Open Arts Curriculum (OART-UT)

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.

This is a standard digital photography course designed for those with little or no experience in photography. This course will emphasize personal expression through the application of technique to the presentation of subject matter. Open Arts will have enough Sony A7r cameras for students to share. If students plan to borrow the DSLR cameras, they are first required to purchase College Student Insurance, (CSI). While it is not required that you own your own digital camera to enroll in this course, it is recommended that you borrow or acquire your own camera for the duration of this course, or if you would like to avoid having to share one of the department's cameras with another student. If you would like to purchase your own camera, a digital single lens reflex (SLR) or mirrorless digital camera is highly recommended for this course. The camera needs to have manual aperture and shutter speed controls. The purpose of this course is to develop an understanding of the technical and aesthetic aspects of making photographic images. We will apply fundamental photographic techniques such as composition, framing, lighting and manual camera controls to the images we create. We will discuss the way we see, compared to how cameras and lenses see, evaluate the similarities and differences and how that impacts the creation of images and how we analyze them. Students will make photographs that are effective as individual images and photographs that work together in a series. Students will learn how to create a narrative with a series of photographs and express a feeling or mood with a series of photographs. Class discussions will introduce students to a variety of concepts related to visual literacy. Students will also be introduced to the work of historically significant photographers from a broad range of backgrounds. Students will learn how to use Adobe Creative Cloud software to adjust images for print and digital publishing. By the end of the course, students will understand how to use a digital SLR or mirrorless camera to create compelling photographs using manual controls, process their images using Adobe Creative Cloud software and best practices for publishing their images digitally as well as best practices for printing their images. Finally, students will enhance their critical thinking skills while developing a deeper understanding of visual/photographic language. Students are expected to shoot a minimum of 108 exposures (photographs) each week.

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 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 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 learn how to utilize various building tools and techniques such as 3D modelling and printing, Shop power tools and laser cutting. 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? Why do prairie dogs, birds, and monkeys call out to warn their group of incoming predators when doing so makes them a direct target for the attacker? How did a Twitch hive-mind of 1.2 million people beat Pokémon one collective move at a time? This hands-on project studio course is about making art inspired by the communal tools that have not only allowed our species to survive this many millennia, but are the only way we can thrive in the years to come. 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, discussion, experimentation, playtesting, and interactive group activities. Each week will center on a different sphere of life (i.e. politics, religion, activism, evolutionary biology, sociology, power, pleasure, the universe, sports, games, online communities). Then together, we will break down the relationships, dynamics, and effects those systems have, and create multi-media and performance experiments inspired by these themes and ideas. The mediums you use are up to you, but we’ll all hone our skills in iterative design and playtesting.

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.

What can computation add to human communication? Creating computer applications, instead of just using them, will give you a deeper understanding of the essential possibilities of computation. Conversely excitement about your computational project ideas whether they be in the domain of art, design, humanities, sciences or engineering will best propel your acquisition of skills necessary to realize those ideas. In this class student will learn computer programming primarily in the context of images and video. The course focuses on fundamentals of computer programming (variables, conditionals, iteration, arrays, functions, objects) as well as more advanced techniques such as image processing, networking, data parsing and computer vision. The Java-based ‘Processing’ programming environment is the primary vehicle. While the example applications will be primarily in a screen based, visual domain, motivated students are encouraged to incorporate more physical interface to their projects using tools such as the Arduino. The course is designed for computer programming novices but the project centered pedagogy will allow more experienced programmers the opportunity to play further with their project ideas and make lots of friends by helping the other students.

This is an entry-level, hands on electronics course for students who are interested in working with electronic hardware as part of their creative practice. Throughout the semester we will gain a familiarity with electronic components, learn to create electronic circuits, solder and use Eagle CAD for PCB (printed circuit board) design + layout. Topics will include powering circuits, LEDs, switches, transistors, digital logic, memory, timing circuits, programmable microcontrollers (Arduino), analog input (sensors) and motor control. We will also survey past and contemporary work of artists in this field. In this course we approach electronic hardware with the intention of dissolving technological opacity and inspiring our creative practice. Our goal is to shift the way we may usually think about electronics, as inaccessible, complex, difficult and intimidating. And think about it just as physical stuff that we can dig up and use as material and subject for creative expression. This course is aimed at students with little or no experience working in this field. Lectures will be supported by physical lecture notes, a custom electronics learning kit designed by the instructor. Assignments will include assembling and soldering physical lecture notes, weekly creative assignments (with or without electronics) and a final project.

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.

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.

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 Fundamentals of Developing the Screenplay. Required work in the class includes extensive scene work. Guided by their screenwriting instructor, students will complete the screenplay begun in Fundamentals of Developing the Screenplay 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.

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.

Many people see the contexts of folk tales and fairy tales as a fragment of our subconscious conception of the drama of life as it is lived in the interior of each one of us. In this course we will start by thinking of the structure, meaning, and function of folk tales and fairy tales and their enduring influence on literature and popular culture. And as we work to an understanding, we will collectively start to make a multi-media performance work. The goal will be to challenge ourselves to develop a greater understanding of the “language” of performance by exploring the numerous prisms (e.g., body, space, sound, time, etc.) through which performativity is/can be refracted. In order to foster a corporeal interrogation this course will be run as an interactive workshop and seminar in which we will: engage in various forms of play; analyze and critically evaluate our ideas, arguments, and points of view; and learn to apply course material to improve our own performance practices.

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.

This workshop is designed to get you out of your head and into your body. This introduction to physical theater and heightened realism is based on a systematic and original performance methodology that is 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).

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).

