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Sustainable development has been defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It calls for concerted efforts towards building an inclusive, sustainable, and resilient future for people and planet. For sustainable development to be achieved, it is crucial to harmonize three core elements: economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental protection. Ending poverty in all forms is vital.

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

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.

How do we physically understand the spaces we are in? How is each of us affected by them? How do we develop a deeper sense of place? The Body Acoustic aims to heighten awareness of the reciprocal relationship between the built environment and our senses. Light and sound, distances, height, volume, surfaces, angles/curves and a/symmetries all affect one’s movement through interior and exterior spaces; one’s movement, in turn, affects the perception of these spaces.

What happens when you start a rehearsal process and you are not sure what you are wanting yet? How do you present movement phrases, concepts, and structures and incorporate new information from the performers? What is it that you see? How do you change your mind?

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 course serves as an introduction to dance studies at 51��������. It is intended for students new to Bennington who have a serious interest in dance, as well as those with a desire to deeply explore movement and embodied practice as an artistic form.

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. 

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.

In this low-intermediate course, students will learn and examine Japan’s drastic social changes during the Edo period and the Meiji period to investigate what equality and equity meant to Japanese people.  During the Edo Period (1603-1868), Japan closed its doors to other countries for about two hundred fifty years, and this isolation helped Japan develop its own unique culture. It, however, ended in 1867 when Japanese culture was introduced to the Western world at an International Exposition in Paris.

Rakugo is one of the traditional Japanese art and storytelling entertainment that became extremely popular during the Edo period (1603-1868).  Rakugo is a rather unique storytelling performance because a storyteller sits on a seat on the stage called “��Ǵdz���” and tells humorous stories without standing up from the seat.  Moreover, the storytellers narrate and play various characters by changing their voice, pitch, tone, facial expressions, and physical movements. 

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?

The Alexander Technique invites students to engage with how they move through the world. Students will learn to notice what it is they are doing in their everyday movement, dance practice, performance, & an overall deeper engagement with the body. 

We can define Ndaga as the awareness of legacy and debt, border crossing, re/invention, re/creation, and the desire to create new space for time travel. This is a self-journey. This course is for students who wish to find their artistic voices by exploring an interdisciplinary approach to making work.

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.

What remains of dance? The lament of dance’s ephemerality coincides with broader Western temporal projects conceived through the linear unfolding of human progress and social evolution, relegating our movements to an irretrievable past.

In this intermediate course, students will learn about various art forms in Japan from pottery in the Jomon Era (about 14,000 BC – 300BC) to Takashi Murakami’s so-called “superflat,” a postmodern art movement, in the Heisei Era (1989 -2019).  As they learn about Japanese art, they will analyze elements of Japanese aesthetics that were shared in various art forms during each period.  Students will also examine what societal changes influenced the changes in art.  There are numerous points in the long Japanese history where the styles of Japanese art changed d

In this course, we will be uncovering, re-positioning, and affirming historical legacies and traditions that stand the risk of being lost forever, and explore how to use them to fight discrimination, racism and hate today.

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.

In this introductory-level Japanese course, students will explore Japan’s artistic treasures and diverse art forms to examine Japanese visual culture, history, and society while developing and practicing basic listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in Japanese. This course offers a fun and dynamic way to begin your journey to study the Japanese language and culture.

This is an introductory course to international public law and its relevance in today’s complex and interconnected world. 

Journalism & Democracy is the result of a grant and partnership with the Center for Community News at the University of Vermont, a national network of student journalism programs around the United States. The course recognizes the essential role that the arts and culture play in a healthy democracy.

This is an advanced improvisation class for students from all disciplines. We will learn the concepts of complexity and advance our skills in pattern recognition, self-organization, emergent structuring, and development of movement, verbal, visual and design vocabularies. Collaborative processes will be explored to further different forms of creative practices, both to address an artistic practice and a dialogic practice.

This class will examine the current diplomacy and process of a new Convention for the United Nations on Conserving the River Deltas. We will hear from some of the lead partners on the project: The Transboundary Water In-Cooperation Network (TWIN), co-founded by CAPA and the Institute for Environmental Diplomacy and Security at the University of Vermont, and the African Centre for Climate Action and Rural Development (ACCARD) directed by Freeman Oluohor.

In this class we will explore the practice of meditation as a physical and mental training exercise. In class meditation and discussion, as well as outside reading and writing assignments, will explore Eastern and Western persepctives on ourselves and the world.

What remains of dance? The lament of dance’s ephemerality coincides with broader Western temporal projects conceived through the linear unfolding of human progress and social evolution, relegating our movements to an irretrievable past.

The ash trees on campus are dying from an introduced beetle. Ash trees make up about 8% of Vermont’s forests and their foliage contributes to our iconic fall colors. They are culturally important trees with deep connections to art from Indigenous basket making to Beyonce’s Louisville slugger in Lemonade. The Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) beetle arrived in North America in Michigan in 2002; it was first confirmed on the Bennington campus in late 2024. The mortality rate of EAB-infested ash trees is 99.97%.

This course is the requirement for all graduate students in the Masters in Public Action program to teach as part of their studies. Students will consult with the Director of the MFA in Public Action to identify the classes, develop the Syllabi, and have ongoing feedback about their teaching and course development. throughout the term. 

This course is required for all graduate students enrolled in the MFA in Public Action program. In-depth research connected to their Plan, their professional work and their teaching is required. This research can take the form of reading, writing, archival work,
interviews and creative practice. A body of research is required at the end of each term related to their studies. 

The Graduate Seminar in Public Action is required of all students in the MFA in Public Action program. This seminar focuses on their current professional work. Each student will identify at the beginning of each term the professional work to be accomplished. This can be located at 51�������� or in another professional venue anywhere in the world. This professional work will be exhibited, shared, published or created over the term. A public sharing of the work is encouraged to a larger audience. 

Plastic pollution has emerged as a significant environmental issue in the past few years, particularly on how plastics affects health, environmental justice, climate change and water quality.  This is an environmental policy class iwth a focus on public action.  This class will explore the dimensions of the production, use and disposal of plastics and the need for innovation.  In the spirit of 51��������'s Center for the Advancement of Public Action (CAPA),much of the assigned homework will include taking public action.

The United States is experiencing unprecedented challenges that are destroying the foundations on which our society was built. Our strongest institutions are faltering under political pressure. The Supreme Court, once an independent arbiter of justice, is rudderless; making decisions based on political ideology rather than the law. The President and Congressional leadership are committed to dismantling social safety nets and slashing scientific investments in education and public health.

In this course, we will explore restorative practices and their origins, principles, strengths and weaknesses, and theories that underlie them.