Arts Workshops

K40.1028 Directing: History, Theory, Practice
Alycia Smith-Howard M 3:30-6:10 4 CR

Course meets at La Mama etc., 47 Great Jones street.


In this course we will examine some of the major trends, themes and theories of theatrical directing practice that developed during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Europe and the United States. Particular attention will be given to the work of a select group of directors through readings, discussion, research and practice. We will also cover the practical fundamentals of theatrical direction with emphasis on textual analysis, dramaturgy, conceptual and interpretative skills, artistic collaboration, casting, the director/actor relationship and the principles of staging/blocking. A core objective of this course is to increase the student’s awareness and ability to communicate and actualize their ideas effectively. Readings and class discussions will be coupled with practical exercises directing scenes and short plays. Students will also be responsible for two major research papers. Texts for the course may include readings from Directors on Directing: A Source Book of the Modern Theatre, eds. T. Cole & H. K. Chinoy; A Sense of Direction: Some Observations on the Art of Directing, W. Ball; Upstaging Big Daddy: Directing Theatre as if Gender and Race Matter, eds. E. Donkin & S. Clement; Re:Direction: A Theoretical and Practical Guide, eds. R. Schneider & G. Cody. [$35 fee]

K40.1033 The Independent Producer and the Broadway Musical
M 6:20-9:00 Adam Epstein, 4CR

This workshop will explore and examine what it means to be a producer in today's commercial Broadway marketplace. How a producer finds material that connects to a modern and ever-changing audience will be a central area of concentration. We will explore the ways in which the contemporary impresario or showman is still, perhaps more than ever, largely responsible for nurturing a musical from embryo to birth. This course will tackle both the creative and management responsibilities of the producer, and students will be asked to participate in creating their own musical. As part of the workshop, students will collaborate with one another thereby creating a "mock" process where they engage one another and play an active role in the process of creative producing. Throughout the term, students will hear from a variety of working professionals, i.e. directors, writers, attorneys, composers, etc., who are all integral to getting a musical up on its feet. Finally, the workshop will culminate with students pitching their newfound creations to prospective producers and/or investors working in the business today. Although the workshop is focused on the Broadway musical, any student seriously interested in producing for the theatre will benefit from this course. The reading list will include: The Season by William Goldman; Hot Seat by Frank Rich (selected reviews and essays); The Abominable Showman by David Merrick; Light Fantastic, Adventures in the Theatre by John Lahr (selections); "A Producer's Education: Why Broadway Slipped" by Stuart Ostrow; "Beehives Over Broadway" by David Denby; and other materials including sample deal memos, option agreements, sample budgets, sample press releases, will be distributed.

K40.1036 Dionysian Ritual: A Physical Approach To The Performance of Greek Tragedy
Alec Harrington M 6:20-9:00 4 CR

Course meets at La Mama etc., 47 Great Jones street.
The course will focus on the application of Nietzsche’s theory of tragedy to performance. Students will read Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy and excerpts from Aristotle’s Poetics, Hegel’s Aesthetics, and Kant’s Critique of Judgment. The performance work will focus on getting the students to fuse an understanding of the text with a more visceral way of acting. Movement exercises will be employed in order to get the students working physically as opposed to purely rationally. Vocal exercises will be used to open the students to sounds that are deeply connected to their bodies. Sound and movement exercises will be used to help the students create their own religious rituals and their own music. Students will work on choruses and speeches from Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, and Euripides’ Medea and The Bacchae. [$35 fee]

K40.1051 Cross-Cultural Dialogue Through the Arts
Judith Sloan W 12:30-4:00 4 CR

Permission of the instructor required (email judith.sloan@nyu.edu). Course meets on site in Queens.
This course is designed as a unique hands-on interdisciplinary arts project for students who are focused in the performing, visual, and documentary arts who want to create works that embrace human rights and social justice issues. NYU students work in collaboration and as mentors with new immigrant teenagers at the Queens International High School (QIHS) where students come from 50 different countries and speak over 30 languages. We will look at the history of immigration and at our own family histories/migration stories in comparison to those of the teenagers. Now in its fourth year this workshop culminates in public performances and a documentary book and/or video project. The class acts as a multi-disciplinary team of artists, drawing on the strengths/skills of individual students to create an ensemble across cultures, languages, religions, class, and gender. We will read the work of both immigrant and American-born artists and scholars including: Ping Chong, Rhodessa Jones, Sarah Jones, as well as oral history-based art projects; and will address questions of representing the self and the other through theatre, movement, visual art, poetry, music, photography, etc. Class meets in a fully equipped theatre on-site at the QIHS and is supported in collaboration with EarSay, a Queens-based arts organization. Each class is immediately followed by a dialogue session.

