Collaborative Arts Electives

This course is a studio based advanced on-camera acting performance workshop designed for actors, writers, directors and artists to strengthen screen acting skills by focusing on four major aspects of screen performance: Character, Role & Identity; Script Analysis; Physicality & Voice in Frame; and, Specificity in Moment to-Moment Being. Concentrating on these elements of screen performance, and filming on-camera exercises and scenes every session, actors will employ various acting techniques to discover and develop a reliant set of techniques and technical skills that best serve them as actors, and expand their artistic sensibility as related to visual storytelling through film. Actors prepare to be successful, auditioning and working within the parameters of the professional filming experience. With limited rehearsal and acting direction, shooting out of sequence, and multiple takes unique to production, each actor will develop their own set of best practices and ownership of their role as an actor.

This next level acting course turns traditional, realistic scene study on its head. We begin with the essentials: digging into the skills for building precise, emotionally connected, intelligently crafted, character-specific, and theatrically articulate performance inside a realistic context. We then use those skills as a springboard to invent new ways of building a compelling narrative through forms of multi-media and devised storytelling. In this course students explore and expand their understanding of “what is character?” And, who’s telling the story and why and how are they telling it? This course is a laboratory for constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing narrative – a place to turn the story on its head to see what new story we can make. Students will engage in studio exercises to build clear skills in acting technique and stage composition and practice with various forms of crafting theatrical stories. In addition, students are expected to analyze, rehearse, and perform one short, realistic two-person scene, create a solo devised piece, and participate in ensemble-devised, multi-media performance pieces for a final showing at the conclusion of the semester. Students are also required to complete a detailed character/script analysis to support their exploration of the journey from realistic theatre to expanded forms of theatrical/performative storytelling.  This is a next level performance class; students must have successfully completed Acting I, Performance Practice or have equivalent experience in performance coursework to register for the class.

The purpose of this course is to enable the student to gain a heightened awareness, appreciation, and knowledge of dance through movement and performance. We focus on the foundations of dance such as control, aesthetics, alignment, dynamics, athleticism, musicality, use of space, development of learning strategies within a group context, and personal, artistic expression. The students exploration of their creativity, expression and concepts, as well as their work on other dancer's bodies is part of the work of this course. Through individual and collective kinesthetic participation in unfamiliar patterns, the student is physically and conceptually challenged and informed. Students will be asked to problem solve as homework assignment and in-class composition exercises. Dance experience is recommended, but formal dance training is not required.

Part studio and part seminar, The Dancing Body focuses on the practice and history of movement and choreography in the context of Modern Dance and Performance Art in the second half of the 20th century. Though the exploration of ideas in cultural studies/dance studies essays, reviews, and writings by dance artists, students will engage with a range of physical activities and conceptual performances in practice and theory.  This course offers a unique opportunity for students to simultaneously pursue creative/physical practices while exploring the intellectual discourse that informs them. The goal of this class is to generate an artistic environment where students develop collaborative relationships throughout the creative process individually as well as collectively.

1 CREDIT WORKSHOP (takes place over two weekends)

This intensive focuses on both historic evolution of ritual-based/early theater models through contemporary theater philosophies (accentuating history of Futurist/Dada theater innovations to present), and on anatomizing the nature of performer, performance, story and storytelling via the non-traditional philosophies and methods of contemporary experimental theater. The class will be rigorously participatory in terms of discussing/physicalizing these experimental methods and will culminate in the creation and performance of simple class collaboration-generated stage narratives. Students will investigate the meaning and application of physical/environmental ’neutrality’ on stage as they simultaneously investigate and define for themselves the most essential markers needed for the viewer to perceive ‘story’ in performance. As the staged pieces are constructed from these anatomized building blocks of performance and story, more complex qualities of character, identity, archetype, mannerism, linguistic disfluencies (verbal and non-verbal) and psychological subtext will be introduced as tools for each performer’s role in the story. In the final phases of piece creation, simple analog elements of music, sound, light, mask, craft materials, dance, virtuosic/specialized skill, props will be introduced as tools. The final performance will aspire to clear and effective applications of the performance/story elements discussed (or discovered) in class. Techniques and exercises derived from the worlds of Futurism/Dada, Richard Maxwell, Blue Man Group, Elevator Repair Service, Ann Bogart, Joshua Fried,and others will be discussed and employed.

The dreamer is at once the author, the actor, and the audience for a performance that takes place while the dreamer is unconscious. Whether regarded as omens, as products of our unconscious wishes, or as our brain’s way of cleaning up memory space, dreams are an undeniable component of the human experience, and, in addition to generating many theories, they have also served as inspiration for artists searching for a direct route to the unconscious.

This class is an investigation of dreams as a springboard for art. At once theoretical and practical, the class will begin by examining the main theories regarding dreams, ranging from Freud and Jung, who pioneered psychological interpretations of dreams, to the more scientific research of the later 20th century, wherein dreams are seen more neurologically, as a way for the brain to process and sort information. After laying in the theoretical foundation, the class will focus mainly on a succession of dream performances inspired by the dreams of class participants. While dreams are experienced by the individual dreamer, these projects will all be collaborative, and involve working in groups of 3 or 4. Each will be staged in three-dimensional space in real time, and endeavor to create the dream experience for the audience. All should be multidisciplinary in nature, containing elements of theater, sound, visual art, video, and other emerging technologies.

Throughout the term, we will screen movies (which in themselves have provoked theories that liken the experience of watching a film to that of dreaming) and look at images from art-history inspired by dreams. We will also investigate games that use dream content as their governing narrative engine. This will enable us to appreciate the wide range of strategies that artists have used when making art based on dreams – from using dreams to explore the non-linear logic of the individual’s unconscious (as in the surrealists), to the more communal dream experience of modern trauma (as in El Abrazo de la Serpiente). This wide range of inspiration should act as a model for our explorations as we create our own dream plays.

