Arts Workshops
Something to Sing About: Acting in Musical Theatre
K40.1014 4 CR M 3:30-6:10 Ben Steinfeld
The “American Musical” as it has evolved over the last century has become a remarkable model of interdisciplinary practice. From its early iterations and influences in burlesque, vaudeville, and operetta to the complex contemporary amalgams of book, music, lyrics, and dance, the American musical has proven a rich crucible for the exploration of identity and culture, form and content, and ideas and emotions. This arts workshop will offer actors a technical foundation for acting in musical theater. We will deal broadly with the history of musical theater in context by exploring both the process by which actors engage with musical material and the development and aesthetics of the form. Participants will work on songs and scenes taken from the giants of musical theater including: Rogers & Hammerstein, Kander & Ebb, Stephen Sondheim, and more. How do we merge the receiving nature of acting with the giving nature of singing? How do we “justify” the decision to sing at all? Our survey of the evolution of musical theater will ask: What does the history of the American musical tell us about our cultural history? What do musicals teach us about the interdisciplinary nature of living in the arts? All students in this course must be comfortable and confident singing actors. Everyone will be required to rehearse outside of class time, complete written and analytical assignments, and commit to a public presentation at the end of the semester.
His Advice to the Players: Shakespeare in Performance
K40.1019 4 CR M 12:30-3:15 Kristin Horton
“Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines.” – Hamlet, (III.ii) Taking our cue from Shakespeare himself, this course will introduce students to methods of approaching the text from an actor’s perspective. We will investigate several interpretive techniques that help the performer make the connections between the text, mind, and body. Special focus will be given to the development of a strong vocal instrument and bold interpretive choices that embrace the muscularity of the language. We will explore the structure of the language and how the structure helps the performer make sense of the complexities within the text as well as specific choices related to character and action. The course will also feature a screening component where we examine the range of interpretation of the plays as demonstrated in the work of actors and directors by viewing contrasting versions of the same scene from video and film. Students will work on speeches and scenes from the canon and present their work in class. Students will also keep a journal and attend performances of a Shakespearean play in New York City.
Character Acting
K40.1020 4 CR M 6:20-9:00 Judith Sloan
Character portrayals in theatre and film allow the audience to see the world through the eyes of both the familiar and the unfamiliar. This workshop will focus on the craft and technique of character acting for performance using a variety of acting and improvisational theatre exercises to hone and polish full-bodied, multi-dimensional character portrayals. Voice and movement techniques help ground and center the body so actors can find the physical gestures needed to transform themselves to perform characters as well as to find the ways to develop character voices. The connection between body and voice is explored in the experiential practice in this workshop as well as specific training in comedic timing. Readings of plays and monologues with a focus on characters including a range of monologues and writing by documentary theatre artists, playwrights and solo performers include Jean Giraudoux, Anna Deveare Smith, Eric Bogosian, Eve Ensler, Moises Kaufman, and Dale Orlander-Smith. Research projects look at several twentieth-century characters—performers, humorists, writers and monologists—including but not limited to Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ruth Gordon, Danitra Vance, Lily Taylor, Lord Buckley, Eddie Izzard, Richard Pryor, Judy Holiday, Quentin Crisp, Lily Tomlin. Previous study in one or more of the following is helpful: acting, movement theatre, improvisation, comedy or voice. Loose comfortable clothing is a must.
Native American Traditions and Arts: Coyote’s Vision Quest
K40.1052 4 CR F 9:30-12:15 Franc Menusan
Native Americans have been villainized and romanticized, studied and collected for five hundred years, yet they appear as mysterious and elusive to the modern world as they did to Christopher Columbus. Who are these people who have been the original inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere for over forty thousand years and yet continue to be the most misrepresented and misunderstood Americans? We will compare and contrast the perceptions of Native and Non-Native people and study the effects that they had on one another through sharing our own cultural experiences through our music, art, poetry, and humor. We will learn about the intricate tapestry of American history and culture that we take for granted and perhaps in the process learn more about who we are. Readings include Indian Givers, Jack Weatherford; Custer Died for Your Sins, Vine Deloria, Jr.; Genocide of the Mind, Marilo Moore, ed.; Sacred Objects and Sacred Places, Andrew Gulliford and Last Standing Woman, La Duke.
