Graduate Program

In considering the needs of our MFA students, the faculty has recognized the value of a course in which incoming students will be introduced to various approaches to the dance world, thereby also gaining an acquaintance with each faculty and with their cohort. Insights and Approaches is constructed in a modular format, allowing professors to rotate through the semester. The course is divided into two parts (Insights and Approaches I and II). In the Fall semester (Insights and Approaches I), each fourweek module will follow the instructor's focus. Most will take place in the dance studio, as experiential work exploring ways of engaging with movement and/or related arts. If a subject is more presentational or requires a seminar format, the module will convene in a classroom setting. Assignments will require creative expression evaluated through critique, and/or written work assessed for clarity and relevance to the assigned task. Spring semester (Insights and Approaches II) will continue in this format for 7 weeks. At that point, second-year students will exit the course, allowing them more time to bring their final projects to fruition. At the same time, the first-year students will begin the 7- week course, Pedagogy, in preparation for their teaching during the Tisch Dance Summer Residency Festival. 

This course will strengthen articulation, clarity, and overall writing skills. Assignments will address various applications of writing for dance, through themed writing assignments, exploration of academic and creative writing styles, and immersion into relevant scholarship and research methodologies. The course will also assist students in development of a personal trajectory in their culminating projects. Students will emerge from the class with writing skills that give them a sharper artistic perspective, and a clearer sense of their own direction in the dance world. 

Through improvisational modes, algorithmic scores, and game-based ideas this composition course will generate relational strategies for building provisional worlds. World-building involves imagining, transmitting, testing, constructing, inhabiting and performing. Students will collaborate to search, gather and sort a new lexicon with cross-pollinating ideas. The process will be documented using analog tools, memory, written descriptions, drawings and cameras. The sensorial experiences, modalities and structures that emerge will be translated into living archives that account for the ephemerality inherent in dance.

Students may choose from the offerings listed to pursue deeper study in a range of interdisciplinary subjects:

• Science of Movement (2)
• Research Topics in Dance Science (2)
• Impact on Choreography of New Music (4)
• Real-time Movement and Sound Composition (2)
• Dance Music Laboratory (2)
• Artistic Dialogue Across Borders (4)
• Dance technical practice (2-8) 
• Filming the Moving Body (1)
• Video Art (2-3)
• Digital Performance (1)
• Adventures in Motion Pictures: Dance on Camera (4)
• Anatomy I & II (3 each)
• Production for Dancers (1)
• Graduate Herstory of Dance (4)
• Dance and Its Images (4)*
• Studies in Dance: Movement Theory (4)*
• Seminar in Dance Theory: Dance and the Political (4)*
• Anatomy of Difference (4)** 

*offered by the Department of Performance Studies

**offered by the Department of Art and Public Policy

In considering the needs of our MFA students, the faculty has recognized the value of a course in which incoming students will be introduced to various approaches to the dance world, thereby also gaining an acquaintance with each faculty and with their cohort. Insights and Approaches is constructed in a modular format, allowing professors to rotate through the semester. The course is divided into two parts (Insights and Approaches I and II). In the Fall semester (Insights and Approaches I), each fourweek module will follow the instructor's focus. Most will take place in the dance studio, as experiential work exploring ways of engaging with movement and/or related arts. If a subject is more presentational or requires a seminar format, the module will convene in a classroom setting. Assignments will require creative expression evaluated through critique, and/or written work assessed for clarity and relevance to the assigned task. Spring semester (Insights and Approaches II) will continue in this format for 7 weeks. At that point, second-year students will exit the course, allowing them more time to bring their final projects to fruition. At the same time, the first-year students will begin the 7- week course, Pedagogy, in preparation for their teaching during the Tisch Dance Summer Residency Festival. 

Pedagogical Inquiry offers instructional methodologies for teaching in multiple settings: high school, higher education, and community colleges. This course views pedagogy as an evolving and adaptable practice that goes beyond technical elements of dance. The primary focus encompasses both the theoretical and practical aspects of dance education. Members will be asked to think about dance and teaching as a source enfolded into their practice of composition and performance. Investigation and discussion of pedagogical material that highlights the relationship between dance pedagogy, theory and expanding the form beyond the classroom. On Wednesday mornings, we will thoroughly discuss the required readings. On Friday mornings, we will spend time in the studio investigating the practical application of teaching: The Doing. The Making. The Practice. The Music. Students will practice these methodologies by teaching class to BFA students with close mentorship by our full-time faculty.

This course places an equal emphasis on dance scholarship and dance performance. We shall situate theory, herstory and embodied practice as integrally connected and of equal import. Thus, our study of iconic Artist-Scholars is central to the course which culminates in two presentations for the NYU community; an academic conference style presentation and a performance presentation. Current topics to be addressed include reenactment, choreographic legacy, immersive and site - specific works, works with audience participation, dance with text, dance made exclusively for online platforms, visual art as dance, and the future of dance studies as a discreet discipline within the humanities. 