Embodied Performance: Collaborative Creations is a 2-credit studio course that explores the instructor’s original performance methodology, a fusion of physical theater modalities culled from Western practices (Psycho-physical actions, Viewpoints), Eastern practices (Butoh, Kundalini yoga) and related performance disciplines (Mask, Puppetry). This course provides foundational training for students who are interested in investigating the field of performative and collaborative arts and will serve as an entry point for NYU students interested in movement and physically based acting.

This course is a laboratory for students interested in exploring the works of master choreographers, exposing them to an in-depth study of choreography by focusing on the steps, rhythm, structure, style and historical/conceptual contexts of iconic choreographic works ranging from 19th-century romantic ballet to contemporary work. This exploration will be accomplished physically: students will learn dance excerpts with attention to the physical details of steps, style and phrasing, allowing them to acclimate their own bodies to the universe of specific choreographies.

Students will be able to execute these choreographic works while developing a deeper understanding for the choreographers’ creative process and artistic decisions, inviting them to physically experience major artistic shifts in19th- and 20th-century dance aesthetics as they immerse themselves in the process of choreographic reconstruction. From classical ballet’s ideals of beauty, to the uses of narrative and the social/political/religious function of classicism, and finally through to the deconstruction of dance tradition in postmodern performances, this course exposes students to dance’s living archive while encouraging them to develop a critical perspective on the art of dance, its historical impact and future directions. Each session will be devoted to the recreation of seminal works from a variety of styles—Cambodian dance, Ballet, modern dance, postmodern dance, etc.

Beginning with a twenty-minute warm-up based on a physical technique tailored to each specific style (whether a simple ballet warm-up, basic Horton technique, Pilate’s based exercises, etc.), physical technique will be complemented with readings, viewings and discussion that focus on each historical work. All readings and viewings will be uploaded to create easy access for students. For midterm, students will perform one of the works already covered. For the final project, students will choose a favorite work covered over the semester and develop—in dialogue with the instructor—a solo, duet or a small group piece based on this work. For two weeks preceding these projects, students will build a compositional method based on the creative process of their chosen work. Details and guidelines about the final project will be discussed individually with the instructor. In addition, students will write a three-page paper on their chosen work due on the penultimate week, with guidelines distributed at the beginning of the semester.

This course is a level II in dance practice designed for a student with an intermediate level of familiarity and experience with Modern dance. It further improves on the physical training offered in Modern Dance I, but is not predicated on previous enrollment in that class. The class focuses on the physical articulation of various movement vocabularies, collaborative exploration of partnering, and ongoing in-class discussion to deepen the connection of self-awareness through learning and executing movement. Each class will involve set choreographic material as well as improvisation practice as teaching tools to deeply inform movement training with intention, efficiency and artistry. Students will be encouraged to pay close attention to their own movement learning experience instead of focusing on replicating the movement they learn. Movement material will include floor work, traveling, balancing, jumping, turning and will be shaped by these principles. Previous modern, contemporary or equivalent experience is required.

Students are expected to know the basic tenets of movement:

 Learning movement and executing choreography in detail

 Ability to reproduce complex movement material

 Comfort in dealing with full-bodied movement through space

 Basic knowledge of physical skills

 Commitment to a weekly physical practice set up by instructor

 Timely presentation of homework assignments

In Performing Anatomy: Body Technology, students will experiment with human anatomy as technology. We will begin this process by practicing movement phrases that survey the design of our anatomy. In this case, anatomical design refers to the muscular, skeletal, and proprioceptive systems that stabilize us. We will then build onto this knowledge through investigations in biomechanics like motion, force, momentum, and balance. Our physical practice in the studio will be supplemented by reviewing images, texts, sound and video as reference material. Students will periodically produce short studies across forms of media wherein they are tasked to translate the anatomical information learned into original compositions. These multidisciplinary studies finalize each module and are presented in a final performance.

While grocery shopping, have you ever wanted to talk to a cucumber? Encounter a red radish or pet a pizza? You can. Puppets are everywhere and highly effective for bringing impossible ideas into reality. Following the idea that puppets are "any performing object" and that objects can be useful as stand-ins for human beings, this hands-on puppet building course explores anthropomorphism, character development, narrative and performance. Through weekly assignments and a final project, we will bring life to objects that we create, transform or find. Drawing inspiration from different styles of mainstream and avante-garde art, music, entertainment and puppetry we will develop original concepts of our own. Exercises explore a range of technologies and materials, from simple sock puppets to marionettes and shadow puppets, to hand puppets and body puppets, to abstract and kinetic objects. We'll spend time looking at how to successfully integrate interactive elements from other realms such as music, special effects, physical interfaces, lighting, video and more into our performances. Every week we perform, with the class culminating in a final public performance bringing together the best of student work.

How does one design a dance of illusion? Create interactive storytelling and experiential worlds? What is the process of building virtual dances for new technologies and online audiences? Site-Specific to Immersive Dance Theater: Choreographing for Unconventional Formats and Spaces (Tisch Collaborative Arts & Open Arts) is a research-to-practice course reconsidering the function, philosophy, and reality of an evolving stage. Not only is New York City a conduit for local to international dance and theater, but it is also a safe space for artists to resist the norm and re-imagine models for making.

Students will delve into physical world-making for both fantasy and non-fiction narratives. Additionally, students will have the opportunity to study the history and strategies for site-specific dance as a model for social change – given hands-on opportunities to experience the roles and responsibilities of choreographer as activist and historian. Through course exercises, students will build their own body of work ranging from dances for intimate home spaces to renowned public and digital sites. Past experience in movement and/or performance training is not required.

From Shakespeare’s era to the present day, writers and other artists have created new works by using other art-forms as source material. This practice is especially true for film and television, where the source material can come from a novel or play, a video game or comic book, an historical event or even a blog or trashy headline. We will explore a variety of practices in the art of adaptation--as it relates to movies and TV--and apply them to an adaptation that students will develop over the course of the semester, resulting in a treatment for a film or television show. Through case studies, exercises and in-class discussion, we will refine and develop students’ work to its greatest potential. We will compare early drafts of award-winning screenplays with their original source material and the final shooting scripts, hopefully gaining insight into the iterative process of adaptation and the challenges and creative insights that the filmmakers discovered along the way. We'll also explore practical issues like options, rights, collaborations, intellectual property laws and licenses, etc.