In this course, each student will build upon the visual storytelling skills learned in Fundamentals of Filmmaking I and Fundamentals of Developing the Screenplay. (If you haven't taken Fundamentals of Developing the Screenplay but have equivalent course experience, please write to tisch.openarts@nyu.edu for permission to enroll.) Students will write, direct, produce and edit one short film with dialogue using a Sony FS7 digital camera and Premiere Pro editing software. Class time will consist of discussions and lectures on casting & directing actors, cinematography, editing, production design, lighting and sound design as well as hands-on labs where students will be trained in the technical aspects of the FS7 camera, lighting, and sound recording. Students will also develop producing skills, such as how to complete script breakdowns, budgeting and location scouting. Requirements: Each student is required to bring one 6 page rough draft script to the first class that will then be workshopped in class. Parameters for the script will be sent to students 4 weeks before the fall semester begins. This is the script you will be shooting in this class. Production Period: All films will be shot outside of class time and over four weekends from October 28th until November 20th, 2022. All students are expected to crew for all shoots.

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.

Making Webisodes is an intensive production workshop in which students create unique and compelling content for the web. Students will explore the basics of online video production, working with - concept creation - writing - directing - acting - production design - camerawork - sound - editing - online distribution - social media - web monetization - and advertising. Web series are an exploding new art form. Embedded ads, 5 second hooks, instagram stories, tik-tok, and viral videos all present a variety of new media approaches within the entertainment industry, business, lifestyle, and politics. Webisodes are short visual presentations that either entertain us, directly sell us product, indirectly sell us product, share a powerful message, investigate social issues, expose problems, celebrate joy, engage our perspective, shock us, or challenge us. Students will work with Sony FS5 cameras, microphones, and LED lights and they will also be trained to use their own dslrs and cellphones, in order to practice creating a wide variety of webisodes. Workshop assignments employ practical exercises to help the students conceive and create their own unique webisode, which can be fiction or non-fiction, experimental or satire, personal or political. Combining the powerful tools of traditional filmmaking with innovative new digital media tools, this class guides students to create dynamic web based projects. As the students produce their digital media, they learn by doing and they gain practical knowledge of the art, craft, and commerce of webisodes.

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.

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 challenge their viewpoints, explore a frequently underrepresented area of film, expand their artistic practice, and apply film training through the lens of queer cinema. This course offers instruction for students who are eager to expand their understanding of queer cinema while also creating original works. This class includes analysis and creation of fiction, documentary and hybrid films. We will create and foster a learning environment that foregrounds the voices of LGBTQ+ artists, furthering the NYU and Tisch commitments to build and strengthen a university-wide culture of diversity and inclusion. The collaborative course blends film screenings, discussions and theoretical exploration with hands-on production experience. At the end of the semester, 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.

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).

Traversing Europe, the Americas, and Asia, this course investigates the various social, political, and historical contexts that have contributed to the evolution of dance, and conversely, explores the ways that performers and choreographers have utilized the medium of dance to reflect their personal concerns back to society in powerful ways. Artistic movements, choreographers, and dancers examined will include Vaudevillian tropes; the impact of the Industrial Revolution on ballet; sexual manipulation in the roles of Nijinsky; the political work of early modern dancers; WW I and II and its aftermath in the German Ausdruckstanz of Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss, and in Japanese Butoh; the propagandist ballets of the Chinese Cultural Revolution; exploration of the commonplace in the psychological dance-theater of Antony Tudor and Pina Bausch; the anthropological research of black choreographers Katherine Dunham and Pearl Primus; exploration of Postmodern rebellion of the Judson Dance Theater; and the response of choreographers and performance artists to the Culture Wars and the AIDS crisis. Students will pursue extended research, view performance videos and documentaries, and be expected to write and talk about dance.

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. Body as Culture: 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. NOTE: After the first day of class, students will need to e-mail the instructor, Patricia Hoffbauer (ph2104@nyu.edu), for permission to enroll.

This course focuses on the way the dancing body has featured prominently in postwar United States to communicate ideas about art, entertainment and commerce. In this course we will explore the “constructed nature” of identity and how this process is transformed into performance and produced by the entertainment industry. We will investigate the multiple ways commerce intersects with entertainment and ideas and messages resulting from this combination. Class will observe, deconstruct and analyze the dancing body in 1940s Hollywood’s “Good Neighbor” musicals, advertisement campaigns, modern dance pieces by Ruth St. Denis and Martha Graham, people on the streets, focusing on the physical attitudes embodied by people/performers, to explore concepts of gender, race, parody and “realness” as captured in the documentary on 1980s New York City’s Ball culture, “Paris is Burning.” Bodies as Entertainment/Commerce will provide an open forum in which to investigate bodies in motion contextualized within specific aesthetic system, cultural practices, and political environments to offer insight into contemporary culture and stimulate an expanded recognition and appreciation of difference. The class will ultimately offer the student the opportunity to explore simultaneously their intellect supported by class viewings, readings, presentations and discussions, and their own physicality in the weekly creative assignments based on course material.

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. We will begin this process by practicing movement phrases that survey the design of our anatomy. In this case, anatomical design refers to the muscular, skeletal, and proprioceptive systems that stabilize us. We will then build onto this knowledge through investigations in biomechanics like motion, force, momentum, and balance. Our physical practice in the studio will be supplemented by reviewing images, texts, sound and video as reference material. Students will periodically produce short studies wherein they are tasked to translate the anatomical information learned into compositions. These studies finalize each module. Studies may employ digital technology.

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 introductory course explores the cosmic movement of Indian Dance from the sacred to secular through the manifestation of cosmic energies, symbolism and story telling, using the wide range of emotions, and mudras (gesture language). Rhythmic composition will also be introduced utilizing the verbal expression of rhythm called "bol" as expressed through the footwork and body movements. Various dance styles will be introduced primarily Kathak (Jaipuri Tradition), Yoga Dance, Bhangra warm-up and “Bollywood” — all playing a significant role in the mosaic of dance arts of India. This course has a nonrefundable lab fee.

