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Beginning to advanced lessons in bass technique and appropriate theory.

Lessons on Tuesdays – Schedule TBA.

Advanced studies in theory relating to performance.

Students must be enrolled in Bass with Bisio (MIN4417) simultaneously, no exceptions. This class is only for advanced students and by permission of instructor.

This 2-credit course will explore working with classical and natural alternative processes including Cyanotypes, Anthotypes, and Chlorophyll prints among others. Students will learn the histories of each process and see how artists are working with those processes in today’s day and age. The Cyanotypes will be produced on fine art paper and fabric, and the Anthotypes will be produced with a variety of fruits, vegetables, and plants.

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.

Through mentor approved independently paced work, students develop and schedule their own weekly, planned creative practices using student-initiated resources and/or classes. Mentors guide students through the designed plan that can include a combination of practices, techniques, technologies and methodologies. The study format should provide opportunity for varied approaches and choices.

This course allows students to self-design course work by combining topics and approaches from the Practice LABs and the Study LABs to meet required hours. The Individualized LABS take the form of a series of self directed intensive workshops and study immersions.

Variable Credit, 1-2 Credits

Students work to develop vocabularies, resources and methodologies to support varied approaches to thesis practices to include research into practice, performance as research, practice into research, practice-based research, bibliography as method, citational fieldings and research as action. The course guides students through reflective, critical processes during one-on-one, small and large group course formats.

This course allows students more time to complete thesis project work.

This interdisciplinary class looks at the relationship between the visual arts, performance and dance. In particular, we will focus on the influence of collage across disciplines by finding common methods and themes, such as juxtaposition, chance and appropriation. We will trace the history of collage in the visual arts and then investigate its impact on other fields, including film, music, literature and dance. Lectures and readings will expose students to a wide range of modern and contemporary art forms.

This interdisciplinary class looks at the relationship between the visual arts, performance and dance. In particular, we will focus on the influence of collage across disciplines by finding common methods and themes, such as juxtaposition, chance and appropriation. We will trace the history of collage in the visual arts and then investigate its impact on other fields, including film, music, literature and dance. Lectures and readings will expose students to a wide range of modern and contemporary art forms.

What does studying together offer us critically that studying alone might not? Ariella Azoulay refers to studying with companions as a method of unlearning. What are the shifts experienced when you are studying with and alongside others? What conditions might group study provide that allow different questions and understandings to emerge? If, as Irit Rogoff states, “All research is collaborative,” how might these study groups expand our thinking through collaborative practices? What methodologies emerge?

During this course, students will begin to reflect, gather, articulate, and compose their extensive body of professional work in the field of dance by organizing this work into a text which will be bound. The portfolio is developed to include a thoughtful and critically developed artist statement, current CV, written narratives of their work, press & public reviews, and a list of any grants, honorariums and/or fellowships along with the encouragement of a creative approach to sharing the emergence of themselves as dance artists.

Students propose an independent study plan with approval from Donna Faye Burchfield and select an approved thinking partner/mentor.

Credits to be determined between faculty and student.

Variable Credit, 1-3 Credits

The Polish theater director Jerzy Grotowski defined his theory of “poor theatre” as the theatre that values the body of the actor and its relation with the spectator. Poor Theatre used the simplest of sets, costumes,lighting and props requiring the actors to employ all of their skills to transform a space into other imaginative worlds.

Viewpoints is a physical improvisational form used for training actors and creating movement for the stage. This class encourages students to explore the physical and vocal possibilities of time and space, with a specific focus on developing the capacity to be physically present, emotionally open, and free to follow creative impulses. Special emphasis will be placed on developing listening skills and ensemble building. Coursework will cover the nine Viewpoints and their application to character exploration and composition within the world of a play.

Where and how does study happen? What is the value of study and how do we recognize that value? What does it mean to think of our study of dance and performance as an encounter and how might that thinking offer up a chance for one to pay attention differently? Is it different from research?  Or, as Kevin Quashie suggests, does it perhaps re-situate the activities of research, scholarship, teaching and practice in an important way? These Labs take the form of intensive workshops and/or lectures.

Variable Credit, 1-2 Credits

This topic driven seminar focuses on current developments within the field of dance and performance. Students will learn to think of dance and performance through their own embodied experiences and by placing dance, movement, and performance in wider disciplinary, cultural and global contexts.

During this course, students will begin to reflect, gather, articulate, and compose their extensive body of professional work in the field of dance by organizing this work into a text which will be bound. The portfolio is developed to include a thoughtful and critically developed artist statement, current CV, written narratives of their work, press & public reviews, and a list of any grants, honorariums and/or fellowships along with the encouragement of a creative approach to sharing the emergence of themselves as dance artists.

This course is designed to assist graduate students with the research and development of their new work. The weekly format is determined with the students. In class, they show works-in-progress, try out ideas with their colleagues, and discuss issues involved in their creative processes. Though the class meets only once a week, students are expected to spend considerable time each week in active, ongoing creative research; their independent projects will be presented to the public, either formally or informally, by the end of the term.