K40.1107 SCI Body Wisdom: Experiential Anatomy for the Performer
Robin Powell T 6:20-9:00 4 CR

Course meets at La Mama etc., 47 Great Jones street.

Performing artists have a special need to understand the body’s full capacity. Kinesthesic awareness of our muscles and joints allows us to move with more control, confidence, and safety. This course will integrate factual, visual information with kinesthetic experience of the body to gain understanding of form and function both internally and externally. Anatomy and physiology will be studied using text, touch, movement, and focused attention, as well as drawing and writing. The role of the mind and emotions in the stress response, nutritional support, and the function of breathing will be included. Kapit and Elson’s The Anatomy Coloring Book and Olsen’s Body Stories are required reading with selections from Kendall and Kendall’s Muscles: Testing and Function and Todd’s The Thinking Body. [$35 fee]

K40.1110 The Art of Play
Hodermarska R 3:30-6:10 4 CR

Course meets at La Mama etc., 47 Great Jones street.

If child’s play is serious—whether as game or make-believe improvisation—what are the implied meanings of play for our adult lives? Do the disciplined skills of the Olympic athlete playing by the “rules of the game” have any relationship to the historically spontaneous wit of the trickster or fool of world cultures? How does the scientist’s improvisational play exploring for new medicines relate to the often intuitive spontaneity of the post-modern painter? What really constitutes “play?” We will examine these questions from a trans-cultural perspective, balancing playful experiences with erudition. We will seek for playful elements in the self, society, science/technology, and artistic creation. These will range from group games to invention, from modes of group improvisation which embrace masque and puppetry, to forms of ritual. It is my hope that we may rediscover the child within as well as the creative spirit, the adventurer, and an empathic connection with humanity. Books may include Nachmanovitch’s Free Play, Huizinga’s Homo Ludens, Winnecott’s Playing and Reality, Jung’s Radiant Child, and Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. [$35 fee]

K40.1205 Creating Dance: Tracing the Sources
Ann Axtmann W 12:30-3:15 4 CR

Course meets at La Mama etc., 47 Great Jones street.

What is the meaning of movement? Where does it come from? When does movement become dance? Is all movement dance? In this arts workshop participants work from the “inside out” by exploring Authentic Movement, movement in the natural world, animal behavior, sounding, diverse musical stimuli, and masks. From these explorations, original performance material emerges. Improvisation, movement and written assignments, and an ongoing journal are part of the process. Our objective is to trace the source of movement in each participant and incorporate that into a final performance project. Risk-taking and experimentation are encouraged within a supportive environment. All students interested in interdisciplinary arts are welcome. Readings may include selections from Bartenieff, I. Body Movement; texts by Laban, Duncan, Wigman, and other choreographers; and essays on Authentic Movement and masking. [$35 fee]

K40.1250 Interarts Collaboration: Creating Across Boundaries
Leslie Satin T 3:30-6:10 4 CR

Course meets at La Mama etc., 47 Great Jones street.

Contemporary practitioners of art and performance move beyond conventional boundaries—sculptors make dances, composers make installations, painters make films. Similarly, artists who work in different forms collaborate to make pieces whose resonance extends beyond their individual components. Two examples of recent interarts collaboration stand out. In 1960s NYC, Fluxus and the Judson Dance Theater were revolutionary forces in visual arts and dance, gathering in writers and musicians as well. The focus of this workshop is the creation of interarts projects, individually and in groups, guided by readings about these pioneers in cultural history. We will make pieces using chance operations, indeterminacy, and open scores; we will create multimedia spectacles. We will draw from the backgrounds and inspirations of students, encouraging participants to deepen their connections to familiar territory and try new forms. Readings may include pieces by Banes, Cage, Johnston, Jowitt, Kaprow, Rainer, Schneemann, and Stiles. [$35 fee]

K40.1305 Rudiments of Contemporary Musicianship
John Castellanod W 6:20-9:00 4 CR

Course meets at Drummer’s Collective, 541 Sixth Ave.