This course is an introduction to Afro Cuban dances that includes various Afro-diasporic forms. Some are rooted in African sub-Saharan ethnicities like Congo and Yoruba, while others are native Caribbean manifestations such as Son and Rumba. Afro Cuban dances, both sacred and secular, are manifested in transnational dance repertoires like Latin, Ballroom, and Salsa, from the international “Rumba Craze” of the 1920s to the present. Students will explore the different aesthetics, content, and context of the dances. There will be an emphasis on the recognition of the musical patterns that identify the different dances. Classes will consist of a warm up, isolation, contextualization of the dance, floor work, and cool down using particular elements of Cuban body motion. There will be video and music samples to analyzed in the class. This class holds dance as a central means of knowledge for African Diaspora cultures, exploring the notion of the body as a sacred medium.No prior dance experience required!

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 class will embark on an historical dance journey exploring the dances that make up the hybrid form of Flamenco i.e., Banjara Gypsy Dance of Rajesthan (India), Zambra Dances of the Sephardic Jews and Moorish influences. The course will be divided into 3 sections focusing on the contributing characteristics of the dance culminating with Flamenco Dance. Each class will begin with a historical introduction and demonstration of the indigenous forms and how the elements are integrated into Flamenco cultivating a sense of freedom and uniqueness. Periodic viewing of course related videos will be shown, i.e., “Latcho Drom, and “Gypsy Caravan - “When the Road Bends.” Students will be assigned weekly reading, research and practice projects relevant to up and coming course work. All levels are welcome. Dance experience not required.

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.

How does one design a dance of illusion? Create interactive storytelling and experiential worlds? What is the process of building virtual dances for new technologies and online audiences? Site-Specific to Immersive Dance Theater: Choreographing for Unconventional Formats and Spaces (Tisch Collaborative Arts & Open Arts) is a research-to-practice course reconsidering the function, philosophy, and reality of an evolving stage. Not only is New York City a conduit for local to international dance and theater, but it is also a safe space for artists to resist the norm and re-imagine models for making. Students will delve into physical world-making for both fantasy and non-fiction narratives. Additionally, students will have the opportunity to study the history and strategies for site-specific dance as a model for social change – given hands-on opportunities to experience the roles and responsibilities of choreographer as activist and historian. Through course exercises, students will build their own body of work ranging from dances for intimate home spaces to renowned public and digital sites. Past experience in movement and/or performance training is not 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.

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.

The course will focus on the development of different artistic media over five decades of Cuba’s contemporary history and consider how Cuban works of art reflect the complexity of the country’s history, culture and changing political situations. Beginning with photography from the 1960’s that recorded the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, we will analyze the history of the post-revolutionary era, focusing particularly on the fusion of propaganda and art to construct iconic images, such as the famous photo of Che Guevara by Alberto Korda. We will study the impact of Cuban cultural policy dictated by Fidel Castro in 1961 and in 1970 through documents of the period, which determined the course of Cuban arts for decades. We will continue with a survey of the visual arts on the island and consider how they constituted highly sophisticated interpretations of the always changing reality, whether in painting of the 1970’s and 80’s or installation practice of the 1990’s. Classic documentaries and films by prestigious Cuban filmmakers (Santiago Alvarez and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea) will be reviewed and analyzed, and we will conclude with an analysis of the most recent artistic expressions: Cuban hip-hop music and the edgy video works of Ernesto Oroza, Henry Eric Hernández, and other young artists. In this most recent work, political criticism, Cuban history and deconstructive techniques collide, reflecting the multiple layers of Cuban culture and its continuing development today. The course will include visits to the Center of Cuban Studies and to The 8th Floor Gallery in New York to discuss Cuban artworks in view.

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.

This course provides a multifaceted exploration of Cuban history, culture and society from the period of Spanish colonialism, through the wars of independence and the Revolution, and into the "special period" of the 1990s, all the way to the present day. The class will be composed of three parts: (i) the class seminar/recitation, (ii) the study trip, and (iii) final project presentations. Weekly class sessions are in New York and there is a one-week study trip to Cuba during winter break (tentative travel dates: January 10-18, 2015). Through guest lectures, screenings, workshops and discussions, students will engage the arts and culture of Cuba, paying particular attention to topics such as Afro-Cuban identity, architecture, film, dance, photography, music, Santeria, theatre and politics. The class will also be able to take advantage of local exhibits, performances, theatre, film, and other cultural events current during the spring. On the study trip, students will have an opportunity to experience life in Cuba and to interact with leading Cuban artists, writers, performers and scholars.

China boasts one of the world’s oldest cultural histories—dating back over five thousand years ago—as well as one of the earliest dance and film histories. This course explores the country’s artistic legacy through Chinese arts and examines the history of China as it is interpreted within the context of theatre, poetry/literature, philosophy, film, and the visual arts. The class also explores how the cultural and arts traditions of China have been adapted to contemporary life, represented by Beijing and Shanghai’s move into the forefront of the international arts and political scene. After the course, students participate in a ten-day study trip to China, hosted by academic and arts institutions in Beijing and Shanghai.

The cultural landscape of Brazil is one of the most distinctive and dynamic in the world. This class explores Brazil’s celebrated cultural traditions in light of the country’s social and political history in general, and the legacies of colonialism and slavery in particular. In the course of the semester, students will engage in the cinema, dance, government, language, literature, music, religion, sport, television, and theatre of Brazil, all understood in connection to their African, European, and native South American ancestries. A one-week study trip to Salvador da Bahia and Rio de Janeiro gives students the privilege to witness the Brazilian culture and interact with artists, writers, filmmakers, and performers to gain a more complete understanding of life in Brazil and the diverse arts programs and performances in Brazil’s multicultural cadre.

Vietnam has a rich history of regional and cultural traditions and a complicated history of occupation, rebellion, and war. In the 35 years since the end of military conflicts and the beginning of reunification, the country has undergone some remarkable transformations. Today, with a booming economy and with two-thirds of the population born after reunification, Vietnam is modern, vibrant and exciting. Topics: Vietnam will explore the arts of Vietnam in the context of the country’s indigenous traditions and political legacies. Through weekly guest lectures, screenings and workshops, students will survey the cultural landscape of Vietnam, paying particular attention to the country’s dynastic, colonial and communist history. A ten day study trip to Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi in May will give students the opportunity to further engage Vietnamese culture and to interact with local artists, performers, writers and filmmakers.