Graduate Teaching Fellows in Dance are integrated into the dance program as teaching assistants. In consultation with their academic advisors and the dance faculty, MFA candidates develop an assistantship schedule of approximately ten hours weekly; the courses they develop and teach are listed in the curriculum. All Teaching Fellows bring their own professional histories and contribute their own manners of teaching. Outside of listed class times, TBD, the Teaching Fellows will meet to discuss their courses with the designated faculty and with each other.

The course is designed for students with no prior string instrument experience. Admission is on a first come first serve basis. Classes will be individual (usually 20-25 min. long). Daily practice (10-15 min.) is expected so students can become familiar and comfortable with the instrument.

The course is for intermediate to advanced students.
Students are expected to practice daily (minimum of 45 minutes). End-of-semester performance is required.

In this course, students will examine the building blocks which make up the interlocking systems of language and observe how those systems are enacted and granted layers of meaning through social practice.

How have psychologists defined feelings over the years, and how is the field continuing to change?  We will begin with the 19th Century, when scientists like Wundt and Charcot brought human perception and mental health symptoms out of the realm of metaphysics.  After briefly considering Darwin’s view of emotion and new perspectives on artwork from early asylums, we will evaluate emotion as featured in two central debates from the 20th Century: (1) the psychodynamic approach of Freud, one of Charcot’s students, versus humanism and (2) the behaviorists’ broad rejection of feelings a

This class examines a variety of answers to the ancient question: How do I live a good life? We’ll engage with thinkers from diverse traditions across time and space as we clarify our own understanding of what makes life worth living and as we articulate a more developed conception of the good life.

Instrumental Study on Guitar. Continued studies from Beginning Guitar. Advanced study in fret-board harmony and theory, play in different tunings, increase chord vocabulary and repertoire.

For the experienced (3+years of playing) violinist/violist. Lessons in traditional styles of fiddling – Quebecois, New England, Southern Appalachian, Scandinavian, Cajun, Irish, and Scottish. This course is designed to heighten awareness of the variety of ways the violin is played regionally and socially in North America (and indeed around the world) and to give practical music skills for furthering personal music making. Students will be expected to perform at Music Workshop, or as part of a concert, in ensemble and/or solo.

This lab class is structured for students who are registered for CER2208 CUPS: Slip Casting and Mold Making to achieve production goals. The two-hour mandatory lab will be guided by the faculty so that students can receive technical guidance and adequate support to establish their studio production practices and expand their knowledge and creative capacities. 

This lab class is structured for students who have completed CER2208 CUPS: Slip Casting and Mold Making (or equivalent introductory mold making and slip casting courses) to achieve independent production goals to create a series of  ceramic functional ware (cups). The two-hour weekly lab will be guided by the faculty so that students can receive technical guidance and adequate support to establish their studio production practices and expand their knowledge and creative capacities. 

“It was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it was an age of satire,” F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his epitaph to the Jazz Age in 1931. It was something else too: a social and literary revolution fueled by new communications technology, mass popular entertainment, Jazz and the Blues, and a bold “collaborative energy” (Ann Douglas) between the Black artists of the Harlem Renaissance and the predominantly white figures who were grouped together as the Lost Generation.

In this course we will undertake a comprehensive survey of American Transcendentalism through a close examination of the major writings from this tumultuous period. We will read the major figures (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau), as well as a host of lesser known members of the Transcendental Club (Orestes Brownson, Ellery Channing, poet Jones Very). We will also read some of the most withering critiques that the movement inspired, including Nathaniel Hawthorne’s satiric novel of the Utopian Brook Farm community, The Blithedale Romance.

This course is intended for students with some playing and reading experience, who have passed Piano Lab I or its equivalent. The goals of this course are to gain ease and dexterity at the keyboard, further developing a confident piano technique, musical expression, and the skill of reading musical notation. Students will expand upon a repertoire of scales and chords. They will study and learn to perform selected compositions.

Individual private piano lessons for more advanced students. Audition required. A weekly 45 minute lesson time is arranged with the instructor.

Have you been thinking about learning to play the piano? Perhaps you have a little experience from childhood and want to get back into it? Do you want to learn to read sheet music and understand the basics of music theory? Maybe you are completely new to playing an instrument, and want to give it a try?

If you answered yes, then Piano Lab I might be right for you.

Lessons are given on a one on one basis. Each lesson is 20-25 minute-long. This course is for beginner’s only.

Have you been thinking about learning to play the piano? Are you completely new to playing an instrument and want to give it a try? Do you have a little experience from childhood and want to get back into it? Are you a singer, songwriter, producer, or composer who wants to know how to accompany themselves, learn to read sheet music and chord symbols, and understand the basics of music theory?

If you answered yes, then Piano Lab I might be right for you.

