instructor if you have a latex allergy.)

Design, build, practice, perform, record, recycle, repeat. In this fabrication-heavy course, students will create new musical instruments, devices and toys that can be performed and manipulated by humans, machines, animals and the supernatural. We will experiment with shapes, materials, and analog/digital technologies to create new performative instruments that defy common sense, yet are visually beautiful and sonically adventurous. Our main sources of inspiration will be the industrial revolution, punk subculture, soap operas, cartoons, Fluxus, the universe, and New York City. Our goal will be to devise musical instruments that can be mastered but also played without skill or music education. We will utilize various building tools and Art Studio materials such as 3D modelling and printing, electronics, wood shop, CNC, laser cutting, cardboard and paint. In each weekly iteration, students will compose, record and perform original music with their instruments, sometimes as an ensemble. The semester will end with an exhibition featuring our instruments and sheet music, with a final performance for a live audience.

How do ants or bees organize on a mass scale when their individual brains are incapable of understanding the bigger systems they’re creating together? How did a Twitch hive-mind of 1.2 million people beat Pokémon one collective move at a time? How do we make art that makes us and our audience feel more connected, more alive, more powerful? This hands-on project studio course is about making art where participants are the medium, and the masterpiece created exists inside and between them. Let’s explore community and its connection to transformational, radical joy — not complacent happiness, but a joy that is the feeling of power, agency, and capacity growing within us and within the people around us as we cooperate to overcome shared challenges. Which systems and forms of art, play, and expression foster that kind of joy? This course is heavy on imagination, vulnerability, reading, discussion, experimentation, playtesting, and interactive group activities. Each week explores the relationship of the individual to the group under various lenses and spheres of life (i.e. politics, religion, activism, evolutionary biology, sociology, pleasure, the universe, sports, games, childhood, etc.). Then together, we break down the relationships, dynamics, and effects those systems have, and create multi-media prototypes and performance experiments inspired by these themes and ideas. The early assignments are solo, and then almost all assignments are in groups. The core process of the class uses iterative game design as a structure for ideating, creating, playtesting, and refining, though students are welcome to work in any medium they choose, so long as the goal is to explore themes of collective joy.

Technology is a weasel. Squeezing its way into art, culture and the everyday. It infiltrates our psyche, inspiring playful interactions, fantastical ideas, vengeance and drama. It brings us together while tearing us apart. In this project-based studio, we will focus on a collective approach to creating art, tools, performances, and experiences. Outer Space in the context of this course will be used as a metaphor for the future, the unknown, and the seemingly impossible. We will investigate disparate cultural moments and unravel narratives that are both historical and technological. Technology will serve as a structure with open-ended assignments in music, video, sculpture, interactive graphics, the web, optical illusions, kineticism, 3D, surveillance, performance and more. Combined collaborative exercises and individual projects will augment classroom discussions and inform the art that we make. A willingness to use your imagination and personal experience to derail preconceived notions of linear timelines will serve you well in this hands-on interdisciplinary course.

This hands-on entry level electronics course is for students who want to invent, test, break, imagine, burn, surprise and build unusual interactive objects and devices that have never existed before. You don’t have to be an electrical engineer to be able to hack power and twist it for your own wild experiments. No matter what art/performance mediums you use in your creative practice, there are so many playful and cutting-edge ways to augment your craft with connected devices and computer-assisted fabrication. Some example projects include: interactive installations, moving sculptures, wearable devices for fashion, dynamic lighting, and DIY music devices. The course goes over the basics of electronic circuits and coding for Arduino — programmable micro-computers that process inputs from buttons, biofeedback sensors, and microphones and translate them into outputs expressed through LED lights, sounds, motors, and relays. We use laser cutters, 3D printers, woodworking tools, and sewing machines to assist us, and learn the best practices of creating robust circuits through soldering, component selection, and power supply. Each week we look to contemporary hardware artists for inspiration and use our classmates to test and analyze our prototypes, getting feedback on not just the practical design of the circuits and mechanisms, but the feelings, ideas, and creative effects our connected art elicits. No prior coding, hardware, or fabrication experience necessary, but time and dedication is — most projects will require out-of-class time spent in the shop. Students will need a laptop, but basic hardware and materials will be provided.

Animation is often considered an art form of synthesis— bringing together disciplines as varied as collage, cartooning, dance, puppetry, slight-of-hand, sculpture, painting, printmaking, engineering, photography, sound design, music, and acting to forge wholly new kinds of "moving pictures." This hands-on class will explore the productive possibilities of adding a time-based dimension to a variety of artmaking modes. Emphasis will be placed upon experimentation, diy solutions and developing unique approaches to applying the principles of frame-by-frame filmmaking to one’s own practice. The course will survey artists and art movements that have uniquely embraced animation. Group and individual projects will engender a solid understanding of animation principles and provide students with a toolkit of strategies for creating animation in a variety of contexts— from optical toys, to short films, live-performance, documentary and large-scale projection. Open to those with no animation experience, and those with experience looking to deepen an understanding of their own creative process and voice.

Before the internet artists and enthusiasts found their communities through self-publishing niche small-circulation magazines, usually without profit, with a burning desire to communicate. We’ll discuss the continued relevancy of the culture as we look at zines scenes from the past. For each scene, we’ll have an “object lesson” in which we dissect historical zines with an eye on form, content, aesthetic, publisher motives, and technology required for production. Then we’ll make our own! We’ll learn about historical zine making methods by making our own small-run zines in the same fashion to circulate within class. In addition to this tactile learning, you’ll produce a small body of work and gain an instant collection from your peers.

This course will introduce students to technologies for speech synthesis and speech recognition from the point of view of performance art. Through weekly assignments and in class lectures, we will explore voice interfaces and their role in technology, design, art, and culture. We will begin with understanding human speech, and then delve into computer speech. We will learn how to program existing technologies such as p5.js to create our own talking machines. The class will research the current limitations and biases of these technologies and models, and respond by leveraging these constraints as ground for performative expression. Students will be required to develop a performative piece as their final project, this could be a live performance, an interactive installation piece, or a performative object or tool. Students are encouraged to bring their interests into the classroom and apply the course into their practice. Prior knowledge of computer programming will be helpful, however, it is not required. NYU is a global community. You are welcome to bring your own language, your accent, and your spoken identity into the class.

In this class, we’ll learn TouchDesigner, a powerful software hub for live audiovisual content, and control it with DIY props and digital interfaces that we’ll build to connect to our art directly from the stage. With a cutting-edge buffet of inputs and outputs at our disposal, what new, evolved, or remixed types of performance can we create? If you’re a musician, you’ll build and play instruments that didn’t exist before. If you’re a dancer, your movements will become the music and visuals, instead of the other way around. If you’re a filmmaker, you’ll shoot a real-life scene with a virtual camera or light a physical set with real-time VFX. If you're a visual artist, you'll warp color, distort images, and push pixels to the brink of destruction. If you’re all of the above, you’ll have fun in this class. To connect to TouchDesigner, we’ll build hardware props using Arduinos, tiny computers that we can hook up sensors, buttons, and LEDs to, and create unique thematic interfaces that augment our performances and interactive installations. Weekly assignments explore AI tools, electronic circuits, fabrication, camera input and livestreams, 3D models and procedural animation, and more. Midway through the semester we'll begin performing live using our connected props for DJ/VJing and projection-mapped interactive spaces, with the class culminating in a final public performance bringing together the best of student work. No previous coding or performance experience necessary. There is a lab fee for the hardware we’ll use to build our devices.

What types of performance can we create if we’re not limited to a physical stage or even a physical body? How much more can we communicate with video once our audience has the power to directly interact with the content, not just passively observe? We can create dynamic, digital experiences and innovative, virtual performances using Unreal Engine, a game engine and powerful suite of development tools. Students will learn the fundamentals of Unreal Engine, including 3D environments and assets, lighting, cameras, animations, audio, basic VFX, and programming interactivity using visual scripting blueprints. Then, we will incorporate external hardware such as depth cameras, LiDAR scanners, and motion capture suits to create our own digital assets, including virtual avatars of ourselves. Students will use this foundation in virtual production to create projects ranging from 3D music videos to choose-your-own-adventure memoirs to Performances with puppet avatars in an online 3D environment. The final assignment will be a part of a public show.

This course is a unique collaboration between the Collaborative Arts and IMA Tisch departments, and CultureHub based at La Mama. During the pandemic many performing artists moved their work online, leading to an increasing acceptance of experimental practices that their predecessors developed in on-line work for the past 30 years. In Experiments in Hybrid (IRL/URL) Performance, students will have the opportunity to design, prototype, and present collaborative projects that build on this tradition, blending both physical and virtual elements. Over the course of the semester, students will have the opportunity to study at the CultureHub studio where they will be introduced to video, lighting, sound, and cueing systems. In addition, students will learn creative coding fundamentals allowing them to network multiple softwares and devices generating real-time feedback systems. The class will culminate with a final showing that will be presented online and broadcast from the CultureHub studio. Modeled as an accelerated intensive on methods of collaboration, students will work together in groups of 4 to produce new performance work to be presented to an invited in person and online audience. Participation in class discussions and in-class movement workshops are mandatory, and always based on each student’s physical ability. All body types and abilities are welcome and needed for this course to be successful.

Blender is a dynamic tool that can be used to design real world sets, physical objects and virtual assets for various media and live performance. It can render robust animations and impose visual effects on recorded video. It has the capacity to interface easily with interactive softwares like Unity and Unreal, while having the potential to output hi-fidelity renders for print. But beyond that it’s just a software. The ability to create any believable world comes from you. In this class we will explore a variety of techniques to create living, breathing fictional worlds while honing the skills in Blender to bring them to life. Students will be asked to create food, buildings, clothing, people and traffic signs from their fictional universe - building consistency of aesthetic, narrative allusion, and the fine details that make any world “believable”. The class will involve dissecting and discussing media on this world building, technical tutorials and instruction in Blender, and hands on workshops that tackle the conceptual questions of world building while exploring how to interface Blender with an outside medium: (3D printing, Pattern Making, Asset Development, Unity, Unreal, After Effects, recorded video). Students will be expected to watch technical tutorials and read short pieces on these topics for homework. Students will also complete weekly deliverable assignments.

The object, in reality, is anything but inert - it is hyperactive, changing in function and meaning as it moves in time and space. This studio-based course will give students the tools to use objects and materials specifically and deliberately in their work. The course will link intuitive making with research, allowing students to investigate their genuine and unique interests and develop their conceptual goals. During the course of the semester, students will be exposed to a wide range of non-traditional objects and materials that have been employed by artists throughout history. Readings and viewings will supplement the work done in the studio, with four themed sections serving as guided warm ups for a final project of the students’ own direction. These sections are titled: The Other, The Icon, The Minuscule, The Massive. Each student will make a work based on each theme, and group critiques will function as a laboratory in which students can test theories on display, context, form and legibility. This course is best suited to those with an interest in nontraditional art materials, collage, and found objects. Prior experience in sculpture or painting will be particularly helpful, however, it is not required.

Through a series of lectures and weekly prompts, this hands-on course introduces a methodology that facilitates the process from thinking to making. Softness is used as both a theoretical and material framework that asks students to rethink the edges of the real and to to engage with structures, organizations, materials and relationships as malleable, fluid, and open to transformation. Students are introduced to foundational concepts through a wide range of examples and readings, and are invited to critically reflect on how these concepts inform and guide their own practice and creative journey. The weekly assignments are meant to help students become comfortable with a variety of techniques and making practices, and in a rapid, playful and experimental manner engage with ideas in an embodied and enacted way. Given that they have a week to complete each assignment, the goal is to help students delve into the core and essential properties of each concept and find ways to express and explore them in their work. The cadence of the lectures and survey of a wide range of artistic practices aims to expose students to different approaches to making, and importantly help them understand how theory and practice are not separate realms but indeed intertwined.

This course will examine the overlaps between art, fashion, and theater as well as the way garments become activated. Students will consider what their roles are beyond consumers, as makers and wearers. This is a studio-based course that will introduce students to different ways of repurposing and reusing textiles found in the home through mending, dyeing techniques, sewing, and patternmaking. No prior experience in sewing is needed. There will be a strong emphasis on using non-traditional materials. Each method will be introduced through demonstrations and reinforced through assignments which include making a soft sculpture to wear, recreating an object/garment from a movie, making a costume that also functions as a set for one person, and creating an expandable piece. The class will cover different themes: storytelling, soft sculpture, color, activism and live performance. Lectures will introduce the work of artists and designers: Lee Bul, Leigh Bowery, Alexander Mcqueen, Franz Erhard Walther, Pat Olezko, Iris Van Herpen, The Cockettes, Piero Gilardi, and others who incorporate materiality and costume making as a way of expressing their creativity and ideals. Reading and viewings will be supplemented with updates on current designers collections and innovations in the field. Group critiques will function as a design laboratory, a place to share with their colleagues and get feedback for future pieces.

The course combines lectures on the basics of feature length screenwriting with the development of the student’s own writing work. Students are required to complete 25-50 pages of a full length screenplay. The students study story structure, conflict, and character, in conjunction with the screening and study of several films and screenplays. The emphasis will be on visual storytelling and developing a strong and distinctive screenwriting voice. All students must come to the first class with two ideas for full-length screenplays.

A continuation of the training presented in Making a Scene: Screenwriting and Intro to Screenwriting. Required work in the class includes extensive scene work. Guided by their screenwriting instructor, students will complete the screenplay begun in Intro to Screenwriting and then do a rewrite or they may begin, complete, and rewrite a new full-length screenplay. The focus in this class will be on story structure and development and the completion of a full-length screenplay. If you plan to do a new work, you must come to the first class with three ideas for full-length screenplays. Each idea can be described in one or two paragraphs.

This course will engage students directly in the discourse of contemporary art and in the hugely diverse practices of artists in their studios in New York. Framed predominantly around studio visits, the course will expose students to hybrid mediums and working strategies that will complicate, not facilitate, systems of categorization. Meeting outside of the physical classroom for the majority of the semester, students will be expected to be prepared to navigate the city independently to various locations across Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens for site visits. Each week, we will sharpen our abilities of seeing, questioning and understanding not only physical spaces of creativity but also mental strategies of production across a wide variety of media. Supplementing the visual feast of these weekly adventures, students will participate in material workshops at a number of artist’s studios and will build a record of influences, ideas, research and modes of making in individual sketchbooks that will be compiled during the semester and which will help inform the class’s collaborative project at the culmination of the semester – a Studio Guide to assist in oblique strategies of creating. Weekly readings, videos and podcasts will introduce elements of art criticism, theory, philosophy and history and will inform our understanding of what we see and how we approach making in the studio. Prior experience in object-making is recommended, however, it is not required. This class is best suited to Collaborative Arts BFA students as well as NYU students through the Open Arts program.

Collaborative Interdisciplinary Practice is a semester-long course introducing the participant to interdisciplinary art practices. The course functions as an exploratory space, challenging participants to live more fully and more immediately, vis-à-vis the development of single-authored and co-authored artworks. Participants develop an appreciation for art as a valid form of research by examining various artmaking methods through reading, listening, seeing, and creating. By integrating the formal with the conceptual, historical with the contemporary, they make visible the possibilities and multiplicities of approaches in contemporary cultural production.