Students may choose from the offerings listed to pursue deeper study in a range of interdisciplinary subjects:

• Science of Movement (2)
• Research Topics in Dance Science (2)
• Impact on Choreography of New Music (4)
• Real-time Movement and Sound Composition (2)
• Dance Music Laboratory (2)
• Artistic Dialogue Across Borders (4)
• Dance technical practice (2-8) 
• Filming the Moving Body (1)
• Video Art (2-3)
• Digital Performance (1)
• Adventures in Motion Pictures: Dance on Camera (4)
• Anatomy I & II (3 each)
• Production for Dancers (1)
• Graduate Herstory of Dance (4)
• Dance and Its Images (4)*
• Studies in Dance: Movement Theory (4)*
• Seminar in Dance Theory: Dance and the Political (4)*
• Anatomy of Difference (4)** 

*offered by the Department of Performance Studies

**offered by the Department of Art and Public Policy

Focused, individualized mentorship is the heart of this MFA program. Along with core courses, students will work with a faculty mentor through Independent Study from second-year fall through the culminating project in the second year spring. 

Independent Study in Summer I will include the option of teaching one week in the BFA Summer Program.

This course is designed to broaden the scope of how artists engage with technology individually and collectively. The class environment will welcome students working across all levels of technological application and artistic experience so that there can always be a fresh exchange of ideas through creative exploration. The course design aims to explore the intersection of devised performance and technological applications through theoretical frameworks, contextualizing artistic works within societal realms. Technology-focused classes serve as practical labs to refine students' technical skills for collaborative projects. 

This course is designed to develop the business skill sets necessary for a successful and sustainable career in the arts. Designed for individuals across artistic disciplines, and for students of business, the course utilizes proven corporate Strategic Planning methods adapted for the arts. The course provides the tools to develop and articulate clear strategies for achieving short and long- term goals, increasing productivity, effectively managing time and attaining financial literacy and solvency. 

Students may choose from the offerings listed to pursue deeper study in a range of interdisciplinary subjects:

• Science of Movement (2)
• Research Topics in Dance Science (2)
• Impact on Choreography of New Music (4)
• Real-time Movement and Sound Composition (2)
• Dance Music Laboratory (2)
• Artistic Dialogue Across Borders (4)
• Dance technical practice (2-8) 
• Filming the Moving Body (1)
• Video Art (2-3)
• Digital Performance (1)
• Adventures in Motion Pictures: Dance on Camera (4)
• Anatomy I & II (3 each)
• Production for Dancers (1)
• Graduate Herstory of Dance (4)
• Dance and Its Images (4)*
• Studies in Dance: Movement Theory (4)*
• Seminar in Dance Theory: Dance and the Political (4)*
• Anatomy of Difference (4)** 

*offered by the Department of Performance Studies

**offered by the Department of Art and Public Policy

Focused, individualized mentorship is the heart of this MFA program. Along with core courses, students will work with a faculty mentor through Independent Study from second-year fall through the culminating project in the second year spring.

In considering the needs of our MFA students, the faculty has recognized the value of a course in which incoming students will be introduced to various approaches to the dance world, thereby also gaining an acquaintance with each faculty and with their cohort. Insights and Approaches is constructed in a modular format, allowing professors to rotate through the semester. The course is divided into two parts (Insights and Approaches I and II). In the Fall semester (Insights and Approaches I for first year students), each four week module will follow the instructor's focus. Most will take place in the dance studio, as experiential work exploring ways of engaging with movement and/or related arts. If a subject is more presentational or requires a seminar format, the module will convene in a classroom setting. Assignments will require creative expression evaluated through critique, and/or written work assessed for clarity and relevance to the assigned task. Spring semester (Insights and Approaches II, for first and second year students) will continue in this format for 7 weeks. At that point, second-year students will exit the course, allowing them more time to bring their final projects to fruition. At the same time, the first-year students will begin the 7- week course, Pedagogy, in preparation for their teaching during the Tisch Dance Summer Residency Festival. 

Students may choose from the offerings listed to pursue deeper study in a range of interdisciplinary subjects:

• Science of Movement (2)
• Research Topics in Dance Science (2)
• Impact on Choreography of New Music (4)
• Real-time Movement and Sound Composition (2)
• Dance Music Laboratory (2)
• Artistic Dialogue Across Borders (4)
• Dance technical practice (2-8) 
• Filming the Moving Body (1)
• Video Art (2-3)
• Digital Performance (1)
• Adventures in Motion Pictures: Dance on Camera (4)
• Anatomy I & II (3 each)
• Production for Dancers (1)
• Graduate Herstory of Dance (4)
• Dance and Its Images (4)*
• Studies in Dance: Movement Theory (4)*
• Seminar in Dance Theory: Dance and the Political (4)*
• Anatomy of Difference (4)** 

*offered by the Department of Performance Studies

**offered by the Department of Art and Public Policy

Focused, individualized mentorship is the heart of this MFA program. Along with core courses, students will work with a faculty mentor through Independent Study from second-year fall through the culminating project in the second year spring.