This is a creative workshop designed for playwrights who yearn to act and actors who have an itch to write. Using one’s self as material, participants create a short solo performance for an end-of-semester presentation. The lab combines physical work (both group and solo) with in-class/out-of-class writing exercises aimed at enhancing students’ capacities to transform the stuff of their real lives into mimetic fiction. The final composition may stand alone as a finished, self-contained piece or may be an extended monologue planned as part of a full-length play, given the creator’s primary interest (solo-performance vs. playwriting). In-class exercises, group critiques (though the instructor prefers the word “responses”) as well as analysis of other artists’ solo performances are used to shape students’ final compositions.

Filmmaking is a collaborative art form, and screenwriting is the first foundational element of this ideal. It is common to see episodes of television series credited to multiple people, or at least different people within each season. What does this mean? Do groups of writers working on a show write as a group, or is there some other form of collaboration? If a group of writers end up collaborating on a television show, how does that series end up as one unified whole? Most importantly, what are the benefits of collaboration and how is it put into practice? Collaborative Screenwriting will focus on the use of multiple writers in the writer’s room – the most common method of screenplay development in modern day television - as a way to better understand the collaborative process of screenwriting. By looking at the different strategies employed by multiple writers creating a series bible and scripts, we will delve deeply into several intermediate aspects of screenwriting – dramatic structure, plot evolution, character development, scene shaping and dialogue. At the same time, we will confront the true nature of collaboration in screenwriting – what it actually means to ‘combine talents’ in a work – as well as produce finished work reflecting that goal. Intended as a practicum in screenplay collaboration focused on the development of a half-hour ‘prestige TV’ series, the class will be set up as a model Writer’s Room. Each group of three to four writers will develop a series idea together, in the form of a bible, and then write the pilot script for the series, which they will workshop together. Emphasis will be placed on developing the bible/pitch deck, breaking story, and examining the various roles that make the writers room a creative and dynamic environment. Students will have a working understanding of developing episodic content, and come out of the class with a basic understanding of how a writer’s room operates. Note: this is a rigorous, collaborative class that requires significant out-of-class meetups with your group colleagues, so please be aware of the time commitment.

A continuation of the training presented in Fundamentals of Developing the Screenplay. Required work in the class includes extensive scene work. Guided by their screenwriting instructor, students will complete the screenplay begun in Fundamentals of Developing the Screenplay and then do a rewrite or they may begin, complete, and rewrite a new full-length screenplay. The focus in this class will be on story structure and development and the completion of a full-length screenplay. If you plan to do a new work, you must come to the first class with three ideas for full-length screenplays. Each idea can be described in one or two paragraphs.

Adapted from the Dramatic Writing Program’s popular “Introduction to the Sitcom” course, this intensive scriptwriting class answers the question, “What do I need to break into TV writing?” – the student will be guided through the step-by-step development of an episode for an ongoing TV sitcom, from premise line to one-page outline, to pages and revisions. The course will require the completion of a polished draft while introducing students to the rigors of professional standards through weekly story goals.

If autobiography is a retelling of the events of your life from beginning to end, then memoir—from the French for “to remember”—is an examination of some events of your life through a particular frame. We tell stories drawn from our lives all the time, but we sometimes fail to consider the themes and ideas that connect those stories with themselves and with each other; that failure robs us in turn of the opportunity to understand better both the world and ourselves. Each week of this course you’ll both read and write thoughtful memoir; by the end of the semester, you’ll be able to write reflectively about your own past, examining not just the stories you tell about your life but also those stories’ deeper meanings, their part in shaping your identity, and their echoes in your present and your future.

Animation is often considered an art form of synthesis— bringing together disciplines as varied as collage, cartooning, dance, puppetry, slight-of-hand, sculpture, painting, printmaking, engineering, photography, sound design, music, and acting to forge wholly new kinds of "moving pictures." This hands-on class will explore the productive possibilities of adding a time-based dimension to a variety of artmaking modes. Emphasis will be placed upon experimentation, diy solutions and developing unique approaches to applying the principles of frame-by-frame filmmaking to one’s own practice. The course will survey artists and art movements that have uniquely embraced animation. Group and individual projects will engender a solid understanding of animation principles and provide students with a toolkit of strategies for creating animation in a variety of contexts— from optical toys, to short films, live-performance, documentary and large-scale projection. Open to those with no animation experience, and those with experience looking to deepen an understanding of their own creative process and voice. 

In this course, we will explore the versatile usage of animation in the world of graphic design as a unique form of expression. We will examine how motion design combines movement, rhythm, space, and timing to orchestrate abstract shapes, words, and symbols. Through a series of weekly exercises, students will gain an understanding of key concepts in motion design while using and learning Adobe After Effects. We will follow the footsteps of motion design history, reconstructing classic pieces in order to gain a fundamental understanding of this art form. We will learn how graphic design, music, choreography, and acting can all be applied to the motion of design elements and furthermore, how the combination of animation and design can convey compelling stories, emotions, and ideas. Students will survey the technologies and methods that enabled the fields’ developments - from drawing on 18 mm film, the analog Scanimate in the 80s, to UX motion, interactive design, and contemporary live performances. Inspired by those traditions, students will be encouraged to take on an experimental approach, discuss thought processes, and develop their own visual language while combining interdisciplinary practices. *Adobe After Effects will be used as a main tool in the course, therefore a sufficient computer (over 16GB of RAM and a graphic card) is required.