Site-Specific Performance: Art, Activism, and Public Space
K40.1080 4 CR R 9:30-12:15 Martha Bowers
This course looks at the development of site-specific performance with a special emphasis on projects that directly involve specific communities and include activist agendas. "Site-specific" is a term frequently associated with the visual arts but since the Happenings of the 60's and 70's, a body of work termed "site-specific performance" has evolved as highly structured works of art that are designed around, for or because of place. In the streets, in fields, deserts, forests, garbage dumps, abandoned buildings, on the border, aboard boats, in virtual space and outer space, this genre has unleashed the power of performance to indelibly mark our sense of locational identity. As site artists confront the matrix of social forces and overlapping communities that relate to a given site, their aesthetics, creative process and goals have shifted. How are they blurring the lines between art and activism, art and urban renewal, art and spirituality, art and real life? This course will include reading about and viewing of documentation of site work by seminal artists in this field. It will also include the creation of site-specific studies both individually and in teams. As this field is highly interdisciplinary, this course is recommended to students with interests in dance, theatre, media, photography and visual art. Readings include excerpts from The Lure of the Local, Lucy Lippard; Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art, ed. Suzanne Lacy; Local Acts, Jan Cohen Cruz; Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life, Allan Kaprow; Re-Framing the Theatrical, Alison Oddey; Key Thinkers on Space and Place, eds. Phil Hubbard, Rob Kitchin, Gill Valentine; and various essays at the website www.communityarts.net.
Integrating Mind and Body in Performing Arts
K40.1105 4 CR T 6:20-9:00 Robin Powell
This workshop will examine the theory and practice of the Alexander Technique, the Feldenkrais Method, and Kinetic Awareness. The originators of these methods recognize that the mental ability to notice sensations, feelings, differences, and changes in the body leads to a better integration of the mind and body. By using focused attention to sense mentally the body while moving or at rest, tension can be released, and an individual can move with more freedom, comfort and awareness. These techniques are valuable for performing artists who need to be aware of poor or interfering bodily habits and postures in order to bring full mental concentration to their work. This course is designed for the student who is ready to make these physical and mental changes. Each class will be divided between lecture, discussion, and experiential material. Students will keep a journal, and a final essay will integrate class experience with material from weekly reading assignments.
The Art of Play
K40.1110 4 CR R 9:30-12:15 Maria Hodermarska
We know that for children play is more than just fun; it is the work through which they develop. But what about when adults play? Plato wrote, “Life must be lived as play.” Through play we find our freedom, spontaneity, and our aesthetic. What is there in human beings which enables us to play? Why is play considered an innate capacity of people from the beginning of recorded history? What qualifies as play? When does play become art? In this course, everyone plays and in doing so examines the historic and contemporary uses of play as a universal impulse of humans, across generations and time. Play’s capacity to mitigate the grosser aspects of life will be considered. We will examine play as it is reflected through theories of child development, dramatic improvisation, fine art, politics, technology, the symbolism of fairy tales, the historic and contemporary, uses of puppets, masks, performance, and ritual across all cultures. Students will examine the necessity of play in their own child and adult lives—the creative spirit, the adventurer, and empathic connection with humanity, and laughter, too. Books may include: Nachmanovitch’s Free Play, Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment, Huizinga’s Homo Ludens, Jung’s Man and His Symbols, Nietzche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
The Art of Choreography
K40.1209 4 CR R 3:30-6:10 Kathryn Posin
It was the great modern dance choreographer Martha Graham who said, "We are all born with genius. It’s just that most people just lose it in the first five minutes." This class attempts to help the student get back his or her original choreographic ability. We will study the basic elements of dance—time, space and energy—and, each week, explore a different aspect of the choreographic process. The students, through improvisations, problem solving and short movement studies, will discover their movement vocabulary. Each dancemaker will find their own philosophy of dance and their own individual choreographic voice while being introduced to some of the major twentieth century choreographers and their work. By nature we are all dancers, with or without years of training. Choreographic process, whether one wishes to be a choreographer or not, is a superb model for thinking, assembling and creating. These skills are transferable to other modes of artistic creation and other fields. Readings will include: What is Dance? Readings in Theory and Criticism by Roger Copeland and Marshall Cohen (ed.), The Art of Making Dances by Doris Humphrey, Modern Dance Forms by Louis Horst, The Intimate Act of Choreography by Blom and Chaplin, Space Harmony by Rudolph Laban, Black Dance by Lynn Fauley Emery, The Creative Habit, by Twyla Tharp.