Collaborative Workshop II requires students to apply their training and work in multiple arts mediums based on a semester-long exploration of a chosen theme or topic. With an emphasis on play and process - students complete a series of classroom/studio projects based on specific prompts from the Instructor. These projects are designed to emphasize experimentation across the arts disciplines and to foster creative collaboration. In addition to class lectures and workshops, interdisciplinary guest artists are invited to share their work, inspire and support student projects. The Fall 2021 theme for CW2 is "Creation and Reality." Students work in groups to develop and present collaborative projects that creatively incorporate real-life material (for example: unscripted interviews, archival material, found footage or newsreel) as the basis for developing their co-authored work. Over the course of the semester, collaborative groups explore what it means to create original works from real-life material - examining how various mediums allow them to delve into this theme differently. The final project is a multi-disciplinary, co-authored work.

Reality & Creation is an interdisciplinary, collaborative workshop that requires students to develop and present original works using real-life material. While primarily focused on filmmaking - students may also explore writing and performance to investigate the artful manipulation of reality in order to evoke meaning and emotion. Students will explore the meanings of both documentary and narrative filmmaking - and the inherent conflicts between creative construction and telling true stories. They will analyze cinematic representations of reality and devise hybrid works that use inventive and surprising forms while playing with the notion of the real. Over the course of the semester, students will complete a series of classroom/studio projects as well as independent works from non-fiction sources: such as unscripted interviews, archival material, found footage and newsreel. These projects are designed to foster experimentation across the arts disciplines and to cultivate creative collaboration.

The death of printed matter has been predicted for more than half a century. Meanwhile, artists have been busy continually proving that print media—and the nimble RISO, in particular—offers vital new possibilities for experimentation. With a capacity to layer pure spot color, like silkscreen, and output quickly, like digital processes, the Risograph duplicator has revolutionized visual culture over the past decade. RISO aesthetics have made their way into animation and film, into mainstream digital design culture, and has flooded independent art book publishing. Because the process engages and serves niche communities of artists, it has given voice to groups traditionally excluded from mainstream publishing. It is the machine largely responsible for the thriving, international small press movement, which challenges both the traditional scarcity-based economy of the art market, and the myth of the lone artist. Experimental RISO will take this spirit as a starting point, as our class works together as a small community to push the RISO into more experimental territory. We will explore a myriad of “off label” uses for RISO printmaking. We will design non-digital publications using exquisite corpse methods and learn how to translate film and animation into RISO. Avant-garde publishing has a long history of cutting through the so-called dichotomy between paper and electronics, so we will use conditional design “codes” to design programmatically. We will investigate the RISO’s potential to produce performance-based art—looking to Bruno Munari and Victorian Troublewit performance for possible inroads.

This course emphasizes the content, the aesthetics, and the purpose of cinema as a truly distinctive and dynamic art form uncovering the inner vision of the filmmaker, and the organic and transformative process where filmmakers projects their original truth, not compromising or borrowing ideas and themes from other films. Students explore the use of technology as a valuable tool that enhances the vision of the filmmaker without diminishing the organic texture of the work by its overwhelming presence. The course brings to light the stagnant and repetitious formulae of commercial cinema, resulting in diluted mainstream films. The works of iconic filmmakers who embrace and use film as an original, vibrant and reflective art form are reviewed throughout the course. Extracts and readings from relevant filmmakers are given throughout the course.

Note this class is called "Devised Theater: History and Practice." This intensive focuses on both historic evolution of ritual-based/early theater models through contemporary theater philosophies (accentuating history of Futurist/Dada theater innovations to present), and on anatomizing the nature of performer, performance, story and storytelling via the non-traditional philosophies and methods of contemporary experimental theater. The class will be rigorously participatory in terms of discussing/physicalizing these experimental methods and will culminate in the creation and performance of simple class collaboration-generated stage narratives. Students will investigate the meaning and application of physical/environmental ’neutrality’ on stage as they simultaneously investigate and define for themselves the most essential markers needed for the viewer to perceive ‘story’ in performance. As the staged pieces are constructed from these anatomized building blocks of performance and story, more complex qualities of character, identity, archetype, mannerism, linguistic disfluencies (verbal and non-verbal) and psychological subtext will be introduced as tools for each performer’s role in the story. In the final phases of piece creation, simple analog elements of music, sound, light, mask, craft materials, dance, virtuosic/specialized skill, props will be introduced as tools. The final performance will aspire to clear and effective applications of the performance/story elements discussed (or discovered) in class. Techniques and exercises derived from the worlds of Futurism/Dada, Richard Maxwell, Blue Man Group, Elevator Repair Service, Ann Bogart, Joshua Fried, and others will be discussed and employed.

Embodied Performance: Collaborative Creations is a 2-credit studio course that explores the instructor’s original performance methodology, a fusion of physical theater modalities culled from Western practices (Psycho-physical actions, Viewpoints), Eastern practices (Butoh, Kundalini yoga) and related performance disciplines (Mask, Puppetry). This course provides foundational training for students who are interested in investigating the field of performative and collaborative arts and will serve as an entry point for NYU students interested in movement and physically based acting.

This four-day workshop will introduce participants to the anatomy of words. Through an abstract process of deconstructing words into the unique sounds that comprise them, participants will explore a deeper connection to words’ meanings. Through an in-depth investigation into how sounds are made, how they differ from one another, and the visceral feelings evoked by producing them, participants will also strengthen their connection to speaking words from an authentic, full-bodied place, in order to be a more effective speaker. The concepts of phonetics and the specifics of sound structure as outlined by the International Phonetics Association will be explored through a series of exercises designed to address students’ physical and psychological impulses in connection to the sounds they speak. Sessions will be spent in a variety of practical manners; engaging in physical exercises, sitting and listening, observing others’ work, and contributing to discussions. Feedback will play a large role in the workshop and participants will be encouraged to share generously their experiences and feelings about their work.

Flash Frames explores the moving image, the pixel, color, and composition, through two weekends of intensive, hands on image fabrication. Students gain a coherent understanding of the technicalities involved in producing artistic and professional quality videos. The workshop applies technical and creative approaches to capturing video, editing, and adding the finishing touches on short productions. Projects are focused on strengthening design and editing skills, understanding media management practices, applying video effects, color correction, motion graphics, and sound. Students broaden their understanding of digital design and video production, while learning the basics of video editing, animation, sound mixing, and motion graphics.

In this course, we will explore the versatile usage of animation in the world of graphic design as a unique form of expression. We will examine how motion design combines movement, rhythm, space, and timing to orchestrate abstract shapes, words, and symbols. Through a series of weekly exercises, students will gain an understanding of key concepts in motion design while using and learning Adobe After Effects. We will follow the footsteps of motion design history, reconstructing classic pieces in order to gain a fundamental understanding of this art form. We will learn how graphic design, music, choreography, and acting can all be applied to the motion of design elements and furthermore, how the combination of animation and design can convey compelling stories, emotions, and ideas. Students will survey the technologies and methods that enabled the fields’ developments - from drawing on 18 mm film, the analog Scanimate in the 80s, to UX motion, interactive design, and contemporary live performances. Inspired by those traditions, students will be encouraged to take on an experimental approach, discuss thought processes, and develop their own visual language while combining interdisciplinary practices. *Adobe After Effects will be used as a main tool in the course, therefore a sufficient computer (over 16GB of RAM and a graphic card) is required.

This course will focus on the interdisciplinary practice of marrying found text to non-literal as well as naturalistic movement. Through two weekends of intensive, on our feet, rehearsal the class will create an original work that will be performed for an invited audience. The primary objective of this course is to impart to students a tangible way to access a treasure trove of possibilities for creating and performing original work. A key to this process is the use of a technique pioneered by The Wooster Group in which performers’ lines are conveyed through an in ear device, rather than through memorization. This approach makes it possible to quickly put verbatim found text on its feet, and to combine it with complex choreography as well as various other staging directives. Two examples of found texts that will be introduced in class are conversations between James Baldwin and Margaret Mead and recordings of one-minute stories by John Cage. The students will also be encouraged to explore sources that speak to their own social, cultural and political passions.

WORDS AND IDEAS is a 7-week lecture class, introducing new multi-disciplinary practitioners to the central ideas of their chosen careers. Topics will include: Mimesis, Representation, Genre, The Art Object, Subjectivity, Taste, Humor, Sensibility...to name a few. Where does the impulse for art come from? Can art change society or does it reflect society? Why do we do art and how do we know whether it's any good? Key definitions of terms career artists must know will be introduced in WORDS AND IDEAS, helping students form (and fully understand) their own creative strategies in undertaking future art projects. While the class is not, strictly speaking, an art history seminar, major historical movements will be touched on to illustrate the ideas under discussion every week.

This hands-on practicum, mixed with some lecture, teaches students the basic parameters of story structure for a live performance. Class lectures will discuss the components of a drama, and class exercises will help students generate material for a 2-person "realistic" live scene, lasting approximately 5-10 minutes of stage time. This live scene can be either “stand-alone” or part of a larger multi-disciplinary art project for later work in a student’s career at Collaborative Arts.

Filmmaking, photography, and the basics of visual imagery are explored through a hands-on studio art experience, which provides an overview of the development of visual storytelling throughout history. From the first creation of early hand drawn cave paintings to modern film production, all the essential elements of visual representation, visual imagery, visual grammar, and visual narrative are explored. Lectures introduce and explain a variety of methods used to capture a visual image and how imagery, both with and without words, is used to convey meaning. In class painting, etching, drawing, film, and photo assignments are given for students to create their own visual imagery, using these several different artistic formats. Technical training on cameras and editing software accompanies these practical assignments. Students also complete photo and short film projects throughout the course, as they explore the essential nature of visual storytelling, pre-visualization, and practical production. The course examines how the basic tools of traditional narrative storytelling are also used in purely visual storytelling - to create a secondary world and to maintain a suspension of disbelief in order to inform, entertain, and affect the audience. In spring 2021, cellphones and gimbals will be employed for film and photo work and additional asynchronous DSLR photo and video camera training will be provided over the course of the semester. Hands-on studio work will be accomplished in-person, in-class, following social distancing protocols - and any needs for remote work should be arranged for in advance so that remote based art supplies can be provided as necessary.

Performance Practice: Body and Movement is designed to work as a companion course to Performance Practice: Text and Voice. These two courses are intended to work as one fluid unit to introduce overviews of contemporary movement and theatrical practices. Together, they provide students with a laboratory for blending skills learned through voice/text and body/movement into expanded forms of performance. For the first half the semester in this component, students will focus solely on body and movement, while in the second half of the semester students will engage in co-taught sessions that blend text and movement to discover and deepen the connection between the body, the voice, text and imagination. In this section of the Performance Practices set, students will address explorations of space and time, presence, working with objects, composition and various improvisational structures. During the semester students and performance faculty will work with ideas from artists who have significantly informed the development of 20th century and early 21st century performance practices.

Performance Practice: Voice and Text is designed to work as a companion course to Performance Practice: Body and Movement. These two courses are intended to work as one fluid unit to introduce overviews of contemporary movement and theatrical practices. Together, they provide students with a laboratory for blending skills learned through working with voice/text and body/movement into expanded forms of performance. For the first half the semester in this component, students will focus solely on voice and text, while in the second half of the semester students will engage in co-taught sessions that blend text and movement to discover and deepen the connection between the body, the voice, text and imagination. In this section of the Performance Practices set, students will explore dramatic action, emotional point of view, theatrical use of dramatic as well as non-dramatic text and various improvisational structures designed to support the ability to read and respond spontaneously and simply to the behavior of others. During the semester students and performance faculty will work with ideas from seminal artists who have significantly informed the development of 20th century and early 21st century performance practices.

Our collective intuition and imagination are more powerful than computer programs, yet paired with software, digital media, and online networks, our wildest dreams can become real. By understanding the fundamentals of digital tools, our DIY sensibilities, artistic practices, and social experiments can be transformative, even revolutionary. With algorithms surveilling and dictating our culture, it is crucial to learn and harness digital technologies for independent expression. In this hands-on introductory course, we will learn to utilize tools for creating musical and visual experiments, playful interactions and games, and emerging media discourse. Students will work independently and collaboratively to create and produce music and sound collages, computer graphics and animation, internet art, videos and performances. Collaborators from different fields of study will be encouraged to incorporate their individual interests and expertise.

This course will ask how artists incorporate research in their practice by looking at their manifestoes and their subsequent works. Throughout the term, we'll ask: How did various artists employ manifestos as methods of inquiry to understand how they themselves are situated within their respective fields? By conceptualizing how art-making can be a research tool through these manifestos, we will see how there is an art to research and that art is a mode of inquiry that others use to make sense of their own world. In this way, manifestos are the evidence of the research that went into the art-work. The way in which artists interrogate the issues, holes, or gaps in the set of assumptions employed within their respective fields will guide students in proposing creative solutions to issues within their own. During the term, we'll focus on archival, qualitative, and quantitative methods to reveal the creative praxis within each. Students will utilize the skills they acquire over the semester to, section by section, create a manifesto of their own, including an artist's statement, research/resource review, an outline of an issue, and the prototype of a project that fills the gap they've found in their field. This living document will then be critiqued by fellow students so that all those in the course experience multiple facets of the creative process.

The world-wide pause caused by the pandemic created a space of reflection and concern, and brought us to a consideration of meaning. As artists and scholars, we have been called to make sense of the ways we have told the stories of our communities, and been summoned to imagine a future world that is vibrant, inclusive and just, one that embraces our deepest values. As the vanguards of culture, we are now recording and creating new history together, constructed from examples of reexamined experience and awakened by new ideas. The important work of reinvigorating arts education, of imagining and designing the future through the arts, now more than ever before, must be a part of our mission as a school in a great research university. A Tisch education has always been about access to the people who create our community: the great thinkers and creators among our faculty, staff and alumni in cross collaboration with NYU, New York City and the globe. Together, we have already led transformative change, and continue to be leaders in fields that will adapt to our changing times. You too are the advocates, artists, innovators, scholars, and storytellers who collectively reflect upon the past, record the present, and imagine our future. We are co-creators of humanity’s most important re-set. Spark your imagination of the future through conversations with the leading creators in their fields. NYU Tisch School of the Arts Dean Allyson Green will moderate twelve talks with outstanding faculty and alumni of the school from a range of artistic disciplines. Create your own role in a movement to catalyze innovation and creativity to create a more beautiful, more just, more inclusive and more connected world. Please reach out to tisch.openarts@nyu.edu if you have any questions about the course.

