Tisch Summer High School Week 3 Highlights: Dramatic Writing and Dance

We are three weeks in to the Tisch Summer High School program and our high school students are hard at work in their respective departments.

This week we're checking in with the students in Dramatic Writing and Dance. 

Dramatic Writing

Students who participate in the Dramatic Writing track take courses in the Rita and Burton Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing. Their time in class is divided between screenwriting and playwriting and they receive equal training in both disciplines.

Last week, the Dramatic Writing students collaborated with six professional actors. Each student wrote a monologue series: an outline of ten monologues with an overarching theme. In the morning sessions, the actors reviewed each student's monologue series and workshopped the first three monologues of those series. In the afternoon, the actors performed two of the three monologues for the entire program. Each student was able to see an actor perform their work. For many of their students, this was the first time seeing their work on stage. 

Students have seen four Broadway shows so far, including Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, A Doll's House, Part 2, War Paint, and Groundhog Day. Students compared the film version of Groundhog Day to the Broadway stage production, analyzing similarities and differences in the adaptation for the stage.

This week, they attended Come From Away and Indecent, before focusing their time on writing 10-minute plays for the program's final showcase.

Dance

Over on 2nd Avenue, students participating in the Dance track are immersed in three aspects of college-level, pre-professional studio training: Dynamic Alignment and Conditioning, Ballet Technique, and Contemporary Technique.  

Throughout the program, the students have been studying composition intensively with professor Joy Kellman. They are crafting site-specific studies throughout our building as physical responses to architecture, space, level, and objects.

Donald Shorter (MFA '17) taught a workshop on Dance and New Media, which explored the historical uses of technology in performance and introduced dances made for film and digital devices. Students made short dance films on their iPhones while experimenting with choreographed camera movement, and they worked with interactive technologies in improvisational scores. 

Along with studio and composition training, the dancers also met with Tisch Dance physical therapist Andrea Zujko. She spoke about all aspects of dancer wellness, from pain and injury to prevention and recovery.

In the past three weeks the Dance students have also attended performances of the Joyce Theater Ballet Festival and will attend Lincoln Center Out of Doors presenting Paul Taylor Dance Company this evening. 

You can follow @nyutischdance on Instagram and search the hashtag #tischsummerhs for posts from all of the Tisch Summer High School program tracks. 

The Tisch Summer High School Program is a rigorous, academic undergraduate program offered each summer to high school sophomores and juniors. We are currently accepting applications for summer 2018! Visit Tisch Special Programs Admissions for dates and deadlines.

Our previous posts highlighting Recorded Music, Film, Game Design, and Photography are available on the Tisch Special Programs Blog.

Follow @tischsp on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Search the hashtag #tischsummerhs for more Tisch Summer High School posts.