“Documenting Discovery” is an intensive 14 week course combining lectures and creative workshops to fully explore documentary film production. Students will learn advanced non-fiction filmmaking techniques, including interviewing subjects, capturing visuals from real life and documentary storytelling. Over the course of the semester, students will hone their filmmaking skills through a series of exercises, leading up to a final project that focuses on a single subject. Focusing on both content and form, student filmmakers will choose a subject to research, interview and develop a documentary film with a clear narrative arc. Students can choose to focus on a friend or family member, or else they can choose from a pool of suggested subjects to document their process of artistic discovery.

FUNDAMENTALS OF FILMMAKING II: NARRATIVE FILM is an intensive production workshop for fiction filmmaking. Students write, direct, and produce one short, 5-7 minute, film. The course builds upon the visual storytelling tools learned in the prerequisite courses, Fundamentals of Filmmaking I, or Cinematic Narratives. Students will strengthen their skills in screenwriting, cinematography, aesthetics, and editing to further develop their personal filmmaking style. Students can choose to create a traditional narrative film with dialog, or they can choose alternative types of performance and filmmaking that create narrative style flow in different ways. Students must have a rough draft script, or one page treatment, ready by the first day of classes as writing and rewriting work begins in week one. Each student writes and directs their own film, and then they serve as crew members for their classmates when they direct their films.

Students can also choose to break the constraints of the traditional solo director/auteur theory, and choose to co-direct and Co-Create their film with a partner. Students with more experience in acting or performing can partner with other students who have more experience with writing, directing, or cinematography - and they can explore the opportunities within the emerging trend of Co-Creative filmmaking.

Students are guided by their Professor, and a Production Advisor, through all the production logistics that are necessary for successful filmmaking - including casting, art direction, props, locations, schedules, call times, insurance, equipment, wardrobe, effects, editing and more. During Morning Sessions, all work is discussed in class, and creative feedback is an essential component of the course. For the first third of the semester, Afternoon Sessions provide technical training on professional level videocameras, audio gear, lighting, and editing software. After the tech training period, Afternoon Sessions are reserved as optional practice sessions and/or filming periods. Midway through the semester, the final production period occurs over four consecutive weeks, and weekend work is required during this production period.

New Video Dimensions is a video production workshop where students conceive, produce, perform, direct and edit fully polished video media for a variety of interdisciplinary art forms - from immersive VR to interactive performance art, from movement-based performance to media guided participatory theater, to stand alone internet media and short films. Video is an integral part of many artistic disciplines and this class explores ways to reimagine conventional video production and harness the visceral impact of video within a wide range of unique interdisciplinary mediums.

Each student pitches and chooses an interdisciplinary project they plan to create. They then team up with another student who will work with them to create video that will support that project. Emphasis is given to ways in which personal visual inspiration, as opposed to artistic imitation, can create innovative new forms of video art. Students will alternate roles as interdisciplinary artists and as video collaborators, so that each student creates a final video for a proposed interdisciplinary project. Students can also choose to work together within both roles for a single project, or stand alone video piece. All aspects of video production will be explored, including writing, choreography, acting, art direction, cinematography, music, editing, and more. The role of the video-maker will be explored as a collaborative partner with other interdisciplinary artists.

Students use a variety of cameras & audio gear as they build upon the technical skills they learned in previous filmmaking courses. For the final projects, each proposedinterdisciplinary project will be detailed in a powerpoint presentation, and the completed videos for those projects will be screened along with those presentations. Students are required to have taken one introductory video class with synchronous sound, or special permission can be given by the Professor on a case by case basis.

Students will learn how to shoot professional looking shots on prosumer cameras with minimal lighting — by applying the lessons of professional cinematography to prosumer video cameras, DSLR’s, and cellphone videography. A wide variety of Camera Exercises are assigned to train the students to shoot movies with natural light and limited prosumer camera gear. 3-4 person crews are selected to work together on all the Camera Exercises, and for the Final Project as well. Students shoot with their own DSLR’s, prosumer cameras, and/or cellphones. Pending availability (and CSI access) students can also choose from a selection of DSLR’s and prosumer gear provided by the course (SONY A73, SONY A7R2, SONY A6400, Pocket Osmo Gimbal Camera, and Osmo 3 Gimbal for Cellphones). All camera exercises are screened and reviewed in class.  Students analyze and discuss their own work and are assigned reshoots and pick-up shooting assignments to reinforce their in-class learning. Early classes work with professional lighting gear on stage and students then go out into the field to film camera exercises and music videos utilizing available natural light and small practical light kits - while employing the lighting concepts and lessons they learned on stage.

What does it look like when members of the LGBTQAI+ communities document themselves and each other? How can we take inspiration from queer documentaries of the past and apply them to the stories we’d like to tell on screen today? This collaborative practical course combines film screenings, creative exercises, lectures, and class discussions with a workshop environment in which students will explore their own cinematic artistic practice. During the course of the semester, students will research, develop, produce, direct, shoot, and edit their own short documentary (approx 3-5 mins in length). As inspiration, LGBTQAI+ documentary films from a wide variety of filmmakers and genres will be screened and studied throughout the course. Students will be required to complete readings about film history and technique, watch films outside of class, write weekly response papers, complete production assignments, and keep a journal about the making of their own film. Student work will be given individualized attention during class so participants are expected to engage with the variety of projects being undertaken by their peers and to participate actively in class workshops and discussions. Classes will sometimes include guest lectures by filmmakers.

Students work in groups to develop and present collaborative projects that creatively incorporate real-life material (for example: unscripted interview, archival material, found footage or newsreel) as the basis for developing their co-authored work. Over the course of the semester, collaborative groups explore what it means to create original works from real-life material - examining how various mediums allow them to delve into this theme differently.

Through groundbreaking and creative nonfiction programs like S-Town, Have You Heard George’s Podcast?, and Radiolab, podcasting has taken hold in American culture over the last decade, having evolved into its own unique art form. This innovative medium is not bound by the limitations of traditional radio — podcasts can be heard anywhere in the world, produced in any language, and be of any length. In this course, students will learn how to embrace their unique voices as they produce compelling nonfiction stories solely in sound. Students will learn how to record, edit, and workshop audio stories, write for the ear and record narration, effectively employ music and sound design, and distribute a self-produced podcast.