Ghana embraces a fusion of cultural inheritances, historical transformations, traditional arts/performance practices, ethnic diversity, postcolonial narratives, national arts projects, and political philosophies. Topics in Ghanaian Culture will take a look at various arts traditions of the country, paying particular attention to their connections to historical legacies and social and political dynamics. Through guest lectures, class discussions, screenings, workshops, and site visits, students will gain a refined perspective on contemporary Ghana and its connections to art, performance, and scholarship on the African continent. For Fall 2016 the class will have the opportunity to connect with the J. H. Kwabena Nketia Archives at the Institute of African Studies in Accra.

This class is an exploration of the Bronx as historical heritage. What are the different cultural and political locations in the Bronx and who are the community agents and members who make the Bronx what it is? As the Bronx is transforming due to gentrification and as the media and developers are making poverty sexy to attract the gentry, what stories and memories does the space hold? We will excavate the people’s continuous fight to stay in the Bronx. How have communities, artists, and activists maintained cultural institutions and art in the face of systematic oppression? Students will have the opportunity to visit different locations in the Bronx and to interact with cultural-political institutions and community agents/members. Through site visits, guest lectures, class discussions, screenings, and workshops, students will gain a refined perspective on the Bronx and its social/cultural/historic contexts. Topics to be covered include: gender representation in Hip Hop, sexuality, culture and identity as organizing tools, and art as activism, with a special focus on land organizing and womyn.

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 is an interdisciplinary course for film and non-film students to better understand the industry and the historical and creative significance of digital cinema as well as anyone interested in exploring the brave new digital world. The course includes live and video-conference discussions with directors, writers, cinematographers, producers, cast, and crew directly involved with productions. Some of the films to be discussed include Miguel Arteta's Chuck and Buck, Lars Von Trier's Dancer in the Dark, Brian De Palma's Redacted, and Rebecca Miller's Personal Velocity among others. Students will view examples of how the digital revolution has been adopted and transformed filmmaking throughout the world, from Nigeria's regional Nollywood movement to South Africa's Neill Blomkamp, whose no-budget digital special effects short Alive in Joberg catapulted him straight to helming this summer's blockbuster hit District 9.

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 a satisfying creative product, and examine the processes of creating artistic work with others in order 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.

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 is a workshop designed for students who wish to raise major social/political issues in a work of theatrical art culminating in the writing of a short stage play (10-15 pages). It will include a review of theater groups that focus on activism (The Theater of The Oppressed & Belarus Free Theatre) and an analysis of plays that use texts with socio-political injustice as a central theme (Streamers, Ruined, Sweat, The Accidental Anarchist, The Dutchman, A Bright Room Called Day). The class will culminate with a stage reading of the short plays.

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.

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.

Filmmaking is a collaborative art form, and screenwriting is the first foundational element of this ideal. It is common to see episodes of television series credited to multiple people, or at least different people within each season. What does this mean? Do groups of writers working on a show write as a group, or is there some other form of collaboration? If a group of writers end up collaborating on a television show, how does that series end up as one unified whole? Most importantly, what are the benefits of collaboration and how is it put into practice? Collaborative Screenwriting will focus on the use of multiple writers in the writer’s room – the most common method of screenplay development in modern day television - as a way to better understand the collaborative process of screenwriting. By looking at the different strategies employed by multiple writers creating a series bible and scripts, we will delve deeply into several intermediate aspects of screenwriting – dramatic structure, plot evolution, character development, scene shaping and dialogue. At the same time, we will confront the true nature of collaboration in screenwriting – what it actually means to ‘combine talents’ in a work – as well as produce finished work reflecting that goal. Intended as a practicum in screenplay collaboration focused on the development of a half-hour ‘prestige TV’ series, the class will be set up as a model Writer’s Room. Each group of three to four writers will develop a series idea together, in the form of a bible, and then write the pilot script for the series, which they will workshop together. Emphasis will be placed on developing the bible/pitch deck, breaking story, and examining the various roles that make the writers room a creative and dynamic environment. Students will have a working understanding of developing episodic content, and come out of the class with a basic understanding of how a writer’s room operates. 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.

Children’s TV has been a major part of media since the early 50’s and 60’s. Shows such as Howdy Doody, Mr. Rogers, Captain Kangaroo, My Friend Flicker, and Lassie were the early pioneers of this television format, designed to engage a young audience. In 1969, educational children’s TV hit the ground running with the launch of Sesame Street produced by The Children’s Television Workshop. It was a program that researched the how, why, and what children needed to watch if the programming for them was to help improve their cognitive skills. With the success of Sesame Street other companies and stations began to launch additional programming for children. The course will guide students through the process of developing a showbible for an original half-hour educational children’s television show, and then, based upon that showbible, students will write a pilot script of their original show. The course will focus on the following educational children’s shows: Sesame Street, Elmo’s World, The Magic School Bus, Fitness Fighters, Superchefs of The Universe, Puzzle Place. DVD’s, scripts, curriculum materials, and showbibles from these shows will be examined to discover their overviews, target audience, goals, characters, and show formats. The course will also explore the impact of children’s TV in media in the United States and throughout the world.

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.

According to the World Health Organization, 6.5 million people will die prematurely this year due to air pollution. That’s more deaths due to breathing bad air than from AIDS, auto accidents, cholera, malaria, and war combined. Climate change, fossil fuels, lack of drinking water, over-population, GMOs, pollution, and the wholesale corporate campaign to discredit science are among the most critical problems of our time. Living in denial of these issues has become the West’s de facto cultural standard with only a fraction of the public taking action. How can artists, citizen-scientists, and storytellers intervene in existing narratives regarding some of humanity’s most life-threatening issues? How will you further important conversations and seize the potential to activate change? Green World explores contemporary environmental issues while guiding artists to create informed, responsible works of positive social change using technology as a force multiplier. This course is open to all NYU students interested in developing an activist’s artistic, social, and/or scientific leverage point to help save the world. This course features an optional research trip to Black Rock Forest Consortium.