Chemistry 3 focuses on the nature and pathways of organic reactions: what the steps are, how we experimentally determine them, and how we can use them to solve practical problems, such as the synthesis of a drug, or understanding the action of an enzyme. Emphasis will be using the general principles of nucleo- and and electrophilicity to provide a logical framework for understanding substitution, addition, elimination and reactions involving carbonyl groups. Chemical kinetics will also be a topic of study because of the insights it provides for reaction mechanisms.

This course is the first of a four-course chemistry sequence covering general, organic and biochemistry. Students do not need to take the entire sequence. We will focus on introductory chemical principles, including atomic theory, classical and quantum bonding concepts, molecular structure, organic functional groups, and the relationship between structure and properties. The class will have lecture/discussion meetings at which we will critically examine the major concepts of reading assignments, discuss articles, and review some of the current developments of the field.

Mystics––historically portrayed as passionate, dangerous, romantic, heretical, satanic––are a thorn in the side of organized religion. From the very beginnings of recorded human time, the presence and practice of mystics has been controversial. Sufi mystic al-Hallaj’s pronouncement that he was “the Truth” was received as blasphemy by the orthodoxy. His execution followed shortly after. Christian mystics of the 4th and 5th centuries were relegated to practicing outside the peripheries of the Roman Empire, in relative secrecy.

We will study and perform from the string band traditions of rural America. Nova Scotia, Quebecois, Irish, New England, Scandinavian, African-American dance and ballad traditions. In addition, these will be experienced with listening, practice (weekly group rehearsals outside of class), and performing components. Emphasis on ensemble intuition, playing by ear, and lifetime personal music making skills (transposition, harmonizing, etc.).

For students doing work-study or internships, we will focus on three core areas of professionalization. First, each week will journal our work weeks, discussing and sharing our work experiences in a round-table. Second, we will build our professionalization skills, especially networking (in person and on LinkedIn), resume writing, and doing practice interviews. Finally, we will work on writing 5-year plans, to help us figure out where we’d like to be a few years after graduation. More specifically

This course gives students the opportunity to encounter, participate in and design choreographic practices with an emphasis on the vast approaches to process and artistic research that are current and emergent in the expanded field of dance. The course challenges students to develop relationships to performance/performative action as research. We will engage practices where seeing and being seen by each other are central, studying the ways in which witnessing one another in process stimulates and deepens learning.

Designed to help beginner translators with no experience build their own ethical translation practices—with attention to issues of race, gender, and queerness—this course offers an introduction to translation via a hands-on approach. What pronouns do you use when translating from a language that doesn’t have gendered pronouns? Do you translate slurs? We will tackle these questions, plus the basics, thinking about a work’s tone, audience, and sociohistorical context in order to bring it to life in English.

Modern Guitar is a one on one private lesson.  Occasionally if two students are about the same level the class will accommodate two students at a time.

It is expected that a firm grasp of all the concepts taught in Beginning and Intermediate Guitar are fully understood.

If you haven’t taken these classes you would have to audition to receive the instructors permission to demonstrate skills.

Correct posture for playing the guitar Several approaches to tuning the guitar

Twelve week study of twelve different guitarists of varying styles for awareness of the history of the guitar and the various styles the instrument is capable of. Enhances listening skills.

Finger independence and strength exercises. Attaching finger skills and independence to the brain.

Instrumental Study on Guitar.  Continued studies from Beginning Guitar. Advanced study in fret-board harmony and theory.

“Have you eaten yet?” This common Chinese greeting is just one of many common phrases that shows the centrality of food to Taiwanese and Chinese culture. In this course we will focus on the theme of Chinese and Taiwanese food and dining culture as an entrée into the study of Chinese language and culture. As Chinese grammar is very simple with no verb conjugation, no plural, no gender, no articles or subject and object forms, it is very easy to speak Chinese.

This course examines the evolution of Chinese rock music in the post-Mao era, focusing on influential artists such as Cui Jian, Dou Wei, and Zuo Xiao Zu Zhou. Their lyrics not only reflect significant historical and social transformations in China after Mao but also capture the cultural shifts brought by economic reforms, the one-child policy, and the experiences of migrant workers in major cities.

How do we organize data to solve complex problems efficiently? This course studies the fundamental structures and algorithms that form the cornerstone of computational problem-solving. Building upon the programming foundations established in CS1, we will explore how algorithmic thinking and sophisticated data organization enables us to tackle increasingly challenging computational problems.

An introduction to 16mm film techniques, students will shoot and edit analog 16mm film, develop by hand and finally will transfer film to video. Through screenings, experiments and hands-on workshops students will learn about cinematography and the photochemical process. Taking advantage of the special tactile, tangible nature of analog film, material properties will also be explored- direct tactile methods such as loops, paint/scratch on film and laser etching.

Beginning, intermediate, or advanced group lessons on the 5-string banjo in the claw-hammer/frailing style. Students will learn to play using simple song sheets with chords, tablature, and standard notation. Using chord theory and scale work, personal music-making skills will be enhanced. History of the African origins of banjo and its introduction to the western world will be discussed as well as past and present practices. Awareness of traditional styles of playing the instrument will be furthered through a listening component and ensemble playing with other instrumentalists.