Learning Goals

1. Think critically and work creatively across disciplines:

Theater and Dance as disciplines operate within a global context of human inquiry. As such, work in this field assumes students are engaging with theater and dance praxis, moving seamlessly between studio work, analytical inquiry, and artistic creation. The department also encourages students to seek out and build connections to other liberal arts disciplines.

2. Create new work:

The ability to originate material is central to the development of an artist. This process involves a holistic approach to the creative process, combining research and analysis across disciplines. Examples of original work within the department might include: a play, a critical essay, a dance, a theatrical design, a media-based work, a pedagogical project, a dramaturgical portfolio, a performance of an existing theater or dance work.

3. Develop the body-mind as an articulate vehicle for expression:

Performance in theater and dance is the product of an integrated body-mind. Students in the department develop their physical, verbal, expressive, cognitive, sensory, and kinesthetic capacities. Our training balances structure and surprise, asking students to understand their own agency, identifying their goals as multifaceted performers and expanding their sense of possibility.

4. Research, analyze, and read complex texts, both written and embodied:

Drawing from the disciplines of theater history, dance history, performance studies, and dance studies courses in the department analyze theater and dance in relationship to race, gender, class, ability, culture, and nationality. With the understanding that all practices have a politics, students in the department learn about the histories of these forms engaging in written and embodied research. Students develop artistic literacy, growing their ability to contextualize and discuss the influences, styles, and significance of works of theater and dance.

5. Work independently and collaboratively in producing live performance:

The process of creating performance demands flexibility, curiosity and discipline. Students in the department are expected to develop resiliency as collaborators, contributing to productions as performers, creators, directors, designers, dramaturgs, administrators, and theater technicians.

6. Communicate clearly, coherently, and effectively in written and oral expression:

Students in the department are expected to write and speak clearly and fluently about artistic work and process. In all of our classes students develop their written voice to better understand theater and dance and to come into dialogue with their classmates and the larger field. Throughout the trajectory of the major students will reencounter language as a mechanism for recording, reflecting, describing, analyzing, disrupting, and theorizing.

7. Consider the local, national, and global impact of theater and dance:

Theater and dance courses ask students to understand the impact of artistic practice beyond the walls of Trinity College. Students participate in partnerships with artists, institutions, and communities from the city of Hartford as well as regional, national, and international collaborations. We encourage students to develop themselves as artist-citizens, identifying their values, and considering how the work they create can embody these beliefs and contribute to positive social change.