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.

This class will develop fundamental screenwriting skills through a series of talks and presentations with exercises in scene writing, story development, use of genre, pitching and refining the pitch. Emphasis will be on scene study and story construction, visualization, use of the cut, understanding of movie forms, and presentation of story ideas.

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.

Strategic and Business Planning introduces the students to the process and development of strategic and/or business plans for the arts and arts-related industries. Through a combination of readings, business plan analyses, and collaborative projects, the students are exposed to all aspects of such planning and the creation of documents formalizing the planning. The class is structured as a combination of focused readings and discussions; group planning; writing, and development projects; and class presentations. Students will be exposed to and explore a specific process of planning from beginning to final presentation. During the semester, each student will be expected to engage in all of the skills that go into the making of such plans; research, analysis, writing, public presentation, and scheduling.

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.

The history of popular sound in the United States illuminates how music, movement, and performance are key to a contemporary understanding of how individual and group identity has been composed throughout the nation’s history. Unpacking this sonic history reveals how identity is connected to how race is heard, both historically and at present. In this course, we explore how race is constructed in the development of global popular music and the culture of sound in and before the 20th century in the United States. This course, in particular, will especially focus on music of the global African Diaspora from the late nineteenth century until the 1960s. We will examine how the sounds and performance of blackface minstrelsy—the first native form of popular music in the U.S.—became the basis of contemporary popular sound, ranging from Tin Pan Alley to blues and jazz, as well as to country and rock ‘n roll. Irving Berlin, Big Momma Thornton, Elvis Presley, The Supremes, Johnny Cash, Mick Jagger, Tina Turner, and Jimi Hendrix are but a few of the many artists who will be considered in relation to the history of American popular music and (racialized) sound. Students will consider critical race theories, primary and secondary accounts of popular performance, as well as selected audio and visual material to investigate how race ties into various ideas about individual and community identity, nationalism, and imperialism. In addition, students will gain a nuanced understanding of the relationship between sound, race, and American Music, as they develop critical listening skills to deconstruct how music is performed, heard, and embodied in more contemporary contexts through lectures, discussion, as well as multimedia and written projects. While racial identity will remain central to how we deconstruct the sounds and performance of popular music, aspects of identity such as gender, class, and sexuality will also be closely considered.

Queer theory is a scholarly field that might be applied to the study of popular music to illuminate how queerness shapes and is shaped by popular culture. This scholarly field emerged out of LBTQ and queer studies to destabilize normative categories of gender (male/female), sexuality (heterosexual/homosexual), and their power relations that have structured American society. Even though queer identities, experiences, and lives have become more accepted in contemporary culture, queer performers still remain largely marginalized in popular music. However, queer performers and queer performances have always been central to popular music and culture, contributing to the destabilization of systematic gender and sexuality norms. This course will explore the relationship between queer theory and popular music, as we consider ways that the spectrum of queer identities has been articulated, constructed, performed, and consumed within popular music and society at large. In addition to introducing students to foundational texts in queer theory and identity studies, we will critically consider how the lives, performance, music, and reception of selected musical figures have contributed to the conversation of queer identity and sexuality in popular culture—from the blues of the 1920s to trap music of the contemporary era. While the class will focus on specific eras of popular music and selected artists, each class will concentrate on a topic that considers queer theories, reading practices, and performances to explore the myriad ways queer identities are central to and impacted by popular culture and society at large. We will also consider how queer identities in and out of popular music are mediated by culture and societal norms, and how these identities are further impacted by race, class, gender, and religion. Bessie Smith, Rosetta Tharpe, Billy Strayhorn, Little Richard, Fanny, Sylvester, Annie Lenox, George Michael, Prince, Meshell Ndegeocello, Ru Paul, Frank Ocean, Lady Gaga, Young Thug, Azalea Banks, and Tyler the Creator are but a few of the artists and cases we will consider within our application of queer theory to the analysis of popular music, sound, and culture in this course.

Music copyright laws were developed in the 19th century to protect sheet music, and continued to protect the “legible” aspects of music in the wake of developing recording technologies at the turn of the twentieth century. Thus, sound is often one of the most contentious aspects of music copyright cases, as copyright laws have historically been based upon a score, lyrics, or specific aspects of a recording. This class will study significant cases of copyright infringement in the history of American popular music. After an introduction to the history of copyright laws developed in the 19th century, each week will be devoted to deconstructing the songs in question and their production, the specifics of the legal case/trial, and both the impact and meaning of the verdict within the history of copyright law in the U.S. Cases that we will cover include disputes around songs such as “Ta Ra Ra Boom De Ay” from turn-of-the-twentieth century, to “Hound Dog” (Big Momma Thornton vs. Elvis Presley) and “Come Together” (Chuck Berry vs. The Beatles) of the rock and roll era, to Vanilla Ice (vs. Queen and David Bowie) and De La Soul (vs. The Turtles) in 1990s hip hop, to Beyoncé’s “Baby Boy” (Armour vs. Knowles) and Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” (Marvin Gaye vs. Robin Thicke) of the twenty-first century. We will study the legal cases themselves, along with invited (legal) scholars and guests, to investigate how copyright law and ideas of intellectual property in music and sound within popular culture have developed through these cases. We will also deconstruct the relationship between the original and contested recorded sounds, as well as how this relationship was considered within each case.

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.

