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Lighting design has the powerful ability to shape the experience of an audience. Its practice incorporates elements of artistry and craft, and should interest those working in all aspects of visual and performing arts. In addition to hands-on work with theatrical lighting equipment in and outside of class, awareness of light, play analysis and conceptualization, color, angle, composition and focus are explored in class demonstrations and in a series of individual and group projects.

As a follow-up to the course Working With Light, participants in this class will learn how to adapt lighting design ideas to work within the common constraints of theater architecture and scenery. We will take a deep dive into the process of choosing lighting equipment and figuring out where it needs to be, in relation to everything else in the theater space. Beginning with basic drafting techniques, the course will move ahead to planning lighting coverage with scaled drawings, and then to the creation of a light plot and other supporting paperwork.

This is an essential course for students wishing to make new work for performance this term, whether one project or a series. It is designed specifically to support each person’s artistic voice and manner of working.

This class is an exploration in fabric modification through the use of dyes and various stitched resist techniques often referred to as shibori. Students will learn to work with acid, direct, cold process, union, and natural dyes. Concurrently students will learn a variety of resist techniques such as kanoko, mokume, orinui, makinui, karamatsu, boshi, arashi, itajime, adire eleso, and katano which create patterns and designs on fabrics when dyed and/or overdyed.

In this course we will encounter various strategies for building a career in the performing arts field.

Chavela Vargas has often been called “la voz de México”. An iconoclastic figure, a publicly queer woman singing rancheras and comporting with radical artists and activists, her life is a study in refusing to submit to social norms and embracing the power of art as an act of solidarity, resistance and love. 

In this 7-week course, we’ll explore a variety of approaches to improvised scene work, focusing on techniques beyond the Upright Citizens Brigade paradigm. Emphasizing Chicago-style improv, we’ll shift away from a strict ‘Game’ focus and instead prioritize relationship and character.

Get ready to jump in, take risks, and perform hundreds of scenes as you sharpen your skills and expand your improv toolkit. And of course, we’ll top it all off with a final class show where anything can happen!

This course creates a space for the study of anatomy and its application to movement techniques. Centered in the bone structure, psoas, and breathing exercises, this work examines different sections of the skeleton such as the pelvis, legs, spine, and shoulder girdle. We will also address the psoas muscle as the pillar(s) of the body connecting our lower and upper halves.

A class, a laboratory that explores the relationship between movement and sound, starting with the phenomenology of sound and acoustics, and considering the translation from sound to movement.

Incorporates listening techniques and sensory perception and encourages participants, through improvisation, to draw from movement, sound, space and memory interchangeably. They will be guided through exercises that help make decisions based on assessment, observation, listening and decision making.

At the center of almost every live performance is a single human being who quite literally runs the show: the stage manager. This course will explore the stage manager’s role as both an artist and an administrator, using the SM’s wide-ranging responsibilities as a roadmap to understanding the production process and all the people involved in it.

How can we be together, interact with each other, create something together, share physical experiences….when we are physically not in the same space and time?

Every fictional universe has its own history, culture, geography, and ecology that act as a backdrop to the narratives that inhabit it.  This course will investigate the relationship between such a fantastical place and its characters – with a particular emphasis on the philosophy and symbology of the characters and their clothes.

A sustainable design process with found clothing 

Every year, roughly 92 million tons of clothing end up in landfills. This course seeks to support students rescuing our cast-offs by upcycling fast fashion. Students will explore how to deconstruct garments, rethink their intention, and reconstruct them anew. 

An exercise in planning, communication, creativity and resourcefulness, property design applies to film, television, and theatrical production. This course will look at theatrical props and set dressing from a property designer’s perspective. Starting with a script, we will uncover the questions you didn’t know needed answering in order to comprehensively produce or curate props that are functional, period appropriate, and successfully contribute to a production.

Contact improvisation is an American movement form that uses sustained physical touch to create a dance with a partner. According to founding practitioner Nancy Stark Smith, contact improvisation "resembles other familiar duet forms, such as the embrace, wrestling, surfing, martial arts, and the Jitterbug, encompassing a wide range of movement from stillness to highly athletic.”

“Disability justice culture is simultaneously beautiful and practical. Poetry and dance are as important [to disability justice culture] as a blog post about accessible bathroom hacks—because they are interdependent.”
- Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

This course is an introduction to Sabar (traditional dance, drum, and ceremony) from Sénégal and Gambia and Traditional West African Mandingo dance and music forms.

This course provides a vibrant introduction to the traditional West African rhythms and movements of the Mandingo and Wolof communities. Students will embark on a journey through both drumming and dancing disciplines, mastering intricate rhythms that will expand their musical vocabulary and enhance their dance techniques.