The foundations of Max, a powerful visual programming language for music and multimedia, will be covered in this course. We will examine how computers can be utilized to create situations for music creation, performance, and collaborative improvisation as well as applied to building interactive, generative music. In addition to learning Max's fundamental building blocks, we will also use fundamental music theory as a tool to better understand music making. We will create programs that examine rhythm, melodies, chords, scales, and recognize other qualities of music like timbre, texture, and dynamics while taking into consideration the principles of harmony, melody, and rhythm defined in basic music theory. The final will require you to develop a collaborative piece of interactive computer music, a collaborative performance environment, or another final project that has been discussed and agreed upon together. This class does not require any prerequisite programming skills or prior music theory knowledge.

Contemporary music applications is an intermediate music production and computer music class. The course will encourage a creative approach to using recording software as a tool that can be applied to music making for a wide range of interdisciplinary practices. Students will be introduced to mixing, sound design, advanced audio/MIDI editing, and production techniques for composing music. It will explore concepts and questions such as how does sound re/de/contextualize an image and how are dynamics created through mixing and effects processing? This class will encourage students to step outside of their musical comfort zones to further their technical skills in composing and producing music with software.

Design, build, practice, perform, record, recycle, repeat. In this fabrication-heavy course, students will create new musical instruments and toys that can be performed and manipulated by humans, machines, animals and the supernatural. We will experiment with shapes, materials, and analog/digital technologies to create new instruments that defy common sense, yet are visually beautiful and sonically adventurous. Our main sources of inspiration will be the industrial revolution, punk subculture, soap operas, cartoons, Fluxus, the universe, and New York City. Our goal will be to devise musical instruments that can be mastered but also played without skill or music education. We will learn how to utilize various building tools and techniques such as 3D modelling and printing, Shop power tools and laser cutting. In each weekly iteration, students will compose, record and perform original music with their instruments, sometimes as an ensemble. The semester will end with an exhibition featuring our instruments and sheet music, with a final performance for a live audience.

There Are Other Worlds (They Have Not Told You Of) — Sun Ra 

You can be in unison without being in unison.  —Ornette Coleman

I do not think there are final and definite answers to any of the really important questions in human life; there are only useful and useless answers—answers, that is, that lead in the direction of enrichment of experience or of its impoverishment.  — Christopher Small

This course is about successfully illuminating some of the formal, contextual, cultural, and social dimensions of Experimental performance vis-à-vis the critical study/practice of improvising. Because the professor believes that improvisation presents itself as a non-hierarchical (ideally), process-oriented practice, that claims no victories and is rooted in a listening self, the class will construct this course together as an ensemble; an open, unpretentious and wholly democratic approach will carry us into our 15-week experimentation.

Music Studio Machines is an intermediate experimental music production and audio engineering class designed for performing arts students interested in exploring the theory, art, technique and workflow of the recording studio environment. Each student will create a singular body of work while working as one collaborative multi-functional unit - composing, performing, engineering, writing, producing and assisting on each other's music projects, all while pursuing their own individual sound, style and composition methods. Topics include synthesizing electronic sound using analog and digital hardware and software, field recordings, sampling, recording acoustic instruments and vocals, sound processing and effects. Ableton Live will be our main sequencing tool with an emphasis on songwriting and composition, audio and MIDI recording, arranging, editing and mixing techniques. Through weekly recording assignments, listening sessions, group exercises and sound experiments, we will deepen our understanding of sound and song structure. At the end of this course each student will have created an album of work.

This is a team-taught workshop that encourages you to find your own voice and learn to merge your unique artistic vision with those of other collaborative artists to create exciting new musical theater. The course will start by covering the basics of songwriting for the theater, but it is not a music theory class; we’ll be focusing more on using music to tell stories than on compositional techniques. Together we’ll examine theater songwriting craft, issues of communication between artists of different disciplines, and storytelling through music and text. Poets, playwrights, and writers from other genres, and composers from a wide variety of stylistic backgrounds ranging from pop to classical, country to hip-hop, rap to jazz to fusion—all are welcome to participate, regardless of experience or lack thereof. We aim to create a supportive environment in which you feel free to experiment and to explore both what musical theater has been and what it can become. Note: most of your homework will be done in collaboration with one or more of your classmates, so expect to spend a significant amount of time working with others.

Sound is physical. It can move objects, vibrate surfaces, perceptually alter our emotions, and shape the way viewers engage with spaces. As artists, we are conditioned to aspire to situate our work within traditional settings. How can we reposition sound as a main element of a work within unconventional contexts? This course will use the question of a sonic utopia as a platform to create interdisciplinary projects that exist between installation, sculpture, video, performance, movement, and music. Students will learn sound theories through lectures and in-class workshops and are encouraged to incorporate their individual interests into each of the four main projects that aim to position sound as a primary element of a work in order to expand the possibilities of working with sound.

Thesis: All art uses technology. Technology is not art. Whether a work of art is created to bridge the supernatural, convey experience, thought, or a world view, or something more, art is a three letter verb representing the result of an individual’s desire to create difference.

This course is an exploration of the relationship between art and technology over time with an emphasis on work of the late 20th century and the dawn of the 21st century. During class we will examine recurring artistic concepts and consider how technology interprets the expression of these ideas.

You don’t have to be an electrical engineer to be able to hack power and twist it for your own wild experiments. No matter what art/performance mediums you use in your creative practice, there are so many exciting and cutting-edge ways to augment your craft with connected devices and computer-assisted fabrication. This entry-level, hands-on electronics course is for students who want to test, build, fail, break, guess, burn, explore, and to ultimately make weird stuff that has never existed before.