The intention of this course is to expand students’ knowledge about leadership and their leadership skills in preparation for their assumption of music industry leadership roles. It is geared to all students who aspire to lead, whether as musician, performer, critic, fan, influencer, entrepreneur or within an organizational context. This course focuses on the skills and competencies necessary for effective leadership and how they can be developed and applied to the pursuit of students’ personal and professional goals in music. Students will meet successful leaders across the music industry, learn about the complex moral, ethical challenges they face, and distill important lessons that they can be apply to leadership challenges they may confront in the future. By the end, students are equipped with increased self-confidence, and an understanding of their leadership strengths that will better prepare them when presented with the first opportunity to lead.

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 will introduce students to the basic concepts of 3D design and capture through the use of apps and other tools. Through examination and discussion of the current state of 3D printing technology we will explore current and future implications for music and the music business, including but not limited to, live and recorded music, music publishing, innovative tools, part and instrument fabrication, licensing, management, touring, copyright, distribution and marketing. Extra focus will be given to existing and potential merchandise platforms, as well as how 3D can lead to the growth of new industries and new opportunities for cross-pollination with a variety of sectors. Students will be encouraged to pursue both practical and abstract concepts in the furtherance of dynamic and newly inventive ideas - and will be required to develop and submit a concept and plan for their final project.

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.

The explosion of “EDM” has brought electronic and dance music further into the mainstream than ever before. But the history of this segment of the music industry extends over many decades, growing from a specialist and social art form to a worldwide sound impacting all sectors of the music economy. This course will look at the careers and evolution of both past and current major players and will also examine the driving forces of the current economy, including DJing, live events, festivals and music distribution. Whether you’re a budding artist, DJ, manager, producer, music supervisor or journalist, we will study, discuss and analyze the historical and modern factors and skills that can create a career and/or a business venture in electronic and dance music. We will also examine current trends and technologies and try to predict what’s next musically and professionally.

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

Brands generate loyalty, trust and familiarity with consumers. Those well versed in branding have the ability to successfully capture the attention of their customers or audiences and speak to them in clear and persuasive terms. Creative branding is the key to understanding what makes audiences/consumers tick and to increasing sales performance. Before a brand becomes a household name it is a tried a true product that has been through several critical steps of research and development, consumer segmentation, positioning and distribution. This hands-on course will introduce you to the world of brand development, cross-promotions, endorsements, sponsorships, and more as it relates to today’s ever-evolving music industry. You’ll do exercises in analyzing and developing brands, and you’ll study why some brands succeed where others fail by reading key books and articles, studying branding theory and talking to guest speakers. You'll work to demonstrate your understanding of the course concepts through dialogue with brand professionals, class discussion assignments and a final project and presentation.

Artist managers are the central focus of the music business, the dealmakers behind the latest industry developments, and the brokers of power, influence, and revenue streams for not only recording artists, but creative entrepreneurs and technology startups as well. The role of the artist manager is to help creative talent find commercial success. We will study the basics and fundamentals of artist management, and its many different functions. We will learn about the different roles that artist managers play as well as understand how artist managers build and develop their teams, and the different kinds of leadership positions that they assume. We will look at different styles of artist management, and discuss best practices by reviewing case studies, and speaking with special guests. Through a class lab, we will analyze various potential problems and scenarios, and develop techniques and skills for forming solutions, simulating the artist management experience. We will hypothetically take over the management duties for an existing artist and help them re-organize his/her career in a comprehensive final project. Artist managers now serve as the gatekeepers of commercial and brand value in the talent food chain, and they not only help grow careers, they create many new ones along the way. From Troy Carter and Scooter Braun, to Amy Thomson and Kelly Clancy, artist managers are the thought leaders of this business and catalysts for industry change.

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 the knowledge and strategies learned into practice.

This introductory course is targeted to all students who have a strong sense of their individual purpose and are motivated to change the world through music. In this course, students learn about social entrepreneurs, how they think, the problems they address, the business tools they leverage and the strategies they employ to create social change. Through readings, participatory class discussion, class activities, self-reflection and occasional guest speakers, students examine current issues, opportunities and challenges that social entrepreneurs and their ventures face. In addition, they acquire skills, actionable tools, and practical approaches to help advance their social change agenda now and in the future. Ultimately, the aim is to inspire and empower students to put their ideas for social change in to action and to start manifesting the change they wish to see in the world.

Music supervision and music licensing are two of the hottest topics in the music business. This class will focus on both and help you understand the ins and outs of music supervision and the nuts and bolts of music licensing. We will look at how music supervision can benefit the artist, the manager, the label, the publisher, as well as study all possible players in the music supervision and licensing worlds. We will learn the rules that govern music licensing, or the business side, to the creative engine fueled by music supervision. We will understand topics like music publishing, clearances, budgets, and the art of pitching music for licensing opportunities. We will look at all of the platforms where music is supervised and licensed, including film, television, advertising, video games, and more. We will also discuss the impact of music supervision from a creative perspective by looking at case studies such as Lorde curating the Hunger Games Soundtrack, the music side of The Tonight Show, Apple using Hudson Mohawke's music in their advertisement campaign, and how DJ Hero changed the landscape of music in video games forever. The final class project will involve supervising and licensing music in real-time, using all of the knowledge gained in class, and applying it to the real world.

For course descriptions, please see REMU-UT 1175 for Topics in Recorded Music: Indigenous Pop. Please see REMU-UT 1155 for Topics in Recorded Music: Gaming. You may also find some course descriptions here: https://tisch.nyu.edu/clive-davis-institute/curriculum/course-offerings.

Contemporary marketers are increasingly focused on the cultural interests and behaviors of the consumer. Market segments have evolved from census demographics to unifying sub-cultures that transcend ethnicity, geography, age and gender. Technology has accelerated the speed at which a culture evolves and/ or becomes obsolete which in turn requires a new marketing paradigm. This class will focus on these shifts in the industry's culture as it applies to music industry professionals and beyond.

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.

The course provides a comprehensive and practical overview of the music contracts that you -- and every artist, musician, songwriter, record producer and other music business professionals -- need to launch and grow an entrepreneurial music venture. Learn proven strategies for navigating conflicts when they arise and how to safeguard your rights and interests in music that you create. Practice and apply newly acquired drafting and negotiation skills to current projects you are working on with personalized instructor and peer feedback.