Articulation theory explores how complex concepts are expressed through creative practice. In this class, we will discover how ART encodes ways of interpreting our environment. Throughout the course, students are encouraged to pull from their own art-making practice to create activities—such as call and response exercises, ring shouts, drawing to narrate a concept, etc.—to explore representation, mimesis, formalism, and abstraction in addition to the socio-cultural theory of articulation. Play and experimentation resemble creative research practice. Creative writing, visual and aural practices, as well as acting are integral to the structure of this course. Students will utilize techniques from the development of role-playing and collaborative exercises, improvisational theater, and interactive-dynamic texts to facilitate activities to explore how we frame interpretations of the world and explore complex issues. By actively creating conditions and circumstances in which others collaborate on solving problems or navigating concepts, students will discover the implications of sharing a worldview. Every week, students will “play” in the worlds others have built using these platforms in order to test the extent to which the concepts framed therein can be shared. We will spend time cultivating a method of critique that can be used to explain how and why certain concepts were not communicated in the way intended by our peers. The relationships between the actors in these worlds allow us to model and analyze how concepts like race, class, and gender enter our reality by virtue of this collaborative process.

This practical workshop is designed to introduce students to the techniques and theory of developing and producing short film ideas that are shot on digital video and edited digitally on computer using Adobe Premiere Pro software. The course centers on learning elements of visual storytelling through a spectrum of aesthetic approaches. Working in crews of four, students learn directing, shooting, and editing skills as they each direct three short videos (three to five minutes in length).

FUNDAMENTALS OF FILMMAKING II: NARRATIVE FILM is an intensive production workshop for fiction filmmaking. Students write, direct, and produce one short, 5-7 minute, film. The course builds upon the visual storytelling tools learned in the prerequisite courses, Fundamentals of Filmmaking I, or Cinematic Narratives. Students will strengthen their skills in screenwriting, cinematography, aesthetics, and editing to further develop their personal filmmaking style. Students can choose to create a traditional narrative film with dialog, or they can choose alternative types of performance and filmmaking that create narrative style flow in different ways. Students must have a rough draft script, or one page treatment, ready by the first day of classes as writing and rewriting work begins in week one. Each student writes and directs their own film, and then they serve as crew members for their classmates when they direct their films. Students can also choose to break the constraints of the traditional solo director/auteur theory, and choose to co-direct and Co-Create their film with a partner. Students with more experience in acting or performing can partner with other students who have more experience with writing, directing, or cinematography - and they can explore the opportunities within the emerging trend of Co-Creative filmmaking. Students are guided by their Professor, and a Production Advisor, through all the production logistics that are necessary for successful filmmaking - including casting, art direction, props, locations, schedules, call times, insurance, equipment, wardrobe, effects, editing and more. During Morning Sessions, all work is discussed in class, and creative feedback is an essential component of the course. For the first third of the semester, Afternoon Sessions provide technical training on professional level videocameras, audio gear, lighting, and editing software. After the tech training period, Afternoon Sessions are reserved as optional practice sessions and/or filming periods. Midway through the semester, the final production period occurs over four consecutive weeks, and weekend work is required during this production period.

This course attempts to track the American entertainment industry from its plebian origins through its rise to becoming the predominant mass entertainment culture in the world. Students discover the origins of the production practices that are employed in the entertainment industry today by following the legendary characters, movie moguls, and media titans of the early 20th century and the companies they built. The emphasis is on the way the visionaries of the time impacted seemingly risk-averse systems to invigorate and sometimes completely revolutionize them. These innovative men and women include, but are not limited, to Louis B. Mayer, George Lucas, Maya Deren, Shirley Clark, Nam Jun Paik, Lucille Ball, Russell Simmons, Clive Davis, Julie Taymor, and Steve Jobs.

From Shakespeare’s era to the present day, writers and other artists have created new works by using other art-forms as source material. This practice is especially true for film and television, where the source material can come from a novel or play, a video game or comic book, an historical event or even a blog or trashy headline. We will explore a variety of practices in the art of adaptation--as it relates to movies and TV--and apply them to an adaptation that students will develop over the course of the semester, resulting in a treatment for a film or television show. Through case studies, exercises and in-class discussion, we will refine and develop students’ work to its greatest potential. We will compare early drafts of award-winning screenplays with their original source material and the final shooting scripts, hopefully gaining insight into the iterative process of adaptation and the challenges and creative insights that the filmmakers discovered along the way. We'll also explore practical issues like options, rights, collaborations, intellectual property laws and licenses, etc.

A professional composer leads a theoretical and practical course dealing with artistic and technical aspects in composing music for film and television. Through analysis, demonstration, and controlled practice, students learn and deal with the specifics of the composer’s job, duties, and responsibilities, and develop listening and production skills necessary for the creative use of music. The course provides an inside look into a relationship between composer and music editor, and explores music as a creative tool. In addition to musical considerations, the business and personal relationship between composers and directors/producers is discussed.

Hollywood in your palm. That is what this combination of lectures, screenings, demonstrations and practical production workshop will offer to the students in this course. There will be several professional guests making presentations and Q&A sessions from the mobile phone filmmaking industry. In addition to the historical and critical overview of the emergence and exponential growth of global cell phone cinema, students will shoot all footage on cell phones and download them for computerized editing. The final project will be under three minute shorts. Projects will include all genres of film and television: news, mini-documentaries, animation, music videos and narrative shorts. Completed student projects will be suitable to be posted on the Internet and entered into domestic and international mobile phone film festivals. For example, two minute long improvisations of Bollywood Style Music Videos shot on Cell Phones by the students have been projected at the Tribeca Cinemas as part of the New York Indian Film Festival. It is suggested but not compulsory that students bring to the class a cell phone capable of recording video.

This course will combine a history of video art and experimental film with practical training in the use of live video performance art technology. Students will explore new ways to create and edit films and videos using VJ software, projections, and multi-channel video surfaces. Workshops will demonstrate concepts and software that can be integrated into the creative process of video performance art and video art installations. COURSE OBJECTIVES At the completion of this course, the student will be able to: Draw inspiration from the recent history of incredible video and multi-media artists. Develop an understanding of audio and visual hardware used by VJ’s. Use live VJ software to manipulate digital media in real time to create Video Performance Art. Use Projection Mapping techniques to project video art onto 3D surfaces. Create original video performance art, video installations, and other performance pieces. Utilize skills to make video art in the professional market.

Understanding Story is a class composed of lectures, discussions, screenings, readings, critical and creative writing, group critiques and presentations. The course is designed to expose the student to the fundamental principles of storytelling across a spectrum of mediums, including the written story, playwriting, film, poetry, dance, games, photography, fine art and music. How do all these different art forms tell stories? How can the student apply what is learned to their own creative work? History and theory of story will be studied and used to inspire personal and creative work in order to better understand how story can most successfully be expressed in different mediums and reach its audience.

New Video Dimensions is a video production workshop where students conceive, produce, perform, direct and edit fully polished video media for a variety of interdisciplinary art forms - from immersive VR to interactive performance art, from movement-based performance to media guided participatory theater, to stand alone internet media and short films. Video is an integral part of many artistic disciplines and this class explores ways to reimagine conventional video production and harness the visceral impact of video within a wide range of unique interdisciplinary mediums. Each student pitches and chooses an interdisciplinary project they plan to create. They then team up with another student who will work with them to create video that will support that project. Emphasis is given to ways in which personal visual inspiration, as opposed to artistic imitation, can create innovative new forms of video art. Students will alternate roles as interdisciplinary artists and as video collaborators, so that each student creates a final video for a proposed interdisciplinary project. Students can also choose to work together within both roles for a single project, or stand alone video piece. All aspects of video production will be explored, including writing, choreography, acting, art direction, cinematography, music, editing, and more. The role of the video-maker will be explored as a collaborative partner with other interdisciplinary artists. Students use a variety of cameras & audio gear as they build upon the technical skills they learned in previous filmmaking courses. For the final projects, each proposed interdisciplinary project will be detailed in a powerpoint presentation, and the completed videos for those projects will be screened along with those presentations. Students are required to have taken one introductory video class with synchronous sound, or special permission can be given by the Professor on a case by case basis.

One video can be worth a thousand backers in the digital age. Successful videos have raised millions of dollars for projects on crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. This type of online fundraising is a whole new way for individuals to raise money. It is venture capital with no strings attached – direct donations not just to a philanthropic cause, but to business ventures as well. By donating online, people are sharing in the creation of marketable ideas and projects. Online crowdfunding is changing the shape of business innovation - and this class will explore all the techniques used to create a successful crowdfunding video that can capture interest and generate financial backers. Crowdfunding Video Production is an intensive course combining lectures and creative workshops to explore online fundraising for inventions, business ideas, artistic projects, social activism, scientific research, and community projects. Lectures provide students with an overview of the Crowdfunding industry and basic filmmaking, while practical workshops help the students conceive and create their own Crowdfunding Video. Students with existing personal projects can choose to post their videos on an actual crowdfunding campaign website - like Kickstarter. Students who do not have an existing project will create a mock campaign on a practice site, in order to produce a practice Crowdfunding Video. Students learn filmmaking techniques in class and then go on to shoot outside class, designing a simple attainable production. As the students produce their Crowdfunding Video, they learn by doing. The goal is to provide practical knowledge of the art, craft, and commerce of Crowdfunding Videos - concentrating on how their media presentations hook the audience and sell the project. Students will learn the business vocabulary of advertising and marketing - while they also conceive, create, produce, and direct their own Crowdfunding Video (or practice Crowdfunding Video).

Students will learn how to shoot professional looking shots on prosumer cameras with minimal lighting — by applying the lessons of professional cinematography to prosumer video cameras, DSLR's, and cellphone videography. A wide variety of Camera Exercises are assigned to train the students to shoot movies with natural light and limited prosumer camera gear. 3-4 person crews are selected to work together on all the Camera Exercises, and for the Final Project as well. Students shoot with their own DSLR's, prosumer cameras, and/or cellphones. Pending availability (and CSI access) students can also choose from a selection of DSLR's and prosumer gear provided by the course (SONY A73, SONY A7R2, SONY A6400, Pocket Osmo Gimbal Camera, and Osmo 3 Gimbal for Cellphones). All camera exercises are screened and reviewed in class. Students analyze and discuss their own work and are assigned reshoots and pick-up shooting assignments to reinforce their in-class learning. Early classes work with professional lighting gear on stage and students then go out into the field to film camera exercises and music videos utilizing available natural light and small practical light kits - while employing the lighting concepts and lessons they learned on stage.

Through groundbreaking and creative nonfiction programs like S-Town, Have You Heard George’s Podcast?, and Radiolab, podcasting has taken hold in American culture over the last decade, having evolved into its own unique art form. This innovative medium is not bound by the limitations of traditional radio — podcasts can be heard anywhere in the world, produced in any language, and be of any length. In this course, students will learn how to embrace their unique voices as they produce compelling nonfiction stories solely in sound. Students will learn how to record, edit, and workshop audio stories, write for the ear and record narration, effectively employ music and sound design, and distribute a self-produced podcast.

This is a course for performers with a keen interest in environmental issues. Students will be allowed to explore various forms of performance – staged, film, digital, musical, and even installation/performance art –to find new and provocative ways to advocate for extinct and threatened species. Week to week, using a series of assigned prompts and readings, students will devise, dramatize, and articulate each of the well-known Five Stages of Grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance) to create a series of micro-short, filmed art performances. Student-artists will choose a species on the edge of extinction to monitor for the semester, researching the species' life, habitat, cultural and social relations. A “die-in” collective performance will happen mid semester—and each student will design and create a memento mori for their chosen species. The class will culminate with a collective, mixed media, performance installation on the subject of “extinction” in the style of the great experimental theatre company, The Wooster Group.

Fundamentals of Documentary Filmmaking I is an intensive 14 week course combining lectures and creative workshops to introduce students to documentary film production, basic film production tools, and basic film grammar. Students work together in crews to research, discover, design, pre-produce, shoot and direct short documentary film exercises and a final short Observational documentary Film. No pre-arranged interviews, or prepared recreations are used. Only a directional camera microphone is employed to acquire diegetic sound while observing and filming real life activity. This course serves to expand the Open Arts program’s film production course offerings by making an introductory documentary filmmaking class available. It is similar in structure and technical scope to the existing Fundamentals of Filmmaking I course - which is a narrative based course. Fundamentals of Documentary Filmmaking I will also serve as an introductory film production course for other NYU students who may have an interest in non-fiction, documentary film production courses. This course will count towards the Documentary minor. Please email Tisch Special Programs at tisch.minors@nyu.edu to ask to substitute this course for the minor.

This class is Fundamentals of Documentary Filmmaking II. “Documenting Discovery” is an intensive 14 week course combining lectures and creative workshops to fully explore documentary film production. Students will learn advanced non-fiction filmmaking techniques, including interviewing subjects, capturing visuals from real life and documentary storytelling. Over the course of the semester, students will hone their filmmaking skills through a series of exercises, leading up to a final project that focuses on a single subject. Focusing on both content and form, student filmmakers will choose a subject to research, interview and develop a documentary film with a clear narrative arc. Students can choose to focus on a friend or family member, or else they can choose from a pool of suggested subjects to document their process of artistic discovery.

This production course allows students from all academic backgrounds to expand their artistic practice, and apply film training through the lens of queer cinema. This collaborative course blends film screenings, discussions and theoretical exploration with hands-on production experience. Students will gain critical knowledge of significant works from the queer film canon, and hone their skills as filmmakers through the production of short cinematic works. In this course students will make a short film. In the beginning of the semester students will present their film idea, then shoot and edit it. The film will be between 3-15 minutes and can be a documentary, scripted, or hybrid. Students who want to collaborate on a film can co-direct. The class will culminate in a final screening of all the students' original creations.

This class used to be called History of Dance. This course explores why and how dance acts as a vital participant in cultural practices around the world. Looking back through the perspective of present research, we will examine how dance is inherently a reflection of the culture it represents. A wide overview of dance and its myriad purposes will be covered, from a means of worship in India, Turkey, and Haiti; its inclusion in the rituals of Bali; noh and kabuki theatrical traditions of Japan; fertility and death ceremonies of the Wodaabe, Yoruba, and Dogon tribes of Africa; the healing zar dances of North Africa, and the rituals/activism of Native American tribes. The presentation of court dance as a symbol of power will be examined in Hawai’i, Java, and Cambodia, as well as in Catherine de Medici’s Renaissance pageants and in the French Baroque spectacles of Louis XIV's Versailles and the Paris Opera. The inevitable impact of politics on dance will be examined in viewing the bloody genocide of Cambodia’s Royal Dancers; the propagandist works of China’s Cultural Revolution; the French Revolution’s influence upon Romantic ballets such as La Sylphide and Giselle; and how the repression of a Gitano culture led to the emergence of flamenco in Spain. In addition to written texts and video documentation, we will review examples of related art forms (visual arts, music, and drama).

