Each of DPA’s distinctive interdisciplinary majors—American Musical Culture and Theater & Performance Studies—understands writing as integral to the exploration of the relationship between performance, culture, and society.
Integrated Writing Requirement for the Music Program
The undergraduate major in American Musical Culture emphasizes writing as a core element in the development of students’ intellectual and professional lives. Student writing is expected to include critical, analytical, ethnographic, historical, and creative dimensions. In the Music Program, the concept of “writing” includes the writing of texts (i.e. scholarly essays, grants, documentary scripts, and lyrics) as well as music notation (i.e. music compositions, arrangements, and transcriptions).
The American Musical Culture major and Music minor develop students’ writing skills through two gateway courses: MUSC 161 Writing about Music, and MUSC 041 Elements of Music. MUSC 161 is a writing workshop that introduces students to the various types of writing associated with music, including music journalism, script writing for radio/film documentaries and musical theater, non-fiction essays, scholarly articles, music-inspired fiction, and the basics of grant writing for non-profit performing arts groups and fellowship applications. MUSC 041 is a hands-on, drill-based class designed to develop an understanding and proficiency in practical music theory through a comprehensive approach. Students learn the basics of musical notation, and the central goal is to integrate hearing and performance with notation and analysis.
Upper-division courses further develop students’ writing skills by providing opportunities for conducting and presenting original research in a variety of fields: musicology, ethnomusicology, media studies, journalism, and/or composition. In addition, each AMMC major must complete a capstone project during the senior year. Some opt to write a thesis that proposes an original research question; others present the findings of their research through a film/radio documentary, a senior lecture recital, or a professional music journalism/music industry portfolio linked to an intensive internship experience.
Integrated Writing Requirement for the Theater & Performance Studies Program
The Theater & Performance Studies major integrates creative and critical inquiry. Writing presents a core pathway for that integration, fostering students’ cultural and professional development. Creative thinking and writing involve the imaginative generation of new ideas, artworks, and performances through the study of creative practices and methods (including, for instance, playwriting, performance, design, and direction). Critical writing and thinking require analytic and reflective engagement with theatrical texts, processes, histories, methodologies, and creative works. Writing specifically to the TPST major manifests variously, for instance as playwriting, adaptation, curatorial notes, critical essays, artist manifestos, grants, and performative scholarship; advanced students may apply to pursue an honors thesis project that can manifest as a creative research project, a more traditional scholarly thesis, or a community-based research project.
Our majors and minors learn interdisciplinary thinking via writing, bringing seemingly disparate bodies of knowledge to bear when problem-solving which will prepare them not only for careers in the arts, but also for work in education, legal fields, public service, consulting, media, and politics.
Our students engage in many writing modalities across the major, including academic, creative, informal, and editorial. In both studio and seminar settings, our writing curriculum prepares students to craft creative solutions to problems —whether social, theoretical, artistic, or historical—based on careful study, research, and analysis. Virtually all courses incorporate formal and informal writing to cross-fertilize critical and creative inquiry, cultivate each writer’s fluency, and foster collaborative learning. Majors will experience three phases of engagement with writing across their degree to ensure an integrated, iterative experience of writing, regardless of their trajectories:
- Phase One is fulfilled by taking our gateway courses of TPST 1300 (Play Analysis) and TPST 2000 (Adaptation and Performance), at least one of which must be completed by the spring semester, junior year. These gateway courses demonstrate the integration of writing into the curriculum, laying the groundwork for majors’ and minors’ cross-fertilization of critical and creative inquiry.
- Phase Two may be fulfilled by several elective intermediate and/or advanced courses that assure research and revision for writing projects. Exemplary courses include Writing Stage Adaptations, Performing Black Citizenship, and Thesis Projects, among others.
- Phase Three: As of Spring 2017, all majors will submit a portfolio at the end of their trajectories which highlights their work across the major (and their own areas of specialty, whether design or dramaturgy, scholarship or playwriting, direction or performance). This final portfolio will be due in the Major’s Colloquium via a protected word press and can serve as an excellent calling card for their entry into the field, as well as an archive of their work in this often ephemeral field.