At the root of "Free Culture" and "Open Access" lies the idea that aesthetic and informational works become public resources that should be shared. This interdisciplinary class examines both ideas from a variety of perspectives: aesthetics, politics, law, and social movements. It pays particular attention to the relationship between these ideas and the rise of new forms of media that allow age-old concepts like "The Commons" to flourish. It also situates these ideas within longstanding practices of both scholarship and librarianship. The course places a focus on contemporary and very recent activities, and will also examine closely related ideas and movements such as "Information Wants to be Free", Free Software, CopyLeft, and Access to Knowledge.

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.

In this class we will study and engage language as a live organism, literature as a site for encounter and unearthing. We will read poems, plays and nonfiction by contemporary American and Anglophone writers globally whose works are changing culture, eradicating invisibility and building new languages. The works we read will put into question conventional labels and terminologies, enter new spaces of human and literary ecologies. This course will explore the self and the world; imagination, language, society and action. The works read and the creative writing assignments and exercises will provide the imaginative background for writing our words, our cultures and engaging in action through language bearing in mind that literature is “a key piece of democracy.” (Eileen Myles)

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 course reflects the various skills and disciplines that are brought together in modern game development: game design, programming, visual art, animation, sound design, and writing. The workshop will situate these disciplines within a larger context of game literacy and a historical and critical understanding of games as cultural objects. Classroom lectures and lab time will all be used to bring these different educational vectors together into a coherent whole; the workshop will be organized around a single, long-term, hands-on, game creation project. Working in small groups under the close supervision of instructors, students will collaborate on the creation of a playable game. As a creative constraint to help inspire them and guide their designs, the students will be given a theme to express in their game projects.

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.

The focus of this class is the actual creation of several non-digital games. Students deeply explore advanced topics in game design, wrestling with complex and challenging problems, such as formal play-testing procedures, balancing game economies, and designing games for learning. The class will cover both the craft and the culture of making games, and has a particular emphasis on how designers communicate their ideas. Although most of the projects will take the form of non-digital design, the course will address the application of ideas and procedures to digital games.

In this course, students get practice building game play experiences through a series of short-cycle exercises. Students work in small teams to create and tune gaming experiences in a range of game genres, using the game engine that they will use in Game Studio (a semester-long project class). The course introduces students to production roles, playtesting, considerations of audience and platform, and other practical concerns in building games. COURSE OBJECTIVES At the completion of this course, the student will be able to: 1) Describe typical work practice in game development. 2) Discuss his/her experience in producing short gameplay experiences using a game engine. 3) Demonstrate competency in game production through a series of exercises. 4) Work with a game engine, and understand the basics of how to build a game in the engine.

Advanced Topics in Game Studies is a research-focused course that examines methodological and foundational issues in the study of video games. In addition, a current topic relating to video game culture, design, or theory will be explored every semester. The class is thereby focused on allowing students to actively participate in the development of video game theory, with specific attention to how video game studies evolve as a theoretical field, and how it interacts with changes in the design and culture of video games. Note: In this syllabus, the current topic is "gamification" – the use of game design in non-game contexts such as teaching, politics, or business. Every semester will explore a different current topic. COURSE OBJECTIVES At the completion of this course, the student will be able to: • To understand the foundational discussions and questions behind the current state of video game theory. • To develop new theory applicable to new developments in video game design/culture. • To apply new perspectives on existing theoretical discussions in video game studies. • To prepare to submit papers to conferences and/or write reports on game issues.

This course reflects the various skills and disciplines that are brought together in modern game development: game design, programming, visual art, animation, sound design, and writing. The workshop will situate these disciplines within a larger context of game literacy and a historical and critical understanding of games as cultural objects. Classroom lectures and lab time will all be used to bring these different educational vectors together into a coherent whole; the workshop will be organized around a single, long-term, hands-on, game creation project. Working in small groups under the close supervision of instructors, students will collaborate on the creation of a playable game. As a creative constraint to help inspire them and guide their designs, the students will be given a theme to express in their game projects.

This course will examine the history, practice, and current state of the art of independent role-playing games, focusing on non-digital roleplaying games generally played by two or more participants in person. Selected games will be played in-class as well as assigned for out-of-class play, and will emphasize works that explore themes, mechanics, and play dynamics beyond the most familiar and popular forms of fantasy role-playing game.

Processing is a great tool for learning the fundamentals of programming. Based on Java, one of the most popular programming languages, Processing simplifies Java to help creatives to develop programming literacy. With the mission of allowing visual artists develop interactive systems, Processing provides a language, libraries, and a development environment. You can use it to export applications for the Web, Windows, Mac OSX, Android, and Linux. Processing is completely free and open source. Many game developers learned to program with it and the concepts it teaches are useful for many programming languages and game engines. We will explore Processing beyond the Processing IDE, working with Processing in Eclipse, peeling back a layer to see how professional developers work with Processing and Java. Beyond simply learning to program, students in this class will explore models and algorithms useful for developing games. We will discuss how platforms, libraries, frameworks, and engines affect game design, in both empowering and limiting ways. Finally, we will discuss the history of digital games, how new tools have democratized the process of game development, and the costs and benefits of those trends.

This class will involve the development of a high level understanding of the real time strategy game, Starcraft 2, including optimizing early gameplay, mastering tactical maneuvers and strategies, and real-time strategic decision making. At the same time it will touch on the development of the industry of e-sports and the design of high-level multiplayer games. Finally, the class will emphasize honing the universally valuable skills of critical thinking, mental discipline, and understanding complex systems and data in real-time, the very skills that make for a world class Starcraft player.