*Note the Spring 2024 version of this class will be called Why Dance Matters: From the 1960s to Today. This course offers a dynamic exploration of the history of dance from the 1960s to the present day, with a particular emphasis on its ability to address societal inequalities, serve as a medium for social activism, enable cultural interpretation, increase access and function as a platform for ritualistic expression. Our journey begins by examining the Judson Dance Theater and the avant-garde postmodern dance movement, which challenged conventional modern dance techniques. We will explore the intricate intersections of gender, class, and race within the ball scene of New York City in the 1980s and 1990s. We'll also delve into non-codified practices like Ohad Naharin's Gaga technique and "Improvising While Black" by Mayfield Brooks. Additionally, we will study contemporary dance forms, including emergent technologies, influenced by the work of Merce Cunningham and John Cage, the innovative tanztheater of Pina Bausch, the architecturally rooted “gesamtkunstwerk” work of Robert Wilson, and performances by artists like Narcissister, who deconstruct stereotypes through embodied performances. This course will also engage with disabled dance artists, such as Alice Shepard, who prioritize accessibility as an ethic in their work, as well as dance activists like Yanira Castro whose work is “rooted in communal construction as a rehearsal for radical democracy”. Throughout the course, students will actively participate in extensive research, critically analyze performance videos and documentaries, and engage in profound discussions regarding the role of dance as a medium for cultural expression and social commentary. Guest lectures by practicing artists, scholars and dance writers will be a key component of this course.

This course examines the Western fascination with the moving body in different cultural environments and throughout colonial and postcolonial historical periods until the present time. It will begin by investigating early images and artistic representation of the body in motion captured by European ethnographers at the turn of the 19th century, and continue tracing it to current trends of contemporary culture. The goal of this course is to develop a critical understanding of the culture built around the body as subject as well as a marker of otherness. This course will offer students an opportunity to study and articulate, intellectually and physically, the legibility of bodies in motion within different cultural landscapes. Bodies in Cultural Landscapes will provide an open forum in which to investigate human movement within the specific aesthetic system and cultural practice of early ethnographic representation to contemporary culture’s engagement with the moving body. It will offer insight into personal and cultural identity, stimulating an expanded recognition and appreciation of difference. This course offers students the opportunity to explore simultaneously their intellect (in class viewing, readings and discussions), as well as in the presentation of their own version of ethnographic research and representation based on a topic of their choice discussed with instructor. Students will engage weekly with exercises and assignments based on course material.

Part studio and part seminar, The Dancing Body focuses on the practice and history of movement and choreography in the context of Modern Dance and Performance Art in the second half of the 20th century. Though the exploration of ideas in cultural studies/dance studies essays, reviews, and writings by dance artists, students will engage with a range of physical activities and conceptual performances in practice and theory. This course offers a unique opportunity for students to simultaneously pursue creative/physical practices while exploring the intellectual discourse that informs them. The goal of this class is to generate an artistic environment where students develop collaborative relationships throughout the creative process individually as well as collectively.

In Performing Anatomy: Body Technology, students will experiment with human anatomy as technology for composing original works. We will begin this process by learning movement patterns that survey the human anatomy. We will build onto this knowledge through improvisational studies that invite composing original multidisciplinary works in response to biomechanics like motion, force, momentum, and balance. Our practice in the studio will be supplemented by reviewing images, texts, sound and video as reference material. Students will produce studies in their chosen media. These multidisciplinary studies finalize each module and are presented publicly in a collaborative final performance.

This is an introduction to the dances and rhythms from Africa and the African Diaspora. Through movement, students will explore certain aesthetic characteristics that help to classify the dances as “African.” Traditional and or cultural dances and rhythms from various regions in Africa and the Caribbean will be taught along with the basic rhythmic patterns that are the foundation for the dances. There will be an emphasis on specific West African movements that have been transported and transplanted to the Americas. Class will consist of an extensive warm-up, including floor work, stretching, and isolation exercises that utilize elements of the Katherine Dunham isolation technique. This course has a nonrefundable lab fee.

This course is an introduction to Modern Dance technique that exposes students to basic concepts of movement in space and time. During the semester students will engage in a weekly physical practice that will prepare their bodies to move safely through space and expand their physical abilities. Students will explore a multitude of exercises aimed at organizing their bodies and deepening their physical awareness to prepare them to perform pedestrian, stylized and codified movement material demonstrated and generated by them upon instructor’s prompts. Through this weekly movement practice, dancers will gain confidence and muscular strength to learn and to execute choreography; understand and translate rhythmic patterns; and improve their spatial awareness. Weekly participation is paramount to success in this course. Grading will be based on student’s work developed in and out of class with homework assignments due every week. There is no pre-requisite for this course, all levels of dance experience are welcomed.

The purpose of this course is to enable the student to gain a heightened awareness, appreciation, and knowledge of dance through movement and performance. We focus on the foundations of dance such as control, aesthetics, alignment, dynamics, athleticism, musicality, use of space, development of learning strategies within a group context, and personal, artistic expression. The students exploration of their creativity, expression and concepts, as well as their work on other dancer's bodies is part of the work of this course. Through individual and collective kinesthetic participation in unfamiliar patterns, the student is physically and conceptually challenged and informed. Students will be asked to problem solve as homework assignment and in-class composition exercises. Dance experience is recommended, but formal dance training is not required.

This course is an introduction to the fundamentals of classical ballet technique. Its goal is to help students develop a clean and precise technical base for ballet dancing. Through the instruction of proper alignment and dynamic imagery, students will learn how to dance safely and effectively, and improve their comprehension of the ballet form in relation to music, space, time and energy. Eventually students will experience how the mind, body and breath come together to produce greater freedom in movement. The technical content will vary according to the skill level of the class and the individual dancer. All levels are welcome. No previous dance experience is required. For the dance-history part of the course, students will examine the evolution of ballet from the time of Louis XIV through the present, and explore different styles of training and performance presentation through the use of images, video, practice and discussions. Reading assignments will explain how social changes have affected the development of ballet technique and choreography.

This is an introduction to the dances and rhythms from different styles that comprise Hip-Hop dance today. The first stage of the course will explore the wide array of styles that comprise and influence Hip-Hop movement. This course will not only introduce steps, but investigate root moves and historical context that shaped contemporary Hip-Hop today. During the course, students will also discuss the current and emerging trends of the genre. As an ever-evolving dance, this class will focus on budding dance styles, such as Flexing, Lite feet and Finger Tuts, comparing and contrasting those to case studies of past styles that emerged, (or re-emerged) to become heavily popularized such as Gliding, Krumping and Waacking. Additionally students will explore the globalized nature of Hip-Hop. To see the full evolution, students will see how other cultures have embraced and left their mark street styles, and how international dance battles and competitions have emerged, ultimately changing the landscape of Hip-Hop dance. Over the course of study students will begin to realize the complexity, the history and the varying opinions focused around Hip-Hop.

This movement and performance course fosters the creation of interactive experiences that blur the lines between performers and audience, utilizing unconventional spaces for site-specific choreographic structures. Throughout the semester we will immerse ourselves in time-based performance art, emphasizing embodied choreography that challenges the confines of the traditional proscenium stage. Students will be expected to engage confidently in physically demanding movement vocabularies, bolstered by frequent performance opportunities. Set against the backdrop of New York City's rich cultural legacy, the course takes place in outdoor settings at various landmarks. With the inclusion of guest artists, students will collaboratively craft public performances, which will be documented on video. Our goal will be to probe the role of public spaces in articulating social commentary, melding choreography, activism, and performance art, and offering a unique opportunity for students to enhance their movement skills in notable urban locations, honing their performance capabilities within an ensemble. The desire and passion to participate and engage in movement and performance as an ensemble is required.

This course is a continuation of classical ballet training designed for students who have had previous training or have taken Ballet I and are looking to further develop their technique, learn new steps and expand their vocabulary at the intermediate level. In Ballet I, we traced the basic ballet vocabulary back to the time of its birth at the court of Louis the XIV. Students developed their ballet technique, and experienced the growth of ballet up to the early-1900s avant-garde choreography of the Ballet Russes. The period that followed is considered the most pivotal in ballet history, and it is this era that will be the focus of Ballet II. Students in Ballet II will not only look into the different training styles of ballet technique, but will also learn about some of the 20th century's most famous ballet dancers, as well as notable ballet productions from both the East and the West.

This course is a level II in dance practice designed for a student with an intermediate level of familiarity and experience with Modern dance. It further improves on the physical training offered in Modern Dance I, but is not predicated on previous enrollment in that class. The class focuses on the physical articulation of various movement vocabularies, collaborative exploration of partnering, and ongoing in-class discussion to deepen the connection of self-awareness through learning and executing movement. Each class will involve set choreographic material as well as improvisation practice as teaching tools to deeply inform movement training with intention, efficiency and artistry. Students will be encouraged to pay close attention to their own movement learning experience instead of focusing on replicating the movement they learn. Movement material will include floor work, traveling, balancing, jumping, turning and will be shaped by these principles. Previous modern, contemporary or equivalent experience is required. Students are expected to know the basic tenets of movement:  Learning movement and executing choreography in detail  Ability to reproduce complex movement material  Comfort in dealing with full-bodied movement through space  Basic knowledge of physical skills  Commitment to a weekly physical practice set up by instructor  Timely presentation of homework assignments

This course is a laboratory for students interested in exploring the works of master choreographers, exposing them to an in-depth study of choreography by focusing on the steps, rhythm, structure, style and historical/conceptual contexts of iconic choreographic works ranging from 19th-century romantic ballet to contemporary work. This exploration will be accomplished physically: students will learn dance excerpts with attention to the physical details of steps, style and phrasing, allowing them to acclimate their own bodies to the universe of specific choreographies. Students will be able to execute these choreographic works while developing a deeper understanding for the choreographers’ creative process and artistic decisions, inviting them to physically experience major artistic shifts in19th- and 20th-century dance aesthetics as they immerse themselves in the process of choreographic reconstruction. From classical ballet’s ideals of beauty, to the uses of narrative and the social/political/religious function of classicism, and finally through to the deconstruction of dance tradition in postmodern performances, this course exposes students to dance’s living archive while encouraging them to develop a critical perspective on the art of dance, its historical impact and future directions. Each session will be devoted to the recreation of seminal works from a variety of styles—Cambodian dance, Ballet, modern dance, postmodern dance, etc. Beginning with a twenty-minute warm-up based on a physical technique tailored to each specific style (whether a simple ballet warm-up, basic Horton technique, Pilate’s based exercises, etc.), physical technique will be complemented with readings, viewings and discussion that focus on each historical work. All readings and viewings will be uploaded to create easy access for students. For midterm, students will perform one of the works already covered. For the final project, students will choose a favorite work covered over the semester and develop—in dialogue with the instructor—a solo, duet or a small group piece based on this work. For two weeks preceding these projects, students will build a compositional method based on the creative process of their chosen work. Details and guidelines about the final project will be discussed individually with the instructor. In addition, students will write a three-page paper on their chosen work due on the penultimate week, with guidelines distributed at the beginning of the semester.

Performance as Protest examines the art and act of performance as an influential model for social activism, civil disobedience, and community mobilization. Students will delve into the works of historical and contemporary artists who radicalized their choreographic practices to promote social advocacy and revolution. Ranging from participatory mass actions to intimate personal storytelling, how can a performance disrupt a space, a consciousness, a culture? Lectures will explore the performing body as a site of healing, empowerment, and resistance to systemic injustices and erasures. Correlating exercises will introduce students to the fundamentals of strategic planning and permissions for public, site-specific performance, alongside a deep consideration for the politics and ethics of inhabiting ‘place’. Students will have the unique opportunity to work with a roster of local and internationally-acclaimed artists whose bodies of work intersect with urgent social causes and have catalyzed community and critical change. Sections will be led in collaboration with Tiffany Rea-Fisher of the Juneteenth March (NYC) and Black Lives Matter; Yara Travieso of the Women’s March; Sydnie Mosley of “The Window Sex Project”; Emily Johnson of “Being Future Being” and organizer of the Decolonization Rider for Indigenous Land Rights and Acknowledgements; Ishmael Houston-Jones and Keith Hennessy of “Unsafe/Unsuited” and its recent revival, “Try”, in response to the HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 pandemics; Eiko Otake of “Offering” and “A Body in Places” in part with her research of “ground zeros” from 9/11 to Fukushima; and lead faculty, Danielle Russo, organizer of “Final Notice” in response to climate change on the Brooklyn waterfront and community artivist with organizations, such as El Puente. Course materials range from artist manifestos to documentary films, oral histories, essays and scholarly articles, and work samples of the actual performances explored in the curriculum. As an ongoing critical thinking and writing practice, students will participate in group discussion boards that pose reflexive questions about each section, tracing its historical lineage and impact to the present moment. As an accumulative project, students will work in groups to write their own manifesto in response to a social cause, politic, or movement that resonates with them. Next, they will prepare a strategic plan for a performance event or experience that builds awareness and/or community around said cause. Centered on peer collaboration, each planning process will delegate roles for researching the historical and ongoing contextual significance of their chosen cause, community, and/or site; landscape mapping and virtual scouting; safety and risk management; public response and engagement; production entities and materials; and movement modalities. Students will present their work at the conclusion of the course for constructive peer feedback.

French philosopher Jean Baudrillard proposes the concept of hyperreality as the condition in which human consciousness struggles to discern between actual reality and simulations of reality, particularly within societies that are deeply influenced by advanced technology. In the 21st century, hyperreality has become ubiquitous in mediated life, as society becomes more intertwined with social media, virtual and digital environments, and performance spaces. In this course students will engage in the aesthetics and theories of hyperreality in order to create a performative happening that reflects on the embodied experience of contemporary life. Through collaborative research, students will integrate choreography, improvisation, technology, and visual elements to craft an immersive experience that collapses boundaries between performers and audiences. Students will be encouraged to explore experimental compositional strategies where communication unfolds across screens, through bodies, and within designed environments by employing digital performance and mixed reality techniques. Potential tools and techniques which may be utilized include artistry in real time technology, live streaming in performance, motion capture, machine learning, TouchDesigner and wearable technology. This class will include critical discussions and hands-on workshops during which students will refine their artistic vision. Participants are invited to devise an interdisciplinary performance practice in order to bring their installations into being. By engaging in this course, students will gain practical experience in creating and producing interactive installations activated by performance, aiming to create transformative projects where reality and the contemporary imagination converge.

In the 1940s, Maya Deren, a trailblazer in choreography, dance, and experimental filmmaking, pioneered the groundbreaking concept of "choreocinema": a genre merging dynamic camera movement with dance. In 1970, media artist Gene Youngblood, penned the influential work "Expanded Cinema"--exemplified by Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable, a revolutionary multimedia performance project melding live rock music and avant-garde film Projections. Today, contemporary artists like Jacolby Satterwhite carry forward this legacy, amalgamating choreocinema and expanded cinema through mediums such as performance, motion capture, and digital animation, to forge immersive installations. Their work resonates with our present era, marked by the ubiquitous presence of screens that have profoundly redefined our perception of reality, corporeal existence, and digital identities. "Choreocinema and the Expanding Eye" offers an immersive exploration of dance film, media installation and live performance using the interplay of time, space, movement and the human body. It introduces the concept of multi-channel installation, inviting students to design participatory multi-sensory environments that are nonlinear, experiential, and activated by live performance. Using digital tools and software, students will explore the art of “dancing for computers'', capturing and transforming choreographed and improvised movement into media projects, as well as choreographing and directing their peers. Students will also orchestrate 'happenings' that blend digital media with real-time artistic expression incorporating spatial and sound design. By the course's conclusion, students will have a strong grasp of the core principles of Choreocinema and the ability to navigate the evolving landscape of contemporary digital media as it pertains to the proliferation of screens around us. Formal training or experience as a director, choreographer, editor, cinematographer, creative technologist, dancer, performer, editor or producer are not required.