Creating a Performance from the Ground Up: An Interarts Production Workshop
K40.1225 4 CR W 11:00-1:45 Leslie Satin
In this workshop, students will work together on making a performance, from conception through production. We will take an original piece through all its stages and elements—such as planning, writing, composing, designing, choreographing, rehearsing—in a process that will culminate in public performance(s) at the end of the term. The members of the workshop will do some initial readings to ground them in the historical and contemporary practices of interarts performance and performance art and in some of the theoretical as well as practical approaches to this work. Then, guided by the understanding of performance-making as a kind of research-in-motion, they will plunge into the work itself, guided by their ideas, skills, desires, and willingness to work with familiar and unfamiliar art forms, collaborate with new colleagues, and generally reconsider the possibilities of performance for both practitioners and viewers. Students at all levels of arts experience and with considerable reserves of energy and enthusiasm for working on a group project are welcome to participate. Readings will include Lawrence Halprin’s The RSVP Cycles; selections from In the Spirit of Fluxus (edited by Armstrong and Rothfuss), Deborah Jowitt’s Time and the Dancing Image and Sally Banes’s Greenwich Village.
Rudiments of Contemporary Musicianship
K40.1305 4 CR W 6:20-9:00 John Castellano
Course meets at Drummer’s Collective, 541 Sixth Ave.
This course is designed to help students 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 use that experience to compose and rehearse student compositions. The goal is for each student to be able to compose, rehearse, and then perform his or her own original music. The workshop meets in a professional music rehearsal studio where students have access to a wide variety of musical instruments and other resources. [$35 fee]
Songwriting
K40.1325 4 CR T 3:30-6:10 Bill Rayner
Course meets at Drummer’s Collective, 541 Sixth Ave.
Song is the oldest musical form established in all eras and cultures. Ancient Greek and African musicians used song for recreation, to preserve communal memory and to link the visible world with the invisible. Music making was rooted in mythology, legends and folklore and was associated with gods, ancestors and heroes. The musician, through his/her technique, had to be able to combine sounds and images through the use of voice, gesture, dance, and instruments to form a musical reminiscence. In this workshop, songwriting will be explored as both a musical and cultural practice. Each student will develop songwriting techniques through the study of historical, cultural and musical aspects of songwriting. [$35 fee]
Drawing and Painting
K40.1405 4 CR F 9:30-12:15 Bert Katz
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. The problem of visual conversion will be addressed as will the distinction between “what is seen and what is known” (Picasso). In addition, by way of critiques, discussions and gallery visits, the student will explore the problem of visual “form” and aesthetic judgment. Selected works produced during the semester will be shown in the Gallatin arts studio on the 4th floor of 715 Broadway.
Rites of Passage into Contemporary Art Practice
K40.1420 4 CR R 3:30-6:10 Barnaby Ruhe
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 Arnold van Gennep, R.D. Laing, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Victor Turner, Mircea Eliade, James Elkins, and Frida Kohlo.
The Monument: From Concept to Creation
K40.1470 4 CR M 9:30-12:15 Greg Wyatt
Students should not schedule any classes immediately before or after this class to allow ample time to travel to offsite locations, as well as to the Modern Art Foundry and the Arts Student League. Students are expected to pay for their own travel costs and some admission fees.
This workshop focuses on the nature of creativity for public space and the “model to monument” design and bronze casting. We will explore the process by which a concept becomes a three dimensional model and consequently a public monument. We will also investigate how ideas or concepts in history have influenced individual artists in making public monuments. Some examples of this type of didactic art we will explore are: Perikles’ Athenian building program after the Persian wars, Michelangelo’s David, the Columbia University “Alma Mater, “ the Chrysler building, the Peace Fountain next to St. John the Divine, the Woolworth building, Ghandi’s bronze on Union Square, and other sculptures and architectural sights in New York City. This semester we will concentrate a major portion of the workshop on Shakespearean “model to monument” works, and develop visual exercises based on Shakespeare’s poetic imagery. Students will be required to develop their own original concepts into a two or three dimensional project, focusing on visual arts such as painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, mural making, readings, performance and keeping an art journal. In the studio students will experience and learn the necessary training for the creation of a three dimensional sculptural expression work of art, necessary after the conversion of some of their ideas into a drawings and maquettes. Readings may include Plato’s Timaeus, Benvenuto Cellini’s Autobiography, Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale, Cezanne’s Letters, Interview with Rodin with French Journalist, Delacroix’s Journal, as well as Goethe and Leonardo on painting. [$35 fee]
Playwriting
K40.1565 4 CR T 6:20-9:00 Myla Churchill
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 and Chekov.