Some example projects include: interactive installations, moving sculptures, wearable devices for fashion, dynamic lighting, and DIY music devices. The course goes over the basics of electronic circuits and coding for Arduino — programmable micro-computers that process inputs from buttons, biofeedback sensors, and microphones and translate them into outputs expressed through LED lights, sounds, motors, and relays. We use laser cutters, 3D printers, woodworking tools, and sewing machines to assist us, and learn the best practices of creating robust circuits through soldering, component selection, and power supply. Each week we look to contemporary hardware artists for inspiration and use our classmates to test and analyze our prototypes, getting feedback on not just the practical design of the circuits and mechanisms, but the feelings, ideas, and creative effects our connected art elicits.

No prior coding, hardware, or fabrication experience necessary, but time and dedication is — most projects will require out-of-class time spent in the shop. Students will need a laptop, but basic hardware and materials will be provided.

How do ants or bees organize on a mass scale when their individual brains are incapable of understanding the bigger systems they’re creating together? How did a Twitch hive-mind of 1.2 million people beat Pokémon one collective move at a time? How do we make art that makes us and our audience feel more connected, more alive, more powerful? This hands-on project studio course is about making art where participants are the medium, and the masterpiece created exists inside and between them. Let’s explore community and its connection to transformational, radical joy — not complacent happiness, but a joy that is the feeling of power, agency, and capacity growing within us and within the people around us as we cooperate to overcome shared challenges. Which systems and forms of art, play, and expression foster that kind of joy? 

This course is heavy on imagination, vulnerability, reading, discussion, experimentation, playtesting, and interactive group activities. Each week explores the relationship of the individual to the group under various lenses and spheres of life (i.e. politics, religion, activism, evolutionary biology, sociology, pleasure, the universe, sports, games, childhood, etc.). Then together, we break down the relationships, dynamics, and effects those systems have, and create multi-media prototypes and performance experiments inspired by these themes and ideas. The early assignments are solo, and then almost all assignments are in groups. The core process of the class uses iterative game design as a structure for ideating, creating, playtesting, and refining, though students are welcome to work in any medium they choose, so long as the goal is to explore themes of collective joy.

This course is a unique collaboration between the Collaborative Arts and IMA Tisch departments, and CultureHub based at La Mama. During the pandemic many performing artists moved their work online, leading to an increasing acceptance of experimental practices that their predecessors developed in online work for the past 30 years. In IRL/URL_Performing Hybrid Systems, students will have the opportunity to design, prototype, and present collaborative projects that build on this tradition, blending both physical and virtual elements. Over the course of the semester, students will have the opportunity to study at La MaMa's CultureHub studio where they will be introduced to video, lighting, sound, and cueing systems. In addition, students will learn creative coding fundamentals allowing them to network multiple softwares and devices generating real-time feedback systems. The class will culminate with a final showing that will be presented online and broadcast from the CultureHub studio.

Technology is a weasel. Squeezing its way into art, culture and the everyday. It infiltrates our psyche, inspiring playful interactions, fantastical ideas, vengeance and drama. It brings us together while tearing us apart. In this project-based studio, we will focus on a collective approach to creating art, tools, performances, and experiences. Outer Space in the context of this course will be used as a metaphor for the future, the unknown, and the seemingly impossible. We will investigate disparate cultural moments and unravel narratives that are both historical and technological. Technology will serve as a structure with open-ended assignments in music, video, sculpture, electronics, kineticism, surveillance, interactive graphics, and performance.  Combined collaborative exercises and individual projects will augment classroom discussions and inform the art that we make. A willingness to use your imagination and personal experience to derail preconceived notions of linear timelines will serve you well in this hands-on multidisciplinary course.

This course will introduce students to technologies for speech synthesis and speech recognition from the point of view of performance art. Through weekly assignments and in class lectures, we will explore voice interfaces and their role in technology, design, art, and culture. We will begin with understanding human speech, and then delve into computer speech. We will learn how to program existing technologies such as p5.js to create our own talking machines. The class will research the current limitations and biases of these technologies and models, and respond by leveraging these constraints as ground for performative expression. Students will be required to develop a performative piece as their final project, this could be a live performance, an interactive installation piece, or a performative object or tool. Students are encouraged to bring their interests into the classroom and apply the course into their practice. Prior knowledge of computer programming will be helpful, however, it is not required. NYU is a global community. You are welcome to bring your own language, your accent, and your spoken identity into the class.

In this class, we’ll learn TouchDesigner, a powerful software hub for live audiovisual content, and control it with DIY props and digital interfaces that we’ll build to connect to our art directly from the stage. With a cutting-edge buffet of inputs and outputs at our disposal, what new, evolved, or remixed types of performance can we create? If you’re a musician, you’ll build and play instruments that didn’t exist before. If you’re a dancer, your movements will become the music and visuals, instead of the other way around. If you’re a filmmaker, you’ll shoot a real-life scene with a virtual camera or light a physical set with real-time VFX. If you're a visual artist, you'll warp color, distort images, and push pixels to the brink of destruction. If you’re all of the above, you’ll have fun in this class. 

To connect to TouchDesigner, we’ll build hardware props using Arduinos, tiny computers that we can hook up sensors, buttons, and LEDs to, and create unique thematic interfaces that augment our performances and interactive installations. Weekly assignments explore AI tools, electronic circuits, fabrication, camera input and livestreams, 3D models and procedural animation, and more. Midway through the semester we'll begin performing live using our connected props for DJ/VJing and projection-mapped interactive spaces, with the class culminating in a final public performance bringing together the best of student work. No previous coding or performance experience necessary. There is a lab fee for the hardware we’ll use to build our devices.

While grocery shopping, have you ever wanted to talk to a cucumber? Encounter a red radish or pet a pizza? You can. Following the idea that puppets are "any performing object" and that objects can be useful as stand-ins for human beings, this class explores anthropomorphism, character development, narrative and performance. Through weekly assignments and a final project, we will bring life to objects that we create, transform or find. Drawing inspiration from different styles of mainstream and experimental art, music, entertainment and puppetry we will develop original concepts of our own. Exercises explore a range of technologies and materials, from simple sock puppets to marionettes and shadow puppets, to mechanised, abstract and kinetic objects. We’ll spend time looking at how to successfully integrate interactive elements from other realms such as music, special effects, physical interfaces, lighting, video and more into our performances.

THINK LIKE A GAME DESIGNER is a class about collaboration, systems thinking, problem solving, communication, and the creative process. The course uses game design as the way to practice these essential creative skills - but it really is a course about how to design anything. Over the semester, students will work in groups to actually make a series of playable games, each project offering lessons in how to brainstorm, conceptualize, prototype, iterate, and playtest.

While we will be discussing the design and culture of videogames, the focus of the class is hands-on physical game creation: card games, board game, social games, and physical games. Along the way, we will be touching on all of the things that make games work - mathematics and logic, aesthetics and narrative, psychology and economics, technology and culture. Because games operate across all of these areas, they are the perfect way to practice how we can design with all of these factors in mind - systems thinking to storytelling to designing for human contexts. The final class project will make use of your own field of study as you link game design thinking to the analysis and redesign of a real-world problem.

This course explores unruly images, bodies, faces, spaces, aesthetics, and even feelings that exist at the margins of categorization, making these powerful subjects for artistic work. We will manipulate image-making tools and give form to expressions that reveal the hidden structures of power. Through lectures, discussions, workshops, and readings, we will look at topics such as memes and glitch art, cyberface and AR filters, monsters and glitched bodies, uncanny valley and AI images, as well as liminal space and collaborative world-building. We will pay particular attention to selected writings from Hito Steyerl, Legacy Russell, Rosa Menkman, and Adam Greenfield, and apply these critiques to emerging perceptual technologies (volumetric 3D capturing, machine learning, AR/VR, web-based 3D game engines) that students will use to create their projects. 

What types of performance can we create if we’re not limited to a physical stage or even a physical body? How much more can we communicate with video once our audience has the power to directly interact with the content, not just passively observe? We can create dynamic, digital experiences and innovative, virtual performances using Unreal Engine, a game engine and powerful suite of development tools. Students will learn the fundamentals of Unreal Engine, including 3D environments and assets, lighting, cameras, animations, audio, basic VFX, and programming interactivity using visual scripting blueprints. Then, we will incorporate external hardware such as depth cameras, LiDAR scanners, and motion capture suits to create our own digital assets, including virtual avatars of ourselves. Students will use this foundation in virtual production to create projects ranging from 3D music videos to choose-your-own-adventure memoirs to

Performances with puppet avatars in an online 3D environment. The final assignment will be a part of a public show.

The death of printed matter has been predicted for more than half a century. Meanwhile, artists have been busy continually proving that print media—and the nimble RISO, in particular—offers vital new possibilities for experimentation. With a capacity to layer pure spot color, like silkscreen, and output quickly, like digital processes, the Risograph duplicator has revolutionized visual culture over the past decade. RISO aesthetics have made their way into animation and film, into mainstream digital design culture, and has flooded independent art book publishing. Because the process engages and serves niche communities of artists, it has given voice to groups traditionally excluded from mainstream publishing. It is the machine largely responsible for the thriving, international small press movement, which challenges both the traditional scarcity-based economy of the art market, and the myth of the lone artist. Experimental RISO will take this spirit as a starting point, as our class works together as a small community to push the RISO into more experimental territory. We will explore a myriad of “off label” uses for RISO printmaking. We will design non-digital publications using exquisite corpse methods and learn how to translate film and animation into RISO. Avant-garde publishing has a long history of cutting through the so-called dichotomy between paper and electronics, so we will use conditional design “codes” to design programmatically. We will investigate the RISO’s potential to produce performance-based art—looking to Bruno Munari and Victorian Troublewit performance for possible inroads.

The object, in reality, is anything but inert - it is hyperactive, changing in function and meaning as it moves in time and space. This studio-based course will give students the tools to use objects and materials specifically and deliberately in their work. The course will link intuitive making with research, allowing students to investigate their genuine and unique interests and develop their conceptual goals. During the course of the semester, students will be exposed to a wide range of non-traditional objects and materials that have been employed by artists throughout history. Readings and viewings will supplement the work done in the studio, with four themed sections serving as guided warm ups for a final project of the students’ own direction. These sections are titled: The Other, The Icon, The Minuscule, The Massive. Each student will make a work based on each theme, and group critiques will function as a laboratory in which students can test theories on display, context, form and legibility. This course is best suited to those with an interest in nontraditional art materials, collage, and found objects. Prior experience in sculpture or painting will be particularly helpful, however, it is not required.

Through a series of lectures and weekly prompts, this hands-on course introduces a methodology that facilitates the process from thinking to making. Softness is used as both a theoretical and material framework that asks students to rethink the edges of the real and to to engage with structures, organizations, materials  and relationships as malleable, fluid, and open to transformation.  Students are introduced to foundational concepts through a wide range of examples and readings, and are invited to critically reflect on how these concepts inform and guide their own practice and creative journey.  The weekly assignments are meant to help students become comfortable with a variety of techniques and making practices, and in a rapid, playful and experimental manner engage with ideas in an embodied and enacted way.  Given that they have a week to complete each assignment, the goal is to help students delve into the core and essential properties of each concept and find ways to express and explore them in their work. The cadence of the lectures and survey of a wide range of artistic practices aims to expose students to different approaches to making, and importantly help them understand how theory and practice are not separate realms but indeed intertwined. 

Before the internet, artists and enthusiasts found their communities through self-publishing niche small-circulation magazines, usually without profit, with a burning desire to communicate. We’ll discuss the continued relevancy of the culture as we look at zines scenes from the past. For each scene, we’ll have an “object lesson” in which we dissect historical zines with an eye on form, content, aesthetic, publisher motives, and technology required for production. Then we’ll make our own! We’ll learn about historical zine making methods by making our own small-run zines in the same fashion to circulate within class. In addition to this tactile learning, you’ll produce a small body of work and gain an instant collection from your peers.