This course will explore the basic tools of digital imaging. We will cover the three main Adobe products for creative imaging - Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. Through a series of short assignments we will look at various graphic design and layout ideas using Illustrator and InDesign and will touch on the wealth of image enhancement techniques afforded by Photoshop. The short assignments introduce the basics of design, typography and compositing images. Students have the opportunity to complete a small project of their own for the end of the term. Class time will be divided between lectures, critiques, and work in class sessions. This course is not intended to completely cover the software listed, but will give students a fundamental understanding of the possibilities of digital imaging. While the majority of the class focuses on print media (images, books and magazines), we discuss the growing importance of screen output. We do not have time to cover specific web or media projects, but will address transferable skills and understanding. We will incorporate some Adobe apps to augment the desktop applications. Additional reading materials will be distributed during the semester. Students should have access to the Adobe Creative Suite through the NYU license.

This course explores the pictorial articulation of individual human likeness and its fiction in the public forum. The art of portraiture has survived its own origins in myth making and archetype building. The human image, or icon, forever landmarks the voices, textures, physicality, spirituality, symbols, politics, aesthetic concerns and military contexts, religious rituals, government, calendar ceremonies, daily functions, heroic acts and social disorders of diverse cultures throughout recorded history. It is the history of creation, the story of romance, the mark of progress, the record of royalty and the profile of democracy. It is the revolution of fine art and a catalyst of discipline. Imaging the individual in the public eye is the story of humankind. This course bridges the worlds of the oral and written mythologies which inhabit and empower us and the creative manifestation (conscious and unconscious) of these ancient archetypes into contemporary art, media and design. Students will critically rethink the implied and material presence of portraiture in everyday life. Students will gain practical knowledge and insight into the origins and potential power of the archetypes which permeate our collective unconscious.

Today, many documentarians consider themselves working within a well-defined human rights framework where images and film are used to raise awareness about social injustice. On the far edge of this movement, however, there are writers, photographers and filmmakers whose work calls attention to the traditional documentary ethics of bearing witness but whose modes of representation blur the lines between fact and fiction. This body of work is more open-ended to interpretation and multiple readings, which also include more personal themes such as loss and melancholy, the ephemeral nature of time and memory, nostalgia and change. While not a production course per se, most students create short poetic films for their midterms and finals. The course is a great opportunity for students to open this door on short-form media production for the first time even if they wish to shoot on their smartphones. We will study several different kinds of visual poetics such as combining documentary photos with literature, artists working with archives and found images, the essay film, the personal diary and journal film, the performance film, ethnographic poetics, and new trans-media platforms and webdocs. Some of the writers and artists we will study include Roland Barthes, W.G. Sebald, Chris Marker, Christian Boltanski, Forough Farrokhzad, RaMell Ross, Roland Barthes, Miguel Rio Branco Charles Burnett, William Greaves, Agnes Varda, Margaret Tait, Robert Gardner, Jean Rouch, and Jonas Mekas.

This course explores unruly images, bodies, faces, spaces, aesthetics, and even feelings that exist at the margins of categorization, making these powerful subjects for artistic work. We will manipulate image-making tools and give form to expressions that reveal the hidden structures of power. Through lectures, discussions, workshops, and readings, we will look at topics such as memes and glitch art, cyberface and AR filters, monsters and glitched bodies, uncanny valley and AI images, as well as liminal space and collaborative world-building. We will pay particular attention to selected writings from Hito Steyerl, Legacy Russell, Rosa Menkman, and Adam Greenfield, and apply these critiques to emerging perceptual technologies (volumetric 3D capturing, machine learning, AR/VR, web-based 3D game engines) that students will use to create their projects.

This course examines the artistic career and creative work of Walter Murch, Oscar-winning film editor and sound designer, and the first and only artist to win Academy Awards for both film editing and sound mixing on a single film (The English Patient, 1997). The class will provide an unprecedented inside look into Mr. Murch’s processes of sound designing, editing, mixing, writing, and directing on such acclaimed and memorable films as THX 1138, American Graffiti, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, Return to Oz, The English Patient, Touch of Evil, and Cold Mountain. Through interviews, articles, and materials from his private archives never before publicly available, students learn about the creative world of an artist who has brought the importance of sound and editing to a new level. In addition to his work in film and his inventions used in the filmmaking process, two additional areas of interest of Mr. Murch will be examined: translations of Curzio Malaparte’s writings and his passion for astronomy. Mr. Murch will participate on several occasions in the course as a guest lecturer by visiting the class and/or via video conferencing.

Impact Producing is an emerging field in the film industry that uses issue-driven films as catalysts to create social, political, or cultural change through advocacy and engagement. Just as films have producers to manage the creative and financial process from script to screen, they also increasingly need Impact Producers to take the film campaign from production to impact. This hands-on class will guide participants through the essentials for becoming an Impact Producer by identifying key skills and goals. Participants will learn the scope of work necessary for building allies and partnerships, creating and measuring successful campaigns, and transforming passion for social change into a viable career path. Each semester the class will work in groups to create an actual impact strategy for a film in current release as a final project. As part of the course, students will be expected to attend one screening at a NYC based film festival (e.g., DOC NYC, Fall 2018)

The role of the creative producer in the entertainment industry is integral to bringing a project to fruition. This introductory course covers both the creative and physical production time-line and provides students with an understanding of the producer's role through a semester-long team-based pitch project, which culminates in written and verbal pitch presentations. Students are encouraged to work on a project that best suits their area of interest: feature film, episodic/streaming, theatre, performance, podcasts, VR/AR or individualized multi-media. The course focuses on the dynamics of producing, including producer skill sets, tasks and responsibilities necessary to effectively and efficiently develop a project.

This course de-mystifies the film development process and teaches students the key tools necessary for a successful career as a film executive or producer.  This course will chart the key stages of finding and preparing a good script for production. These steps include how to find, evaluate and shape material from the producer's perspective. Students will learn the practical art of writing script coverage and notes, as well as how to establish a tracking group and develop tracking reports for new material. Other topics include the role of key players in the process, such as agents and studio executives, and how to avoid "development hell." 

Whether you are a filmmaker looking to better understand how to build a cohesive and productive film crew; a theatre maker excited about building a performance project or theatre company; a multi-media artist looking for ways to innovate your ideas for artistic work in collaboration with others; an artist looking for tools for building an artistic ensemble, or a multi-disciplinary artist looking to take your creative work out into communities as social practice, this combination lecture/activity-based class provides you with tools for better understanding how to enter into and engage others in collective creative work of purpose. Multi-Disciplinary Arts Practice with Community Groups: Theories and Practice explores the challenges and benefits of making artistic work with others and the tools needed to create meaningful collaborative projects. In this class we interrogate definitions of community and group, explore the balance between group process and producing an artistically excellent project, and examine the processes of creating artistic work with others to strengthen our own artistic voices while helping raise the creative voices of others. With its focus on social practice, this course provides a foundation for working with small group structures in a variety of community settings and professional creative work environments. The course satisfies a CA major requirement as well as a social science requirement for all other Tisch students.

This course challenges us to foster a tactile understanding of the relationship between art and social change. How do artists address social issues? Can art transform lives? How can art serve as a force for encouraging ethical dialogue and action within the public sphere? How do we make our ideas and revelations actually matter within our collective place and space? To better facilitate our understanding of this relationship, and in an effort to get inside these key questions and others, this course will unfold in two parts. Part I (Conversations on Art and Social Change) will be run as an interactive seminar in which we will explore how the desire to change the world has led some artists to align themselves with wider social movements. Through lectures, discussions and presentations, we will set about to engage ourselves with the work of contemporary artists who have addressed issues related to the environment, racial and cultural identity, human rights, healthcare, and social justice. We will assume that understanding the work of others is necessary if we are to appreciate the potentiality of our own impact on the world. Part II of this course (A Collective Gesture Toward) will entail challenging ourselves to participate more fully in our immediate surroundings vis-à-vis the development and implementation of a work (or works) of art.

Taking off from the practices of medium-based art categories, this course is structured across key topics in contemporary art - “art of today, produced by artists who are living in the twenty-first century”. During the semester, via the framework of readings, projects and assignments, we will consider the importance of the visual arts in the larger context of society. Each week we will look at a different topic, which will be organized around key concepts, artists and artwork examples. The main goal is to allow us to contemplate the process of interaction between visual art, history, cultural, socio-economical, and technological forces. The stress of our gatherings will be on the artist as a thinker and a maker.

This course is about successfully illuminating some of the formal, contextual, cultural, and social dimensions of Experimental performance vis-à-vis the critical study/practice of improvising. Because the professor believes that improvisation presents itself as a non-hierarchical (ideally), process-oriented practice, that claims no victories and is rooted in a listening self, the class will construct this course together as an ensemble; an open, unpretentious and wholly democratic approach will carry us into our 15-week experimentation.

Knowledge Systems: The Poetic and the Algorithmic introduces students to a series of critical texts and art practices and invites them to adopt a similarly critical approach to their own work. With texts ranging from 1st century BCE to today, the course through weekly prompts, in class discussion and a deep reading, examines non-dualistic thought and the role of emotion, the sensual and performativity in the making of the world and art. Instances of such non-dualistic thought in art, science, philosophy, and craft are looked at as a way to question established knowledge systems and propose new futures. Non-dualistic thought is approached here as a way to escape established binaries and create a space that goes beyond good/bad, right/wrong and instead invites multiplicity and a wide range of perspectives and voices. Starting with Mallarmé’s seminal poem, “A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance,” and concluding with Muñoz’s essay “Feeling Utopia” from his book Cruising Utopia, where he opens with Oscar Wilde’s quote: “a map of the world that does not include utopia is not worth glancing at,” the course challenges students to “feel hope and to feel utopia” as a form of resistance to established dystopian narratives. In particular the course approaches artificial intelligence as a non-plural contemporary knowledge system and asks students to reflect on the world view that technical systems establish. Following such reflections, the course urges students to explore ways to counter monolithic systems by engaging with uncertainty, the poetic and embodied interactions.

Curating the Work is a class that invites students to collectively curate an interdisciplinary show, define its theme and produce work that responds to that theme. During the semester and through a series of talks, museum, gallery visits and performances, workshops and critiques, the students will have the opportunity to fully develop a piece of work, curate and critique each other’s work, and produce a cohesive show. Students are invited to come to class with a project already in mind, one that they possibly began in a previous class or during one of the Jams, and will have the opportunity to bring it to full maturity and dive deep into its intention and engagement with the audience. Process, ideation, reflection, critical thinking, interdisciplinarity, talking about their work, reflecting on their practice, and curating a final show are all part of the class. The proposed theme is that of perception and how to make the audience aware of their own perceptions, but the theme will be left open for the students to finalize and define its direction. The word curate comes from the Latin curare, meaning “to take care,” and curation as caring, and along with it the ethical dimension of art and the responsibility of the artist will be explored in the class. Selection and arrangement, defining space, and the flow between ideas and practices will be important parts of the student’s journey along with an emphasis on developing a research methodology in one’s artistic practice. Museum, performances and gallery visits and readings will be assigned as the semester progresses and in response to the direction the final show will take.

An introductory course on the basic techniques employed in writing a play. Class includes discussion of samples of the students’ work in addition to discussion of theory and various theatrical exercises. Students read selected plays to enhance discussions of structuring a dramatic piece of writing. The course addresses actors writing material for themselves and focuses on character and dialogue as well as examining scene work, outlining, and the completion of a first draft of a one-act play. This course counts towards Theatre Studies requirements for Drama students and as elective credits for other TSOA students.

One hundred years ago, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch famously advised writers: “Murder your darlings.” (The Art of Writing, 1916.) Harsh words, perhaps--but it is in the process of revision that the real writing begins. This course is a continuation of the principles learned in Playwriting Practicum I, with a special focus on the work-shopping and developmental process of a new work for the stage. A concern this semester will be with the process of DECONSTRUCTION—using a text’s assumptions of completion against itself. Class discussions and exercises will examine methods for improving dialogue, crafting satisfying reversals, generating material, enriching characters while maintaining consistency, as well as advanced structural considerations of the 3-act form. The semester begins with a radical re-treatment of a master work. We will attend, as a class, the Elevator Repair Service’s revision of THE SEAGULL at Skirball. A sustained analysis of methods of critiquing—both self and others—is an ongoing concern of the course. Students will emerge with a revised one-act or full-length play. PREREQUISITE: Please submit a writing sample to Professor Steven Drukman (sd13@nyu.edu) for permission to enroll.

Always thought you had that perfect concept for a streaming TV show? Curious about what makes those shows tick, and to see if you have what it takes to collaborate on a show that works? Focused on the development of the half-hour streaming ‘prestige' TV series, The Writers’ Room is an Intermediate and Collaborative TV Screenwriting class that addresses the latest forms of shows that sell, on the platforms that dominate the market. Shows like The Mandalorian, Ted Lasso and The Bear are 'binge-worthy' because along with dynamic stand-alone episodes they present connected dramatic arcs stretching over seasons. Often these shows are developed with multiple writers, in a format known as the 'Writers’ Room.' Along with conceptualizing a show, the class is intended as a practicum in collaboration, modeling the Writers Room to prepare the future screenwriter for one of the central forms of commercial storytelling. In this class we will cover what it actually takes to break into TV writing and create a roadmap to developing not only a great TV episode but conceptualizing its entire first season. What will sell a great show? Great premises, fulsome outlines, dynamic pitches, engaging decks, etc. How do you 'break' an episode and build provocative story arcs? Students will emerge with a group-conceptualized deck for an original show as well as that show’s original pilot--all done in the form of a structured workshop environment, with the last half of the class modeling the writers room. Our main texts are current shows that fit within this context. Note: this is a rigorous, collaborative class that requires significant out-of-class meetups with your group colleagues, so please be aware of the time commitment.

Adapted from the Dramatic Writing Program’s popular “Introduction to the Sitcom” course, this intensive scriptwriting class answers the question, “What do I need to break into TV writing?” – the student will be guided through the step-by-step development of an episode for an ongoing TV sitcom, from premise line to one-page outline, to pages and revisions. The course will require the completion of a polished draft while introducing students to the rigors of professional standards through weekly story goals.

If autobiography is a retelling of the events of your life from beginning to end, then memoir—from the French for “to remember”—is an examination of some events of your life through a particular frame. We tell stories drawn from our lives all the time, but we sometimes fail to consider the themes and ideas that connect those stories with themselves and with each other; that failure robs us in turn of the opportunity to understand better both the world and ourselves. Each week of this course you’ll both read and write thoughtful memoir; by the end of the semester, you’ll be able to write reflectively about your own past, examining not just the stories you tell about your life but also those stories’ deeper meanings, their part in shaping your identity, and their echoes in your present and your future.