Writing for Stage and Screen
K40.1570 4 CR W 3:30-6:10 Selma Thompson
This workshop is for writers ready and willing to make the time commitment necessary to produce a well-structured outline and at least the first act of a script (although students will be supported/encouraged to write a complete first draft, if possible.) We will hone our craft through writing exercises, and through screenings of film scenes which illustrate aspects of dramatic writing. The majority of our time will be spent presenting work and giving/receiving feedback (the ability to engage in collaborative discussion, and offer useful commentary, is an essential professional skill). Additionally, we will read/analyze recently produced screenplays to understand structure and how to make the story exciting “on the page”. Although we will examine fundamentals of drama (dialogue, subtext, motivation, etc.) primarily through film study, playwrights are welcome to enroll in the workshop and consult with the instructor about supplementing the reading with plays that may inspire their work more directly. Students should come to the class with some scriptwriting experience and/or a background in acting or film.
Writing for Television I
K40.1571 4 CR M 3:30-6:10 Imani Douglas
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 sitcom. 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 sitcom 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.
Green Design and Planning
K40.1623 4 CR W 6:20-9:00 Donna Goodman
As we enter the twenty-first century, architects and planners face a new set of challenges. The world population has tripled in less than a century. The demand for food, water, housing, energy, products, and services has grown at an even faster pace. In response to these issues, designers and planners have created new concepts for green buildings, green masterplans, regional transportation, and alternative products. They have also made efforts to introduce new laws and environmental standards. This coure explores environnmetal concepts through reading, discussion, slide lectures, films, and projects. Students are asked to write a short paper and develop two design projects. The papers examine issues, such as energy, recycling, product development, pollution, planning, and design. Projects include assignments like the planning of a roof terrace, analysis of an urban park, or design of a green building. Students will need a camera and drafting tools.
Digital New Media
K40.1635 4 CR R 3:30-6:10 Cynthia Allen
This workshop seeks to bring students from varying backgrounds together to engage in evaluating and developing digital new media for the Internet and other new media art installations. 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 film materials. Emerging new media technologies allow cross-development and implementation to the Web. Each student brings to the class a set of experiences and skills, such as research, writing, design, film, music, photography, computer gaming, performance, illustration, computer literacy, software knowledge or Internet experience. Through lectures, including a survey of digital new media currently on the Internet, group discussions, field trips and workshops focusing on their personal skills, students will develop individual projects. The workshop will deconstruct innovative Web sites, computer and video games, film, using digital new media, as well as discuss concepts, content strategies, and frameworks that bridge theory and practice. Class projects, readings, writings, and Blog journal keeping are essential components of this course. Students are encouraged to supply their own media.
Creating a Magazine: From Inspiration to Prototype
K40.1652 4 CR MW 2:00-3:15 Lise Friedman
A crazy-quilt of high and low culture, magazines are one of our most potent forms of cultural commerce—a striking mix of content and form, covering everything from politics, fashion, and celebrity to performing and visual arts, technology, crafts, and the environment. No matter what the topic, design has become an increasingly crucial editorial element. It sets one publication apart from the next, and at its best unifies the content and instantly telegraphs to the reader where it figures in the media landscape. In this workshop we will explore this ever-changing world. We will discuss notions of good vs. bad design, engaging vs. dull content. And, through the development of in-class publications, will put into practice the many aspects that contribute to a magazine's creation, from initial concept to the realization of a prototype. Directed readings (including "Merz to Emigre and Beyond: Progressive Magazine Design of the Twentieth Century" and "The Last Magazine"), fieldtrips, and visits from magazine professionals will contribute to our discussion.
Dramatizing History I
K80.2575 4 CR W 6:20-9:00 Michael Dinwiddie
Graduate course is open to advanced undergraduates with permission of the instructor (mdd3@nyu.edu).
Creating a work based on historical characters poses specific challenges for the playwright or screenwriter. In this arts workshop, students will examine ethical as well as structural and thematic questions raised in the process of tackling a story based on fact. At what point is dramatic license appropriate and/or inappropriate? How is the dramatist’s life experience best utilized in the telling of the story? Each student will identify a subject of special interest, conduct research, and create a scenario that will serve as an outline for a stage play or screenplay. Readings may include works by Anna Deavere Smith, Charles L. Mee, and Alain Locke; texts such as The Big Sea by Langston Hughes, Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch, and Story by Robert McKee; and films such as Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots.