DANC i21: Performance Practices in Dance
In this course, students are introduced to specific dance styles, which have contributed to the relationship between dance and society both as performative topics as well as cultural heritage. Three forms of dance, deeply rooted in a specific cultural context, challenge students to strive for a comprehensive knowledge of the elements that form a dance act and its relationship with the audience. Students are encouraged to acquire new skills and broaden their perspectives for a more compelling performance and more confidence on the stage.
DANC i25: Techniques for the Dancer
This course is primarily designed to prepare, train, and form the entire body for the complex demands of dancing and performing. Movement principles and technical skills are taught from a fundamental functional and dance anatomy perspective to allow students to develop more confidence, competence, and control of their physical range of movement by reinforcing and developing their skills.
DANC i33: Choreography & Somatics
This course focuses on the nature and process of stage composition and choreographic creation. Students learn to prepare the body and the mind to efficiently employ elements of improvisation and range and to focus their creative power for composition and choreography. Students are encouraged to incorporate a range of disciplines, including voice and spoken text, into their choreographies and are exposed to material to expand their artistic expression. This course challenges students to make use of their own physical intelligence and to build up their own work groups to create choreographies or performances.
DANC i35: Extended Performance Topics: Dance
This course is a semi-structured and collaborative classroom in which students share the teaching and learning process with the instructor. Drawing on a variety of physical techniques and practices, as well as contemporary dance techniques, this class includes both structured and improvisational class time. Students will combine practice and theory through shared teaching, learning, and physical and cognitive practice.
ITAL i10 &
ITAL i11: Italian Language I & II
This elementary level course is directed towards students
who have no prior knowledge of the Italian language. Our language component
course is loaded towards the first portion of the semester in order to give
students basic skills for comprehension and communication in their work with
Italian faculty and guest artists throughout the semester. The emphasis in the
first semester is on developing listening and communication skills in addition
to cultivating a solid grammatical foundation. Direct interaction with Italian Faculty,
students and guest artists ensures the skills acquired in the classroom are implemented
into the daily life and activities of the student. If a core group of students
already has completed a cycle of elementary Italian studies at their home
institutions, an elementary level 2 or intermediate level may be conducted simultaneously.
A placement test on site at ADA is required for entry into the appropriate course. The Italian language component at ADA is required
of all students.
ITAL i21: Italian Advanced Grammar/Conversation
Students attain a degree of linguistic and cultural competence. Conducted entirely in Italian, this course reinforces, builds upon, and refines the listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills that students obtained in ITAL I10 and ITAL I11. The course increases students' ability to understand and use the language, introducing them to more complex grammatical structures, expanding their vocabulary, and building their confidence through a variety of activities and assignments. The course materials allow students to explore various cultural matters and develop cross-cultural skills through comparisons between their native culture and the Italian world.
LBST i31: Social Acceleration in the Avant-Garde
This course is an interdisciplinary survey that looks at the intersection between the acceleration of change in social forms in the 19th and 20th century and the perception of those changes as expressed in contemporary Avant‐Garde art movements. Through discussion of essential prose texts, poems, manifestos, films, paintings, theater performances and music, students gain insight into various Avant‐Garde creations and their ongoing impact on art, literature, and today’s culture.
LBST i36: Thinker on Stage: Theoretical Foundations in Devising
Thinking does not come from nature but emerges out of the attachment to socio‐human culture and is developed by the desire for knowledge. This class acknowledges that an artist and creator employs thinking in their work and must develop this ability in the artistic sphere. Students explore the realm known as theoretical poetics to interrogate our habitual modes of thought and see the connection between how we think and what we call art. We approach story from different strategic vantage points and ask whether art has its own set of laws.
TART i25: Masked Theatre Topics
This course is for theatre students interested in the use of the mask in performance, with a specific focus on contemporary full-head masks, clown work, and mask making. In addition to discussions and reflections, students also present and discuss various arguments and aspects of mask making and construction techniques. Taking from the material created and the experiences had early in the course, the participants collaborate to develop a sequence of scenes that are presented to the public at the end of the course.
TART i27: Poetics of Performance I
This course focuses on the nature and process of creation. The students are guided through the various phases of devising original theatre: exploration, selection of material, composition, and presentation. The student/creator becomes aware of all the ingredients that go into making theatre. They learn how to devise and set up a process in which each collaborator finds their own voice within the choir. Another fundamental aspect of this course is the focus on composition, where students learn to observe what takes place on stage by developing analytic skills and understanding when and how to make choices.
TART i29: Techniques for the Physical Actor I
In this course students develop, train, and prepare their body and voice for the unique demands of physical acting and performance. With a pre-performative focus, students engage with psycho-physical techniques sourced from different European theorists and practitioners of the 20th century, including those developed by Jerzy Grotowsky, Roy Hart, and Jacque Lecoq. The course also has a strong emphasis on exploration-based processes in movement and voice, meant to foster individual strategies for training and preparation for performance. Students develop a more expressive body and voice and an enhanced awareness of, and connection to, these vital facets of their instrument.
TART i33: Pre-performative Studies in Theatre
Students work on voice and body integration, extended vocal techniques, and body expression using the internationally recognized work developed by Alfred Wolfsohn and Roy Hart, and draw on the physical practices in the tradition of J. Grotowsky. The course intends to open the boundaries of what is possible with the body and voice to provide essential material for the development of expressive characteristics of the participant.
TART i37: Poetics of Performance II
This course delves deeper into techniques of devising and the understanding of how style is created. The student continues to develop the concept of ensemble through chorus work and play as key ingredients of their work. Moreover, the student becomes familiar with a perspective usually reserved for the director’s chair, thus enabling them to confront creation with clear strategies and understanding how decision making and the manner with which one expresses their ideas in a collaborative environment are fundamental aspects of devised work. This course provides students with the tools to concretize their original ideas in the spirit of collaboration.
TART i39: Techniques for the Physical Actor II
In this course the student continues their technical training of the body and voice, exploring in more depth their work in this field. Students experience a variety of teachings integrally connected to the core substance of physical theatre training, such as musicality and acting. As students move toward a rigorous harnessing of the possibilities of movement and vocal production, they consider these techniques in conjunction with elements of the mise-en-scene so that a focus is given to creating a connection between pre-expressive techniques and dramaturgy.
TART i40: Performance Practices I
This course introduces the student to different theatrical styles. Students heighten their awareness of an audience and their connection with the stage and their fellow actors. By learning different theatrical languages, the students experience performance on a holistic scale while simultaneously learning the specific techniques that each style demands. Great emphasis is given to the Commedia dell’Arte, as it demands of the actor a complete knowledge of all the elements of theatre (mask work, plot construction, improvisation, physical and vocal acrobatics, scene work, and social commentary). Other styles include Clown, Traditional Song and Dance, Storytelling, basic Circus skills, and more.
TART i41: Performance Practices II
This course is designed to move the student into more contemporary practices, which acknowledge the transformations in the arts that took place over the course of the 20th century. These practices include Tanzeteater, Butoh, Storytelling, and contemporary mask work and post dramatic practices such as viewpoints. The student is immersed into stage experiences, which demand a heightened sensitivity not only to their body and the stage but also to the meaning that a given performance conveys. The guided creation of performance material serves to enhance the student’s awareness of the body as a conduit of such meaning and expression.