This is a team-taught workshop that encourages you to find your own voice and learn to merge your unique artistic vision with those of other collaborative artists to create exciting new musical theater. The course will start by covering the basics of songwriting for the theater, but it is not a music theory class; we’ll be focusing more on using music to tell stories than on compositional techniques. Together we’ll examine theater songwriting craft, issues of communication between artists of different disciplines, and storytelling through music and text. Poets, playwrights, and writers from other genres, and composers from a wide variety of stylistic backgrounds ranging from pop to classical, country to hip-hop, rap to jazz to fusion—all are welcome to participate, regardless of experience or lack thereof. We aim to create a supportive environment in which you feel free to experiment and to explore both what musical theater has been and what it can become. Note: most of your homework will be done in collaboration with one or more of your classmates, so expect to spend a significant amount of time working with others.

All art production has an environmental impact. To develop sustainable studio practices, artists must familiarize themselves with the consequences of material choices and processes, such as their carbon footprint, supply chain, environmental justice issues, land use, water footprint, toxicity, and end-of-life management. This studio sculpture class is a combination of hands-on experimentation in the classroom and a series of site visits to facilities in the metropolitan area to conduct research and to find inspiration for the development of new artist practices. Workshops in the classroom include experiments with mycelium, bioplastics, vegan adhesives, and nontoxic paints as alternatives to commercially available products. To understand the links between the fast demands of disposable culture and its effect on biodiversity, exhaustion of natural resources, and climate change, we will visit a recycling facility, an oyster reef, and a rooftop farm to learn about environmental projects and initiatives on a city scale. For class projects, students will invest their creativity to do more with less impact by reusing, repurposing, and recycling the city's abundance and waste. These projects will highlight the resourcefulness of artists’ imagination to invent new solutions in the studio and communicate to audiences the urgency of the paradigm shift needed to tackle the challenges of the climate crisis.

Combining science and the art of storytelling, this course will tackle one of the most pressing issues facing the future of humanity: Abrupt Climate Change. In a unique collaboration with NYU physical climate scientist Professor David Holland, students will research and create work that bridges the divide between science and the public through accurate, creative science-based storytelling. This highly multidisciplinary, hands-on course welcomes students from all backgrounds and fields of study to imagine and invent creative ways of telling stories about this global phenomenon and to investigate solutions. Weekly assignments will lead to a final collaborative project and an exhibition open to the public.

Thesis: All art uses technology. Technology is not art. Whether a work of art is created to bridge the supernatural, convey experience, thought, or a world view, or something more, art is a three letter verb representing the result of an individual’s desire to create difference. This course is an exploration in technological literacy for all NYU students. Students will create a website, capture, edit, and publish digital media to their sites, use software to create objects through subtractive (laser cutting) and additive (3D printing) machining processes, build circuits, learn to program a microcomputer, and build a functioning computer-controlled object.

Integrating aspects of music appreciation and rhythmic training, this class will explore the broad stylistic diversity of Latin American music today by tracing the roots of some of its most impactful styles and connecting them with its newest manifestations. New Perspectives in Latin Music: The North will focus on the Caribbean and the US. The instructor will provide an overview of rhythms, vocal characteristics and musical forms of genres such as Cuban son, merengue, salsa, timba and reggaetón analyzing the new trends and crossovers that this music is experiencing now. The course will also discuss the fluid exchange between these new movements, American popular music and the global scene. All class meetings will incorporate critical listening sessions combined with rhythmic training that will include body percussion, circle singing and improvisation. All new skills and elements will be directly applied in performance, composition and production assignments, including exercises on vocal phrasing and freestyling, beat making and songwriting. The instructor will provide a library of original samples to draw from. Throughout the semester, the students will have a chance to interact directly with internationally renowned percussionists, producers, vocalists and songwriters who will provide their own original approach through guest lectures on selected topics. Basic DAW skills required.

This course will cover both traditional and non-traditional financing and fundraising in the worlds of entertainment and the arts. Although our focus will be on the film world (with an emphasis on feature films), we will take occasional forays into the worlds of television, theatre, and music. We will also look at product financing. The goal of the course is to provide students with a framework for understanding the dynamics (as well as the specific routes) to raising funds for artistic endeavors. Many entertainment projects require significant capital before they can be realized. The negotiation and structuring of these deals may be a humbling experience, fraught with compromises that affect creative control over the final product. Producers need knowledge of financing tools and structures, an understanding of current economics driving the business, and skills in understanding new technologies and trends in funding. At its core, the course will help students develop a general understanding of fundraising and financing in the world of entertainment and refine the skills necessary to develop proposals that allow them to one day realize a creative vision.

Contemporary music applications is an intermediate music production and computer music class. The course will encourage a creative approach to using recording software as a tool that can be applied to music making for a wide range of interdisciplinary practices. Students will be introduced to mixing, sound design, advanced audio/MIDI editing, and production techniques for composing music. It will explore concepts and questions such as how does sound re/de/contextualize an image and how are dynamics created through mixing and effects processing? This class will encourage students to step outside of their musical comfort zones to further their technical skills in composing and producing music with software.

Sound is physical. It can move objects, vibrate surfaces, perceptually alter our emotions, and shape the way viewers engage with spaces. As artists, we are conditioned to aspire to situate our work within traditional settings. How can we reposition sound as a main element of a work within unconventional contexts? This course will use the question of a sonic utopia as a platform to create interdisciplinary projects that exist between installation, sculpture, video, performance, movement, and music. Students will learn sound theories through lectures and in-class workshops and are encouraged to incorporate their individual interests into each of the four main projects that aim to position sound as a primary element of a work in order to expand the possibilities of working with sound.

The foundations of Max, a powerful visual programming language for music and multimedia, will be covered in this course. We will examine how computers can be utilized to create situations for music creation, performance, and collaborative improvisation as well as applied to building interactive, generative music. In addition to learning Max's fundamental building blocks, we will also use fundamental music theory as a tool to better understand music making. We will create programs that examine rhythm, melodies, chords, scales, and recognize other qualities of music like timbre, texture, and dynamics while taking into consideration the principles of harmony, melody, and rhythm defined in basic music theory. The final will require you to develop a collaborative piece of interactive computer music, a collaborative performance environment, or another final project that has been discussed and agreed upon together. This class does not require any prerequisite programming skills or prior music theory knowledge.

This course is a funded real-time incubator where enrolled students will serve as the record company for two selected Clive Davis Institute artists, handling all areas of promotion, marketing, publicity A&R, and the social media marketing components of the artist project launch. Students will be given a budget to coordinate and execute defined strategies and plans created within the confines of the class with the goal of furthering the career of the artist and successfully reaching outlined success touch points. Course will include input and oversight from a major label partner with interest in looking to this course as an A&R source for potential signings.

Scripted podcasting has emerged as a powerful cultural force, and has created its own brand of storytelling. This 7-week class, taught by award-winning producer Chris Morrow (“Mogul,” “Summer of ’85”) takes students through the research, construction and scripting of narrative podcasts, with a special emphasis on stories related to music and the arts.

This course will present students with the scholarship and practice regarding the increasing use of game systems and game consoles to compose and perform music. From Nintendo, Atari and Commodore 64 to Playstation, Minecraft, Unreal Engine, and more, we will cover home-brewed software, hacks and circuit-bending. We’ll look at the large communities that have sprung up on every continent since the early aughts, dedicated to spreading the knowledge and appreciation of chiptune and VGM (Video Game Music). We will interview the BAFTA nominated, award-winning Northern Irish artist Chipze, on her personal experience in chiptune. And we’ll talk with hip-hop “nerdcore” artist, Raheem Jarbo, aka MegaRan about how he grew his career internationally. We will examine the sharing ethos and loyalty in these communities and how this can create opportunities and evolve for some into a functioning business model. Lastly, we will have hands-on sessions in class and learn the basics of how to make music with game systems. Students will be encouraged to connect to the learning in a variety of ways, depending on their focus: Possibilities include workshopping their own creative projects, developing business plans and community models and writing about the work of a particular artist, demographic within the community.

Fifty years after 1960s, the tumultuous events of that decade haunt our consciousness. Music is the most obvious example of how the “spirit of the 60s” still fascinates us. But no one can grasp the power of ‘60s music without understanding its political and aesthetic context. The style and substance of rock are intimately related to broader social currents of the time. This course will help you to understand those connections, and the logic that informed the music. We will explore major movements associated with the ‘60s, including the counterculture, the sexual revolution, the New Left, Black Power, Second-Wave Feminism, and Pop Art. We will consider the roots of 60s sensibility, from the Beats, hipsters, and existentialists of the postwar era to the folk revival of the early part of that decade. We will examine the philosophical currents of the ‘60s through some of its leading literary figures, including James Baldwin, Allen Ginsberg, Marshall McLuhan, Herbert Marcuse, Susan Sontag, Ellen Willis, and Tom Wolfe. In addition, we will discuss the aesthetic strategies of Andy Warhol, who influenced everything from rock music to cinema and art. We will discover how the rebellion against distinctions between “highbrow” and “lowbrow” culture produced a new aesthetic sensibility central to the rise of rock. These artifacts will be examined alongside music with a similar spirit, so that they can be experienced contrapuntally. Iconic songs will be presented against material from other media so that their congruencies are evident. I will use my own experiences as a prominent rock critic in the ‘60s, and my personal interactions with important rock creators—such as the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison—to bring the era alive, leaving you with a new perspective on how the music and the values of that generation were related to your life. And hopefully it will be groovy

As with Creativity in Context 1 in which the purpose of the course is to contextualize the core curriculum of the The Clive Davis Institute to incoming first year students, this course delves deeper into the exploration of creativity throughout various disciplines and career structures. In opening this course to the NYU community, we will be linking academic disciplines, philosophy, and culture to creativity and discovery in practice. The course will offer seven workshop style lecture/conversations with senior faculty, and working artists or professionals who have traveled an varied journey throughout their careers. This exposure to, and opportunity for a deeper conversation, will lead students to better understand the relationship between academic study & self-development, artistic & commercial achievement, as well as coupling art and industry with politics and current events.

From Concept Album films of the 1960s to the MTV revolution of the 1980s and 1990s to the innovations of YouTube and Virtual Reality, this class will examine how the convergence of visual and auditory mediums has created some of the most impactful art. We’ll extract the great lessons from the pieces we study and utilize our production skills to create videos, on-stage visuals, and songs of our own. We’ll also investigate how the creation of videos alongside songs has disrupted the marketing and sales fates for the music industry multiple times. If you’re interested in the convergence of visual art, music, technology, and business, you’ll have fun in this class.

Streaming Economy represents a great paradigm shift in the music industry and its monetization. In 2013, digital streaming of music replaced the CD as the main source of music sales and has provided economic hope to a – commercially speaking - weakening industry. However, with artists such as Thom Yorke, The Black Keys, David Byrne and many others speaking out against the royalty of streaming services like Spotify, streaming, in its current structure, as a permanent replacement for CD and digital download sales remains a controversial subject. Through this course the student will be guided through the history of streaming, the controversies surrounding its business model, and the technology that made it possible. Students will be introduced to the new storefront of online music and be shown how the digital marketplace is changing music marketing and artist development. Streaming offers exciting new opportunities along with serious and complex challenges. This course will examine the pros and cons of the current streaming status quo. The student will practice techniques of releasing music online through a hands-on workshop, which will lead them through the beginning steps of registering, and releasing their own project via Phonofile and WiMP on all major platforms and services.

This course focuses on the business of music publishing, which has served as a powerful engine fueling the growth of the music business since the first decade of the 20th century. Song copyrights are among the most important and valuable assets that musicians and songwriters have. Knowing how to protect, manage and monetize these rights is more critical than ever. This course is targeted to students who aspire to careers as recording artists, songwriters; record producers, artist managers and music executive, among others Course topics include: roles and responsibilities of music publishers identifying new markets for songs, structure of the music publishing companies, different music publishing deals and their terms, music publishing revenue flow, practical aspects of music publishing administration and licensing, and music publishing as an investment. Students leave with a practical understanding of music publishing as a business; and with tools and strategies for turning songs into sustainable sources of income.

This class is targeted to DIY Music creators, songwriters, recording artists, and music rights owners who want to acquire, develop and manage their songs and act as their own publisher. In this class, students will learn about music publishing ‘s main royalty sources, Mechanical, Performance, Synchronization and Digital, how they are generated, maximized and protected. Topics include: the music publisher’s role and responsibilities which including getting exposure for songs and collecting monies earned from their exploitation. Students learn the different steps involved in starting up and running their own music publishing companies. They are also exposed to effective marketing and business strategies that will best position them for music publishing success.

Music supervision and music licensing are two of the hottest topics in the music business. This class will introduce you to the creative, financial, legal, and technical sides of music supervision as well as teach you the nuts and bolts of music clearance and licensing. We will look at the many different facets of a music supervisor’s job, and the services they provide for all types of media projects, including film, television, advertising, video games, online/apps, and more. If you aspire to have a career as a music supervisor, licensor, publisher, artist, songwriter, composer, producer, and/or creative entrepreneur, this course is for you. Some of the topics include: breaking into the field, opportunities for music placement, how to pitch and get your music placed, different parties involved in all sides of the licensing transaction. You will be exposed to complex business challenges that music supervisors face and learn the mindset and strategies needed to successfully overcome. Through readings, discussions, lab assignments, and case studies like Straight Outta Compton and Broad City, as well interactions with special guests, you will gain a real-world understanding of the music supervision field as well as the many opportunities that music creators, and rights owners can leverage to take their career to the next level by understanding music licensing

This course is specifically designed for students who want to (i) explore artist management as a possible career path; (ii) learn about the day-to- day creative and business sides of artist management (e.g., what managers do and how they do it) before starting to manage and (iii) manage themselves as a DIY artist, songwriter, producer and take control of the creative and business aspects of their career. A manager’s job is to nurture, oversee and promote their clients’ careers —from independent, DIY artists to multi-platinum superstars. Through readings, case studies, written assignments and guest, the students will learn about key principles and creative, business, legal and sides of artist management, the training, knowledge, skills and preparation required to step into the role, and the process of artist management that includes developing a vision, finding the right artist to manage or deciding to self-manage and getting business affairs in order. The next course in sequence, Artist Management Lab, REMU-UT 1261 offers students the opportunity to implement the knowledge and strategies learned.

For course descriptions, please see here: https://tisch.nyu.edu/clive-davis-institute/curriculum/course-offerings. Please know course descriptions will be found under the sponsor section, REMU-UT.

This course is geared to all students interested in live music event production and the technical and business aspects involved in planning, developing, and producing a live music event. Topics included: talent and venue contracts and negotiations, primary and secondary revenue streams budgeting, marketing, best practices for promotion and more. Course work includes lectures, interactive class discussion, peer and self-assessments, short answer analytical responses and hands-on collaboration on the production of one live music event. By the end, students have the skills and a framework to book and oversee all aspects of a live music event - whether for themselves or for any artists with whom they work.