This course is designed to help the student develop a better understanding of music by presenting the opportunity to experience music “as a musician”. Students learn basic music theory, develop rudimentary musicianship skills, and compose and rehearse student compositions. The goal is for each student to be able to compose, and perform original music. The workshop meets in a professional music rehearsal studio where students have access to a wide variety of musical instruments. [$35 fee]

K40.1315 Understanding Jazz
Bill Rayner T 3:30-6:10 4 CR

Course meets at Drummer’s Collective, 541 Sixth Ave.

This workshop is designed to inform and enhance the student’s understanding and enjoyment of this original American art form. Students will explore jazz history, its cultural contexts, musical vocabulary and the processes that propel its ongoing evolution. This class will investigate the different sounds, styles and rhythms of jazz, its influence on classical and popular music, as well as the nature of jazz’s quintessential ingredient, improvisation. [$35 fee]
Drawing and Painting

K40.1405 Drawing and Painting
Bert Katz F 9:30-12:15 4 CR

Course meets at Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand Street (between Pitt and Willett Streets).

This workshop is designed to provide both beginning and advanced students with studio experience in drawing and painting. A variety of media will be used, including acrylic paint. Distinctions between “what is seen and what is known” (Picasso) will be discussed. In addition, by way of discussions and gallery visits, the student will explore the problem of visual “form” and aesthetic judgment. More advanced art students will be given problems and critiques commensurate with their experience. Selected works produced during the semester will be shown in the Gallatin exhibition space. [$35 fee]

K40.1420 Rites of Passage into Contemporary Art Practice
Barnaby RuheR 3:30-6:10 4 CR

Modern art has been a balancing act between control and letting go. This course focuses on the psychological interface between the two, the “liminal” zone. We will survey modern artists’ techniques for tapping the sources of creativity, including Dada collagists’ free-associations; Surrealists’ automatic writing, doodles, and “cadavres exquises”; and Abstract Expressionists’ embrace of chaos as a resource. We will engage in very simple exercises: doodling, speed drawing, painting an abstract mural as a group, keeping a liminal journal, collaging, and exploring ritualistic techniques. We will follow up each exercise with discussions, take a trip to MoMA, and conclude the course with an essay, reexamining modern art in light of the inner journey each of us has taken during the course. Readings include writings by van Gennep, R.D. Laing, Merleau-Ponty, Victor Turner, Mircea Eliade, James Elkins, and Frida Kohlo.

K40.1571 Writing for Television I
Imani Douglas M 3:30-6:10 4 CR

This workshop will explore the process of turning an idea into a teleplay. Prior to delving into the world of television, we will also take a peek into writing for stage and film. The differences and similarities of these mediums will be investigated, via such works as Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple, successful in all forms—stage, film, and TV sit-com. Structure, function and form will be examined via the reading of scripts and viewing of films and classic TV. Students will spend ten weeks of the semester creating, developing, and writing a sit-com episode of a popular television series. Students will learn first-hand what it takes to complete a writing assignment from pitch, to beat sheet, outline, first draft, rewrite, to table draft, under the direct supervision and guidance of an executive producer. In this way, students will learn the business of the TV writer and what it takes to be successful in “the room” of a Hollywood TV show. Readings may include How to Write a Movie in 21 Days by Viki King and Laughs, Luck and Lucy! by Jess Oppenheimer and Gregg Oppenheimer.

K40.1621 Architectural Design and Drawing
Donna Goodman W 6:20-9:00 4 CR

Gropius once described architecture as a combination of “form, function, and delight.” In this workshop, students are introduced to the experience of designing buildings. The first project is an exploration of the design process. Students create sketchbooks of diagrams and drawings, analyzing issues of form, function, technology, site, and environment. Drafting techniques are also presented through preparation of plans, sections, elevations, and renderings. In the second project, students design a residential loft. They begin with a program and a basic design concept. Planning theories, such as function, circulation, massing, and spatial organization are discussed. Visual concepts, such as symmetry, axis, and proportion are also introduced. Methods for developing designs through models, perspectives, and isometric drawings are also presented. Prior drafting experience is helpful, but not required.