This course challenges us to foster a tactile understanding of the relationship between art and social change. How do artists address social issues? Can art transform lives? How can art serve as a force for encouraging ethical dialogue and action within the public sphere? How do we make our ideas and revelations actually matter within our collective place and space? To better facilitate our understanding of this relationship, and in an effort to get inside these key questions and others, this course will unfold in two parts. Part I (Conversations on Art and Social Change) will be run as an interactive seminar in which we will explore how the desire to change the world has led some artists to align themselves with wider social movements. Through lectures, discussions and presentations, we will set about to engage ourselves with the work of contemporary artists who have addressed issues related to the environment, racial and cultural identity, human rights, healthcare, and social justice. We will assume that understanding the work of others is necessary if we are to appreciate the potentiality of our own impact on the world. Part II of this course (A Collective Gesture Toward) will entail challenging ourselves to participate more fully in our immediate surroundings vis-à-vis the development and implementation of a work (or works) of art.

The interview is at the heart of the documentary film and many forms of media, journalism, podcasts and theater. It is a basic tool in academic research. This course will analyze the skills required to produce a successful interview: selecting subjects; preparing and posing questions; focused listening and eliciting powerful responses. Students will be exposed to some of the finest examples of interviews across disciplines demonstrating the range of styles and contexts for the interview. Whether with a random stranger, a family member or a well-known personality, students will develop the ability to conduct meaningful interviews during the course of the semester.

Taking off from the practices of medium-based art categories, this course is structured across key topics in contemporary art - “art of today, produced by artists who are living in the twenty-first century”. During the semester, via the framework of readings, projects and assignments, we will consider the importance of the visual arts in the larger context of society. Each week we will look at a different topic, which will be organized around key concepts, artists and artwork examples. The main goal is to allow us to contemplate the process of interaction between visual art, history, cultural, socio-economical, and technological forces. The stress of our gatherings will be on the artist as a thinker and a maker.

Many films - both narrative and documentary - aim to present some form of “truth” and reality to the audience. This course examines how film is always an authored construct, where the filmmaker’s selection and presentation of visual materials reveals an artful manipulation of reality in order to evoke meaning and emotion. Students will analyze and interrogate cinematic representations of reality, and put theory into practice through video exercises based on this theme. This course is designed to give film students the foundational understanding of narrative film structure and cinematic grammar through the use of fiction and non-fiction filmmaking. The class will use films as texts to explore how cinematic storytelling attempts to create and subvert representations of reality. We will examine films that blur the line between documentary and fiction, calling into question the notion of portraying "truth" in cinema. Through a close analysis of films that challenge our notion of what is “real,” students will interrogate the very notion of truth in cinema, and ultimately demonstrate a new way of thinking about film narrative.

Students will also test the waters of film production, through cellphone video exercises and assignments. Students will work in groups to create two 1-3 minute films - one scripted and one built from a real world story. This course inspires students to see the art of cinematic stories not as a narrow construct, but rather one that allows the filmmaker to blend veracity and creation to produce original narratives.

This course examines the Western fascination with the moving body in different cultural environments and throughout colonial and postcolonial historical periods until the present time. It will begin by investigating early images and artistic representation of the body in motion captured by European ethnographers at the turn of the 19th century, and continue tracing it to current trends of contemporary culture. The goal of this course is to develop a critical understanding of the culture built around the body as subject as well as a marker of otherness. This course will offer students an opportunity to study and articulate, intellectually and physically, the legibility of bodies in motion within different cultural landscapes. Bodies in Cultural Landscapes will provide an open forum in which to investigate human movement within the specific aesthetic system and cultural practice of early ethnographic representation to contemporary culture’s engagement with the moving body. It will offer insight into personal and cultural identity, stimulating an expanded recognition and appreciation of difference. This course offers students the opportunity to explore simultaneously their intellect (in class viewing, readings and discussions), as well as in the presentation of their own version of ethnographic research and representation based on a topic of their choice discussed with instructor. Students will engage weekly with exercises and assignments based on course material.

We will explore the tension between the live and the scripted, the performed and the texted--almost entirely in the field of theatre but also in some other genres of performed events. A series of productions will be carefully curated to see different artists' renderings of these two aspects of the live event, and we will sustain an interest in other dualities, including the tension between the virtual and the real, the rehearsed and the improvised, etc.

Whether you are a filmmaker looking to better understand how to build a cohesive and productive film crew; a theatre maker excited about building a performance project or theatre company; a multi-media artist looking for ways to innovate your ideas for artistic work in collaboration with others; an artist looking for tools for building an artistic ensemble, or a multi-disciplinary artist looking to take your creative work out into communities as social practice, this combination lecture/activity-based class provides you with tools for better understanding how to enter into and engage others in collective creative work of purpose.

Multi-Disciplinary Arts Practice with Community Groups: Theories and Practice explores the challenges and benefits of making artistic work with others and the tools needed to create meaningful collaborative projects. In this class we interrogate definitions of community and group, explore the balance between group process and producing an artistically excellent project, and examine the processes of creating artistic work with others to strengthen our own artistic voices while helping raise the creative voices of others. With its focus on social practice, this course provides a foundation for working with small group structures in a variety of community settings and professional creative work environments. The course satisfies a CA major requirement as well as a social science requirement for all other Tisch students.

The role of the creative producer in the entertainment industry is integral to bringing a project to fruition. This introductory course covers both the creative and physical production time-line and provides students with an understanding of the producer's role through a semester-long team-based pitch project, which culminates in written and verbal pitch presentations. Students are encouraged to work on a project that best suits their area of interest: feature film, episodic/streaming, theatre, performance, podcasts, VR/AR or individualized multi-media. The course focuses on the dynamics of producing, including producer skill sets, tasks and responsibilities necessary to effectively and efficiently develop a project.