This course offers new tools for creative vocalists across all music genres who wish to delve into a more spontaneous and innovative approach to live performance. Through weekly guided individual and group exercises, students will experience improvisation and live looping as tools to elevate their vocal performance, enrich their music vocabulary, develop their creative skills and infuse self-confidence to their artistic practice. The instructor will work with her own card system (360 IMPROV), a box set which uses seven different parameters of exploration: rhythm, melody, harmony, sound, activity, text-language and concept. Classroom sessions and assignments will encompass practices like circle singing, live looping, body percussion, and spontaneous composition projects. The goal of this class is to guide students towards the development of a versatile instrument that can make a diverse array of artistic choices The provided training will also aid students in discovering their unique musical identity and refining their capabilities to transform their voices into instruments that faithfully convey their creative vision.

How to develop an activist relation toward a foreign country placed in a diplomatic blockade with little to no visiting access and in face of a continuous flow of hyperbolic content about the country by the mainstream news media? This course answers this question in the case of Iran through investigating and developing an artistic and critical encounter with the rich and complex cinematic and moving image resources and archives of and about Iran that have emerged since the World War II, the Cold War, the Islamic republic in the aftermath of the anti-imperialist revolution in 1979, and the recent wave of cyberdemocracy after the disputed election in 2009. The course pays particular attention to an ethical conceptualization of "diplomacy" as instrumental in understanding of the course of democracy in Iran through art activism. In this course, we travel through two sharply contrasting sociopolitical and cultural eras before and after the revolution of 1979 through visiting a variety of cinematic movements and film titles. We investigate artistic negotiations as well as problematics of gender, ethnic, and racial representations through the prism of film analysis and social history. We draw from online and offline archival resources, philanthropic foundations, US National Archives, YouTube and digitized videos of documentary and fiction formats including video journalism and televisual commercials. While some films have been available commercially, a large volume of the media presented in class are rarely available in public. The course is organized primarily as workshop sessions of film and media analysis, brief lectures, and discussions of reading assignments. Course readings include a concise combination of primary archives, memoirs, historical surveys of Iranian cinema, introductory theories of art activism and public sphere, and important case studies of more recent digital media activism. Theoretical readings are chosen as historicized articles in narrative format in order to contextualize digital technologies and environments and to help students relate to culturally and historically unfamiliar situations. Assignments include weekly journals, viewing films outside classroom in small groups, group presentations, and short papers. No prior knowledge of Iran and/or Persian languages are required for a successful completion of this course.

Does the Turkish German filmmaker Fatih Akin, the Lebanese Brazilian novelist Milton Hatoum, the Japanese Peruvian poet José Watanabe, the Singaporean Australian writer Kim Cheng Boey, and the Tunisian Swedish novelist Jonas Hassen Khemiri have anything in common? In an increasingly multicultural, multilingual, transnational yet increasingly divided world, what insights do the works of these architects of the imagination offer to narrowly defined strata of Eastern culture? How do they add to the ongoing dialogue between East and West—on cultural translation, migration, the refugee crisis, conflict and love? How do they help us pose fundamental questions? This course is a laboratory for the exploration of major cinematic and literary oeuvres by the Asian and Arab diaspora living in cosmopolitan cities worldwide: Berlin, Paris, London, Rome, the Scandinavian capitals (Europe and the United Kingdom); Buenos Aires, Brazil, Chile, Mexico (Latin America); Montreal, New York, Los Angeles (North America). Each week we explore a global urban space and those creating there. As a starting historical point, the course examines their migration or exile, and the current cultural context they are creating in. Central to this class is exploring the diversity and complexity of their aesthetics and stylistics, the unique artistic voyage they take us on, the ways their creative productions address social issues, and the richness and intricacies of these societies. In our cross-disciplinary and cross-border conversations, we also examine how urban life and the cityscape create imaginative spaces, and the unique language these artists are originating on the page and screen.

The City and the Writer: New York City is a laboratory for studying New York City, works written about it, as well as creating new works inspired by it. New works—poems, short stories, short plays or films—that will serve as a map for possible journeys as they reinvent and talk back to centuries of debates on immigration and space, culture and literature. A cross-disciplinary and cross-border conversation that examines how urban life and the cityscape create imaginative spaces, and the way words create cities. NYC as a global space will be explored in the works of American writers with backgrounds from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and the Caribbean. How does the city shape the form of writing and language? How has literature challenged certain theories on space, and narratives constructed around urban identities? We will explore different neighborhoods and their histories and meet different inventors. Students get the unique opportunity to meet numerous residents, from theater makers, designers, architects, artists, filmmakers, feminists, actors, comedians, chefs and bodega owners. Discussions will revolve around private and public spaces, ruins and constructions, traditions and modernity, memory and hyphenated identities, literature and society. The class will integrate film, photography, painting among other medias, to enrich the visual study of NYC. The city is the stage that will inspire the students’ new works. Every block in NYC is a different film set; this class offers students the opportunity to be part of the magic and to create their own story here.

Games 101 is the foundational course for the NYU Game Center. The focus of Games 101 is game literacy – a shared understanding of games as complex cultural and aesthetic objects. The class will incorporate lectures, discussion, readings, and writing assignments, but the primary activity of the class is critical play – playing games in order to better understand and appreciate them. The class will cover games on and off the computer, including classic and contemporary board and card games, sports, and games on the PC, internet, and consoles.

Introduction to Game Development is a practical course that introduces students to the methods, tools and principles used in developing digital games. Over the course of the semester, students will work alone to create a two digital prototypes or ‘sketches’, before building on them to produce a final polished game, using the lessons learned in the earlier prototypes. This is a hands­-on, primarily lab­-based course, and so the focus is on learning ­by ­doing rather than on reading and discussion.

This is an intensive, hands-on workshop addressing the complex challenges of game design. The premise of the class is that all games, digital and non-digital, share common fundamental principles, and that understanding these principles is an essential part of designing successful games. Learning how to create successful non-digital games provides a solid foundation for the development of digital games. Students will analyze existing digital and non-digital games, taking them apart to understand how they work as interactive systems. A number of non-digital games will be created in order to master the basic design principles that apply to all games regardless of format. This course is subject to a non-refundable department fee, please see the Notes section for more detail.

This class is an overview of the field of video games that approaches them from several theoretical and critical perspectives. No special theoretical background or prior training is needed to take the course, but to have had a broad practical experience with and basic knowledge of games is a distinct advantage. Also, an interest in theoretical and analytical issues will help. You are expected to actively participate in the lectures, which are dialogic in form, with ample room for discussion. The course will prepare the student to: - Understand and discuss games from a theoretical perspective - what are the components of a game? - Apply new theories and evaluate them critically. - Assess and discuss game concepts and the use of games in various contexts. - Analyze games, and understand and apply a range of analytical methods.

Introduction to Programming for Games is a course that introduces students to the concepts, problems, and methods of computer programming, and how these apply to the creation of video games. Throughout the semester, students will have weekly programming assignments, first using Processing with the Java programming language, then the Unity3D Game Engine with C#. There will be a midterm game in Processing and a final game in Unity. The course assumes no prior programming knowledge, and is designed to touch on the basic principles of digital design in form of computer code. There will be an emphasis on programming fundamentals; they will be motivated through the lens of designing and producing video games.

Identity and representation are two of the most pressing and complex issues for contemporary video games, that without recognizing them an artist or critic would be missing a large part of how games are important in culture. With growing art and activist communities, video games are diversifying and grappling with a wide range of topics rarely seen before in the genre, and with it a greater need for informed perspectives on the topic of how marginalized people are depicted in media. This course discusses foundational theories of identity and encourages students to contribute their own ideas towards the design and interpretation of representation in games.

Intro to Visual Communication builds a foundation for visual literacy and visual design thinking. The class focuses on the fundamentals of visual communication – line, color, composition, typography – as well as their application in a variety of contexts. You may or may not end up being a visual designer or artist, but all kinds of game design and development involves visual thinking. The philosophy of the class is learning by doing. Each week, in class and out of class, you will be creating visual projects on and off the computer. Sometimes you will be drawing in a sketchbook or making paper collages. Other times you will be using visual design software, such as Illustrator and Photoshop. The goal of the course is to connect the visual exercises to skills and issues related to directly to games. Sometimes we will be working on fundamental skills. Other times, we will be applying those skills to game-related problems.

Introduction to Game Engines is a course intended for students who already have an understanding of programming fundamentals that introduces concepts, problems, and methods of developing games and interactive media using popular game engines. Game engines are no longer just used for the development of games, they have increasingly gained popularity as tools for developing animations, interactives, VR experience, and new media art. Throughout the semester, students will have weekly programming assignments, using a popular game engine. There will be a final game assignment, as well as weekly quizzes and a final exam. The course assumes prior programming knowledge, if students do not have the appropriate prerequisites a placement exam may be taken. There will be an emphasis on using code in a game engine environment as a means of creative expression.

Traditional stories, following Aristotelean principles, have a beginning, middle and an end; develop with rising action building to a cathartic ending; and play out in equal time and space with a communal (if passive) reader or audience. What happens when these traditions are subverted and the story is not traditionally structured? How does changing form change content and how do unconventional formal elements influence medium? How are developments in interactive storytelling reflective of culture, history and advances in technology? The course objective is to examine the history of interactive storytelling across media: literature; adventure and puzzle books; hypertext; ARGs; ergodic and electronic literature; theater; film and television. Students will engage with this history through analysis and discussion, as well as through critical making.

THINK LIKE A GAME DESIGNER is a class about collaboration, systems thinking, problem solving, communication, and the creative process. The course uses game design as the way to practice these essential creative skills - but it really is a course about how to design anything. Over the semester, students will work in groups to actually make a series of playable games, each project offering lessons in how to brainstorm, conceptualize, prototype, iterate, and playtest. While we will be discussing the design and culture of videogames, the focus of the class is hands-on physical game creation: card games, board game, social games, and physical games. Along the way, we will be touching on all of the things that make games work - mathematics and logic, aesthetics and narrative, psychology and economics, technology and culture. Because games operate across all of these areas, they are the perfect way to practice how we can design with all of these factors in mind - systems thinking to storytelling to designing for human contexts. The final class project will make use of your own field of study as you link game design thinking to the analysis and redesign of a real-world problem.

The course traces the documentary film from its origins to the present day. Pioneer documentarians like Dziga Vertov and Robert Flaherty saw in documentary film the ability to portray life with a kind of truthfulness never before possible. Early Polish filmmaker Boleslaw Matuszewski wrote that while “the cinematograph does not give the whole truth at least what it gives is unquestionable and of an absolute truth.” Since those heady days, it has become all too clear that documentaries have no special access to the truth. Nevertheless, as this still-young art evolved, documentarians of different schools constantly sought new means to tell the human story. Documentary filmmaking has always been a blend of artistry and technical means and we will also explore this critical relationship. The course explores the development of the documentary and the shifting intentions of documentary filmmakers through the evolution of narrative approach and structure paying special attention to the documentary tradition’s relationship to journalism. Students examine how different filmmakers have gone about trying to convey “reality” on screen both through the use and avoidance of narration, through interviews, editing and dramatizations. Throughout the semester, students investigate how image-driven medium attempts to report stories and the ways an emotion-driven art can be problematic for journalistic objectivity. Finally, the ethical and journalistic responsibilities the documentary filmmaker are discussed. Special attention is given to dramatic re-creations, the filmmaker’s relationship to his/her subjects and the construction of narrative through editing.

This course, while not a production class, is designed to give students the opportunity to learn each stage of the documentary filmmaking process from the best working professionals in their field. Each week we will watch a documentary and meet someone who had a pivotal role in the making of that documentary. Our guests will include producers, directors, cinematographers, sound engineers, editors, writers, film composers and sound mixers. These professionals will share their experience and expertise with the class and answer questions about their work thereby providing a foundation of insight into the decisions, tools and skills that go into the making of good documentaries. Class discussions will explore the creative and technical decisions involved in the making the film.

Many films - both narrative and documentary - aim to present some form of “truth” and reality to the audience. This innovative course challenges students to think outside the box, inspiring a unique take on what it means to tell a true story in the cinematic artform. We will examine films that blur the line between documentary and fiction, calling into question the notion of portraying "truth" in cinema. We will deconstruct how filmmakers' selection and presentation of visual materials reveals an artful manipulation of reality in order to evoke meaning and emotion. The class will use films as texts to explore how cinematic storytelling attempts to create and subvert representations of reality. Films watched in the course include "Stories We Tell," "This is Spinal Tap," "Medium Cool," "The Act of Killing" and more. Through a close analysis of films that challenge our notion of what is “real,” students will interrogate the notion of truth in cinema, and discover a new way of thinking about film narrative. In this course, students will meet virtually to screen clips from films, participate in remote workshops, and engage in lively discussions. Student work will include written film analysis, and students will also put theory into practice through the creation of a remote video exercise based on this theme (using cellphone filming, archival material and footage taken from both real-life and fiction films). This course inspires students to see the art of cinematic storytelling not as a narrow construct, but rather one that allows the filmmaker to blend veracity and creation to produce original narratives.

The primary objective of this semester is to free up the artist’s channel through physical training. This work happens under the notion that the body is a channel through which we process our experiences into motion and sound - whether that be through acting, filmmaking, writing, etc. When the channel is open, you learn to connect with and respond more spontaneously to an environment without tension or pushing. A large portion of the freeing-up process is psychological, which requires an understanding of and connection to your emotional and physical self. The mindfulness component of the movement work encourages you to be permissive with your habits, experiences and emotions as they develop in the body. However, this is never accomplished in a vacuum. The unique insight of this training is the necessity for you to be in contact in order for the work to take-hold. This happens through regularly practiced ensemble exercises drawing from Pilobolus and Viewpoints techniques. The concept of “play,” begins to take hold, as you understand improvisational movement without tension or anxiety - working less cerebrally and more kinesthetically. Pulling from exercises of Michael Chekov, Lloyd Williamson, Joe Hart, Steve Paxton, Allen Wayne, and Julia Crockett- you are given an arsenal of physical vocabulary and challenged to become fearless, expansive, unapologetic, and creative. A large portion of the work focuses on the studies of Rudolf Laban’s “Eight Efforts.” These Laban Efforts are the springboard for a final composition choreography project, where you will be asked to create your very own movement piece.

What is comedy? WHY do we laugh at all? WHAT makes us laugh? How is comedy today different from yesterday; how is it the same? Combining theory with practice, this class endeavors to explore comedy both critically and in performance, embodying the comic even as we theorize about it. We will look at comedy historically, and as it manifests in various genres, as well as break it down structurally – all the while keeping an eye to the cultural influences that inform all comedy. The primary mode of exploration for this class will be stand-up. Arguably the most prevalent form of comedy of our age, stand-up offers us a window into how all comedy works, including: the importance of surprise; comedic timing; comedic structure; and comic situations and characters. In terms of content, we will address status as a location for humor; the importance of the body in comedy; and cultural taboos. In addition to working on our stand up routines, each class will have a critical component, and class discussions will serve to deepen our evolving routines. Of particular interest is the examination of (and distinction between) comedy that affirms cultural norms versus comedy that subverts these norms.