This course covers the works and legacy of Looking Glass Studios, one of the most influential video game studios of the 1990s. Through a series of seminal works including Ultima Underworld (1992), System Shock (1994), and Thief (1998), they defined and pushed the limits of first-person 3D gaming. In contrast to first-person shooters, LookingGlass’ first-person games were experiments in simulation, storytelling, and interface that were years ahead of their time, and formed a vocabulary still used today for building stories in real-time virtual worlds. This is a history class with a forensic structure. Students will play through, discuss, read and write about Looking Glass’ games, with emphasis put on their core “immersive design trilogy” of Ultima Underworld, System Shock, and Thief and how all these works influenced and revised each other. Students will also play other games of the era for context, read articles about and interviews with the developers, and complete a series of assignments to structure their understanding. The immediate goal is to foster a deep understanding of the work and influence of a seminal game company, the way one would for any other important group of artists in an art history context. The larger goal is to foster a set of skills for historical and critical analysis that is culturally situated and which complicates the notion of sole authorship. This course is for students interested in the culture and evolution of video game aesthetics and who understand and value the practice of close reading and comparative analysis, the way a serious student would be expected to when studying the works of a painter.

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.

This course is designed for students with an interest in exploring Human Rights through viewing and discussing documentaries. The course will cover different perspectives as well as provide insights into both the subject matter contained in the films and the techniques and skills of good documentary filmmaking. Through research, class screenings, discussions and a few invited guest filmmakers, students will learn about both the evolution of the documentary genre as a means of better understanding history, and gain insights about what has been done and what still needs to be done about Human Rights worldwide.

This course is designed for students with an interest in exploring the Civil Rights Movement of 20th-century America through viewing and discussing documentaries. While the struggle for civil rights began early in American history, the course mostly focuses on the black Civil Rights movement with an emphasis on the period from 1954 through 1966. By focusing on this time period, which was reported and chronicled by the television/film media, the course covers different perspectives as well as provides insights about both the subject matter contained in the films and the techniques and skills of good documentary filmmaking. Through weekly screenings of films, class discussions, and invited guest speakers, students learn about the evolution of the documentary genre as a means of better understanding history, and students gain knowledge about the historical/political/cultural milestones and the heroes of the movement.

This course explores contemporary fine artists and their work through documentary film. The course covers a variety of perspectives pertaining to both the art world and the techniques and skills of documentary filmmaking. Through weekly screenings of films, class discussions, a few invited guest filmmakers and several visits to museums/galleries, students will explore the evolution of the documentary genre as a means of better understanding art and a form of scholarship. The goal is to expose students to the work of contemporary artists and their creative process.

This course is designed for students who are interested in an experiential and robust exploration of New York and its cultural legacy through documentary films. New York is a unique subject for such an exploration because of the creative momentum that unfolded here during the last half of the 20th century and beyond, and because so much of the city’s rich history has been commemorated and chronicled in award winning documentaries. Through weekly screenings, assigned readings, critical class discussions and fact-finding walking excursions, students will uncover the complexity and vibrancy of the city and explore the distinctive way documentaries reveal the evolution of the city into the cultural capital of the world.

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, active introduction to performing Shakespeare’s work and offers a guided frame for freely and fully accessing and living out the text in performance. 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 come to life through in-class exercises and rehearsals. Throughout the course of the semester students work on a monologue, a two-person scene, and a final ensemble piece involving the full class. Monologue and scene suggestions are provided by the instructor based on students’ interests. 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.

The Open Arts Actor's Workshop is the Tisch Open Arts Studio designed for visiting students and NYU non-drama majors interested in exploring actor training in a conservatory-style environment. Through master classes in movement, voice production, games/improv, clowning and scene study, students develop a deeper understanding of the acting process and what it means to work as a creative ensemble. Under the guidance of Tisch performance faculty, students gain physical and vocal freedom and broaden their knowledge of dramatic text. On-camera acting classes help students hone their craft in front of the camera. The semester-long studio experience culminates in a final showing of ensemble performance work and scene presentations for invited guests. Students will attend the studio 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. three days a week. If you have enrolled in any college-level acting class or you have equivalent experience, be in touch with the Tisch Open Arts Program (tisch.openarts@nyu.edu) or Co-Director Angela Pietropinto (ap13@nyu.edu) to audition for the Workshop. Please prepare 1 monologue, around 2 minutes in length. It should be from a play that speaks to you - you either love or hate the message that the playwright is communicating. The character should be age-appropriate. *We have extended auditions until November 16 - please get in touch with our office if you are still interested!

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.

An introduction to the central tools and skills that make up the actor’s art and craft. Through theatre games, structured improvisation, and beginning scene work, students will exercise their imaginations, learn how to work as an ensemble, and develop a sense of their bodies as expressive instruments. All techniques covered have been developed by the most celebrated 20th century theorists, such as Stanislavski, Grotowski, and Bogart, and are the same theories that underlie the training of the Tisch undergraduate acting conservatory. No prior experience necessary. Not open to Tisch Drama Majors.

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 course is a studio based advanced on-camera acting performance workshop designed for actors, writers, directors and artists to strengthen screen acting skills by focusing on four major aspects of screen performance: Character, Role & Identity; Script Analysis; Physicality & Voice in Frame; and, Specificity in Moment to-Moment Being. Concentrating on these elements of screen performance, and filming on-camera exercises and scenes every session, actors will employ various acting techniques to discover and develop a reliant set of techniques and technical skills that best serve them as actors, and expand their artistic sensibility as related to visual storytelling through film. Actors prepare to be successful, auditioning and working within the parameters of the professional filming experience. With limited rehearsal and acting direction, shooting out of sequence, and multiple takes unique to production, each actor will develop their own set of best practices and ownership of their role as an actor.

This advanced acting course turns traditional, realistic scene study on its head. We begin by 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. In this class students 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 to in-class exercises, students are expected to analyze, rehearse and perform one realistic two-person scene, create one 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 an advanced performance class; students must have successfully completed Acting I, Performance Practice or have equivalent experience in performance coursework in order 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.