K40.1635 Digital New Media
Cynthia Allen T 2:00-4:45 4 CR

This workshop seeks to bring students from varying backgrounds together to engage in evaluating and developing digital new media for the Internet. The Web makes possible a powerful new kind of student-centered, constructivist learning by collecting at a single site a phenomenal array of learning and creative resources which can be explored with simple point-and-click skills: photos, text, animation, audio and video materials. Because most Web sites are highly visual in character many are referred to as Virtual Museums. Each student brings to the class a set of experiences and skills, such as research, writing, design, video, audio, photography, film, performance, illustration, computer literacy, software knowledge or Internet experience. Through lectures, including a survey of digital new media currently on the Internet, group discussions and workshops focusing on heir personal skills, students will develop individual projects. The workshop will deconstruct Virtual Museums, digital collections on the Web and innovative sites using digital new media, as well as discuss concepts, content strategies, and frameworks that bridge theory and practice. Class projects, readings, writings, and journal keeping are essential components of this course. Students are encouraged to supply their own media.

K40.1650 Performance on the Page: Creating an Arts Journal
Lise Friedman TR 3:30-4:45 4 CR

This arts workshop is for students interested in media, writing, publishing, and design. The class will form ad hoc staffs for the preparation of several “dummies,” which will be peer-analyzed and reshaped. These may include everything from poetry, short essays, and “think” pieces to personal responses and interviews. Visuals may include photography, illustration, painting, collage, web, and graphic design. The workshop also entails the creation of individual projects that allow in-depth pursuit of areas of particular interest. Field trips, targeted readings, and guest speakers from the editorial and design worlds will supplement the hands-on work.

The following graduate courses are open to advanced undergraduates with permission from the M.A. program advisor.

K80.2048 Artist/Ethnographer­­­ Expeditions: Rediscovering NYC Cultures
Yale Strom R 6:20-9:00 4 CR

Self-expression springs from self-discovery. This arts seminar course will focus on developing tools for researching a specific project drawn from the multitude of cultures that coexist in New York City today. Through the medium of oral history writing, photography, music or video, the student will learn the importance of understanding their own ethnic and cultural diversity in relationship to the work they do in the community of their choice. Students will be required to research areas of cultural density and to conduct field research using one or more of the above-mentioned media for either an individual or group art project. Along with their actual field work and art project each student will be responsible for keeping a weekly journal. Readings may include: The Book of Klezmer: The History, The Music, The Folklore (Strom), I Began My Life All Over: The Hmong and the American Experience (Ghia Xiong, Lillian Faderman), Leaving Mother Lake: A Girlhood at the Edge of the World (Yang Erche Namus, Christine Mathieu), and Amish Women: Lives and Stories (Louise Stotzfus).

K80.2565 Playwriting
Myla Churchill M 6:20-9:00 4 CR

This writer’s workshop explores the symbiotic nature of playwriting. Through a series of exercises, we will discover how environment and experience influence identity; how plot is built on desire and need; and why perception and cultural context dictate the form or structure of a play. By examining classical paradigms and their influence on modern theatre, we can determine how to use or break these rules to find our own voices. And as we mine our souls and surroundings for the seeds of creation, we will write a one-act play. Some readings include Fornes, Parks, Fugard, Bogosian & Chekov.

K45.1435 Walls of Power: Public Art from Lascaux to the Goodyear Blimp
Terence Culver R 3:30-6:10 4 CR

This workshop will integrate the hands-on practice of mural painting with the study of politics, community building, culture, urban planning, art history, and social issues as they relate to public art. With a multidisciplinary approach, the workshop will examine the remarkable transformation of public art through history and the roles it has assumed. We will study selected historical examples of public art as well as contemporary ones, and take advantage of the public art throughout New York City. Also, students will design and paint a mural in a public place in collaboration with a community-based organization. This will provide training in mural painting techniques and content development, and provide a deeper understanding of the complexities of public art, cultural trends, pressing social issues, and community participation. Students will be an integral part of the process of the mural, from its organization, conception, and approval, to its painting.