The dreamer is at once the author, the actor, and the audience for a performance that takes place while the dreamer is unconscious. Whether regarded as omens, as products of our unconscious wishes, or as our brain’s way of cleaning up memory space, dreams are an undeniable component of the human experience, and, in addition to generating many theories, they have also served as inspiration for artists searching for a direct route to the unconscious. This class is an investigation of dreams as a springboard for art. At once theoretical and practical, the class will begin by examining the main theories regarding dreams, ranging from Freud and Jung, who pioneered psychological interpretations of dreams, to the more scientific research of the later 20th century, wherein dreams are seen more neurologically, as a way for the brain to process and sort information. After laying in the theoretical foundation, the class will focus mainly on a succession of dream performances inspired by the dreams of class participants. While dreams are experienced by the individual dreamer, these projects will all be collaborative, and involve working in groups of 3 or 4. Each will be staged in three-dimensional space in real time, and endeavor to create the dream experience for the audience. All should be multidisciplinary in nature, containing elements of theater, sound, visual art, video, and other emerging technologies. Throughout the term, we will screen movies (which in themselves have provoked theories that liken the experience of watching a film to that of dreaming) and look at images from art-history inspired by dreams. We will also investigate games that use dream content as their governing narrative engine. This will enable us to appreciate the wide range of strategies that artists have used when making art based on dreams – from using dreams to explore the non-linear logic of the individual’s unconscious (as in the surrealists), to the more communal dream experience of modern trauma (as in El Abrazo de la Serpiente). This wide range of inspiration should act as a model for our explorations as we create our own dream plays.

This course provides a foundation for understanding and practicing the craft of the actor. Beginning with theater games and improvisations, class participants will be challenged to explore and stretch their physical and emotional ways of expression and the scope of their imaginations. Students will begin to work with scripted material in the second half of the course and will learn basic script analysis to support their work with text as they integrate earlier exercises into presentation of scripted material.

Building on Acting I: Introduction to the Actor's Craft, this class provides students with techniques and skills designed to help them make the transition from theater games, improvisation and basic text work to detailed scene study. After beginning with ensemble building exercises to create a safe and supportive environment conducive to bold, creative exploration, the class will focus on methods of script analysis; playing actions; particularizing emotional meanings; ways to make creative choices while respecting the playwright's intent, and how to balance spontaneity with precision and aspects of character development. The goal of the class is to enable students to make the journey from text analysis to a full, immediate and inventive embodiment of the given circumstances, character adjustments and dramatic action. Scenes will be drawn from a wide range of dramatic material. A NOTE ON ZOOM: it works wonderfully as a medium for the actor. It’s closer to film acting, but you will do everything to prepare, that you would in going on stage, or in front of a camera. You must be living in the moment with your partner: Zoom allows for the development of a real, personal relationship. Your living space is your “green room.” You can see yourself in a little box, and can “frame” yourself, as if you were behind the camera. Scenes will be recorded, so you can view your work. Rehearsing in Zoom is especially convenient. The acting exercises that I use, we will also do on Zoom. We will make full use of Improvisation.

January & Summer: This course is an active workshop for actors who want to explore and cultivate their filmic talents, directors and writers who want to create performances that exploit the potential of the camera. Unique to acting for film is the intimate relationship between actor and camera. The actor/camera relationship is highlighted within the remotely taught environment. Prior acting experience and training is not required. Breaking down and filming scenes from television and film scripts, actors learn to make nuanced, authentic choices based on commitment to action, responsibility to text, investing in subtext and understanding what their physicality and behavior reveal. Being directed and watching others directed will give clarity to the role the actor plays in this visual storytelling process. The audition will be demystified through improvisation of a casting session.  Rehearsed and cold audition material will be filmed and experienced in a live setting and as a self-taped submission. Captured with Zoom’s ever-presence, the workshop participation will be a “live” experience of instruction, discussion and filming of work: on-screen exercises, rehearsals, improv, and directed performances of audition material and scenes. Each actor works on camera every session. Actors will be guided  to learn  “On-Location” production by filming their own work on a separate device, program or app. Self-shot filming is an opportunity to experiment with framing, use props on hand, and available spaces and lighting. Bringing production elements, building the frame with the director, the actor participates in the balancing of production detail with focus on their own performance. Placing one's self within the “bigger picture” will expand understanding of the actor’s role in visual storytelling. Self-shot recorded footage, not exclusively being shot on Zoom, has the advantage of capturing a higher quality, closer to studio level footage, that is also not dependent on internet signal strength and connectivity at the time of recording. Spring & Fall: This course is for actors who want to explore and cultivate their filmic talents, directors and writers who want to create performances that exploit the potential of the camera. Unique to acting for film is the intimate relationship between actor and camera. Experienced actors and those new to acting begin working before the camera the first class. Breaking down and filming scenes from television and film scripts, actors learn to make nuanced, authentic choices based on commitment to action, responsibility to text, investing in subtext and understanding what their physicality and behavior reveal. Being directed and watching others directed will give clarity to the role the actor plays in this visual storytelling process. The audition will be demystified through improvisation and practice of rehearsed and cold audition material. There will be an overview of the business aspects of professional acting, including casting and actor representation. The goal is to be a better screen actor, trust yourself, feel confident and be comfortable auditioning and working on professional sets in the future. Footage and scenes are available to each student.

This course provides a hands-on exploration in performing Shakespeare’s work and offers a guided frame for freely and fully accessing and living out the text in performance for a 21 st century audience. The focus of the class is on breaking down Shakespeare’s text for literal and emotive meaning, finding our own connections to the characters, stories, and circumstances in Shakespeare’s plays, and allowing the material to come to life through in-class exercises and rehearsals. Students will work on a monologue, a two-person scene, and a final ensemble piece involving the full class. This studio acting class is open to students at all levels of experience. The course will not count as studio credit for Tisch Drama majors.

This class explores the acting of comedy through theater games that focus on comedic techniques such as quick change, neurosis, obsession, shift of status, body part out of control, etc. as well as through analysis and performance of comedic text. If drama holds a mirror up to life, comedy holds up a magnifying glass. The boldness of choice and degree of commitment demanded by comedy are what make it so difficult to perform, especially because bold choices must be supported by psychological truth. Characters' objectives, obsessions, needs and phobias are what compel them to act in comical ways; if actors don't find the pain and truth of these catalysts, their behavior becomes silly, and the comedy, shtick. The exercises employed in this course (many of which have their roots in commedia dell'arte) help participants to free their bodies and voices, allowing them to commit both boldly and truthfully, and will be used to analyze and bring to life comedic text from television, to movies and theater.

This is a creative workshop designed for playwrights who yearn to act and actors who have an itch to write. Using one’s self as material, participants create a short solo performance for an end-of-semester presentation. The lab combines physical work (both group and solo) with in-class/out-of-class writing exercises aimed at enhancing students’ capacities to transform the stuff of their real lives into mimetic fiction. The final composition may stand alone as a finished, self-contained piece or may be an extended monologue planned as part of a full- length play, given the creator’s primary interest (solo-performance vs. playwriting). In-class exercises, group critiques (though the instructor prefers the word “responses”) as well as analysis of other artists’ solo performances are used to shape students’ final compositions.

We will use the semester to concoct, then create, then perform a finished theatre production. The semester will use the first 7 weeks to write the play—assigning scenes to be created by solo student playwrights, but also devising material collaboratively in pairs and larger groups. We may also choose to combine our original work with already-existing texts, adapt/deconstruct a classic play, incorporate interview material, etc. The second 7 weeks will be comprised of the rehearsal, tech and the final performance. Students eager to wear many different hats (designer, playwright, technician, composer) are encouraged to enroll—though everyone will be cast as performers. The culmination of our efforts will be a play to be staged and performed before an audience.

We will explore the tension between the live and the scripted, the performed and the texted--almost entirely in the field of theatre but also in some other genres of performed events. A series of productions will be carefully curated to see different artists' renderings of these two aspects of the live event, and we will sustain an interest in other dualities, including the tension between the virtual and the real, the rehearsed and the improvised, etc.

What makes a musical a musical? How did the most major form of Drama in America come to be? This survey of American musical theatre, with an emphasis on its significant and unique contribution to US popular culture, will trace the musical’s relation to 19th century popular entertainments such as minstrelsy, vaudeville, and burlesque, examine its critical affair with popular song and dance forms from throughout the 20th century, and celebrate its continual reimagining of itself up through present day. Through the reading of librettos and the listening to scores we will also analyze the “bones” of the art form: the structural elements that define the fully Integrated musical: plot, character, song, dance, orchestration, setting, and design – all blended together into a seamless whole, and all completely hinging on the collaborative process for creative inspiration and ultimate success.

A comprehensive introduction to producing for New York's professional Off-Broadway theaters. The goal of this course is to equip students with the skills to enable them to manage the responsibilities inherent in a professional production. Following a review of the Off-Broadway theater movement, traditions and current trends, the class will take a practical approach to preparing a play for the stage. Students will complete a semester long project which will have them guide a play from "option to opening." Course study will include: play and venue selection; comprehending agreements; fundraising; budgeting; assembling a creative team; marketing and audience development; pre-production, performances and the closing.

Urban Arts Workshop–New York is composed of lectures, presentations, screenings, readings, discussions, and visits from painters, photographers, filmmakers, writers, designers, architects, planners, restaurateurs, curators and critics designed to expose students to the key concepts and fundamental theories of urban studies, public art and the urban-inspired works of many great artists and writers based in New York City and around the world. Outside of class time, students will do readings, conduct research, watch movies, post reactions and do various assignments that engage the core course subject matter and themes. Each class will explore another form of urban art, including discussions about and encounters with graffiti, street photography, sculpture, installation art, architecture, music, dance, performance, theater, fashion, urban sound projects, large-scale projections, poetry, essays and short stories with an aim to understand how such art forms came into being and how they express a distinctly urban message to the inhabitants and visitors of New York City and cities across the planet. The instructor seeks to combine the critical and theoretical with the experiential and personal in order to lead students to a deeper and more fruitful relationship with cities, the arts and themselves. Further exploration will be conducted into the phenomenon of connectivity in the 21st century city providing a deeper perspective on globalism, the networked environment, and emerging technology’s role in the future of art, culture and urban living. Field trips may include: The Whitney, The High Line and Hudson Yards, Tiny Island, MoMA, Guggenheim, PS1, Museum of the City of New York, The New Museum, Transit Museum, Noguchi Museum, Governors Island and others based upon availability. Students will need a MetroCard for traveling around the city as well as approximately $50.00 to cover meals and museum tickets (this price varies depending on course itinerary).

Casting is the most recently recognized profession in film and theater. In this course, students learn how to cast a film and learn the skills casting directors employ to become indispensable members of any production, including script and character analysis, scheduling, and negotiation. Students develop protocols for evaluating resumes and auditions, and learn strategies for communicating with directors and producers to ensure the talent pool has been effectively identified. Techniques for delivering convincing and fruitful casting sessions before learning to close deals between producers, actors and agents also are presented. This class will also make students ‘audition ready’ -- equipping them with tools and techniques to better understand and get through the audition process. The course will cover the various disciplines of theater, films, commercials and voiceovers. Through lectures, character exercises and workshops students will learn strategies for preparing for an audition, developing characters, and working with professionals in the industry.

The interview is at the heart of the documentary film and many forms of media, journalism, podcasts and theater. It is a basic tool in academic research. This course will analyze the skills required to produce a successful interview: selecting subjects; preparing and posing questions; focused listening and eliciting powerful responses. Students will be exposed to some of the finest examples of interviews across disciplines demonstrating the range of styles and contexts for the interview. Whether with a random stranger, a family member or a well-known personality, students will develop the ability to conduct meaningful interviews during the course of the semester.

This studio intensive on-camera performance workshop is designed for multidisciplinary artists who want to strengthen skills specifically for acting on camera. The act of being filmed every class gives actors and performers more confidence and prepares them for working in professional settings. Class projects allow for interdisciplinary work incorporating writing, directing, music, animation, and visual arts. Actors work to develop and expand their individual set of acting techniques and technical skills that work best on screen to create specificity in "moment-to-moment being," all of which expands the understanding of the actor’s role in visual storytelling. Students perform analyzed scripted scenes, “cold” reads, and improvize unscripted on-camera exercises. Equal time and energy in this workshop is dedicated to creating new work with two projects: Bio-Pic project, and Fusion Short. The Bio-Pic project is a deep dive into character with each actor choosing a real person they identify with to research, curate, improv, write and portray in short scenes with acting and design support from other students. Fusion Short is a devised short film project. Production teams will develop and film group generated scripts. For each Fusion Short, everyone acts (cameo, supporting or lead) and takes the lead on the creative production team as head writer, director, production design, director of photography. The short is open for fusion: creators may want to interweave other art forms (dance, design elements, music, digital art, etc) into the narrative.

This next level acting course turns traditional, realistic scene study on its head. We begin with the essentials: digging into the skills for building precise, emotionally connected, intelligently crafted, character-specific, and theatrically articulate performance inside a realistic context. We then use those skills as a springboard to invent new ways of building a compelling narrative through forms of multi-media and devised storytelling. In this course students explore and expand their understanding of “what is character?” And, who’s telling the story and why and how are they telling it? This course is a laboratory for constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing narrative – a place to turn the story on its head to see what new story we can make. Students will engage in studio exercises to build clear skills in acting technique and stage composition and practice with various forms of crafting theatrical stories. In addition, students are expected to analyze, rehearse, and perform one short, realistic two-person scene, create a solo devised piece, and participate in ensemble-devised, multi-media performance pieces for a final showing at the conclusion of the semester. Students are also required to complete a detailed character/script analysis to support their exploration of the journey from realistic theatre to expanded forms of theatrical/performative storytelling.  This is a next level performance class; students must have successfully completed Acting I, Performance Practice or have equivalent experience in performance coursework to register for the class.

This course is designed to explore the actor's instrument--specifically, the vocal, physical, and imaginative tools necessary for the creative work of the actor through extensive and deeply explored scene work. Students will examine the creative process practically and theoretically, through exercises, improvisation, psychophysical actions, and text work. The course explores approaches to and theories about acting that are rooted in the techniques of Constantin Stanislavsky, Uta Hagen and Larry Moss and others, while also incorporating students’ personal/biographical material, some “found text” incorporated by the instructor to augment guided improvisations, and theoretical discussions around performance and performativity. In this way, the class combines disciplines usually found in more experimental venues. Throughout, a high educational premium is placed on the material discovered in student collaboration to generate new ideas about character. This course seeks students who are or who would like to be more adventurous as performing artists. Students who are willing to expand their imaginations, to explore the boundaries of their physical and psychological senses and who are willing to take risks onstage in the pursuit of a visceral and deeply personal connection with imaginary given circumstances within guided improvisations and scene work with their fellow actors. This course seeks curious-minded students who want to explore the motivations and inner imagery that animate their own behavior and those of the characters they will be asked to embody. This is an advanced character study course and the expectations of this class will be held to industry standards of professionalism, preparation and work ethic.