Institute of Critical Studies in the Arts

The Institute of Critical Studies in the Arts (ICSA) gathers the three scholarly departments at Tisch School of the Arts whose main focus lies on the creation of theory, historical research, and critical and social analysis in areas relevant to art-making: Art & Public Policy, Martin Scorsese Department of Cinema Studies, and Performance Studies. ICSA departments host world-renowned faculty and a diverse and engaged graduate and undergraduate student body researching at the forefront of critical studies in the arts with an emphasis on live performance, cinema and video, and activism/policy in the arts in the US and internationally.

Additionally, ICSA hosts TDR | The Drama Review. A forum for radical performance and theoretical intervention, TDR engages performance in its aesthetic, historical, social, economic, political, and theoretical contexts. The disciplinary zone of performance is conceived broadly – dance, theatre, music, visual arts, sound, architecture, media, everyday events, sports – emphasizing the experimental, the critical, and the provocative. 

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