The interchange between different schools and areas of study was what
attracted David Bathrick to Cornell University.
“One of the reasons I came was that it is very interdisciplinary, both at the
graduate and undergraduate level,” he said.
So it comes as no surprise that Bathrick, who came to Cornell to teach in the
German department, would end up chairing what many consider to be one of
the more interdisciplinary departments on campus, the Department of
Theatre, Film and Dance. “We don’t see ourselves as a pre-professional
program,” he said. “This is not just for theatre, film or dance students. It is
part of the larger humanities picture and not limited to majors. We believe
that everyone should participate in the arts.”
The department strives to give students access to the performing arts by
making auditions open to the Cornell community. Every year there are six
major theatre productions, an annual dance concert and film classes where
students create short movies. Each production provides performance
opportunities for majors and non-majors alike. In the dance department, for
example, psychology major Elizabeth Mao ’01 performed in all three dances
in the annual dance concert last spring and was president of the Cornell
Student Choreographers and the Shadows Dance Troupe. Amy Ann
Schleunes ’03, a performance studies and neurobiology major, has one of the
leading roles in the upcoming production of Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale.
Students are also encouraged to take classes in the department, many of
which satisfy arts or humanities credits, or in the case of dance, physical
education requirements. Many classes are cross-listed with other
departments such as English, American Studies, physical education,
anthropology, German and women’s studies. Less than ten percent of the
students enrolled in classes in the department are actual majors. There are 61
majors in the department (theatre, 24; film, 33; dance, 4) and in this fall
semester more than 700 students (684 through the department and 40-50
through outside departments) are registered for classes.
The department strives not only to introduce students to creativity in art, but
to show how it manifests itself in science and other disciplines. For example,
the survey class, “Mind and Memory: Exploration of Creativity in the Arts
and Sciences,” is a series of lectures by university professors in the
humanities, arts and sciences who discuss their own creative process in their
work. “Creativity in the sciences is not that different from creativity in the
arts in that both require a critical moment of formulating the project
followed by the need for a formal procedure,” said Joyce Morgenroth, a
dance professor who directed the course in the spring 2001 semester.
Majors also well rounded
Unlike a BFA program, designed to prepare students for a professional
career in performing, Cornell University’s BA program seeks to expose
majors within the department to a broad range of styles, genres and concepts
within their chosen area of performance.
Students in the department’s three programs take theory and history as well
as studio and production classes. For example, in film, students take a
combination of film studies and film production courses. Film studies
classes examine different genres; narrative, documentary, experimental,
animation, as well as films from different counties or cultures. Film
production classes teach actual filmmaking using 16 mm or digital cameras
and film editing equipment. “For majors its offers them theory and practice,
one supports the other,” said Marilyn Rivchin, a senior lecturer in the film
department. “All students start by taking at least one film analysis course,
which exposes them to film theory, criticism and history. It makes them
think more critically in terms of the structure of films and the Hollywood
system. For non-majors, it exposes them to this whole new way of looking at
films critically.”
In theatre, majors can either take a broad range of theory and practical
courses or focus on one area of theatre such as directing, scenery design or
acting. Dance majors are required to take a combination of dance studies,
actual dance courses and music courses. In the theatre concentration there
are classes in avante garde theatre British drama, comedy, Asian and
feminist theatre. The film concentration has classes in Polish, French,
Russian and German film as well as documentaries, narrative and
experimental film. The dance program teaches classes in ballet, modern and
jazz dance.
RPTA
Today the department still hosts a small MA, Ph.D. program for theatre, film
and dance students. The MFA program that the school started around 1968
to train budding professional actors (one of the program’s most famous
graduates is actor Jimmy Smits ’82) closed 1988. After the current
undergraduate program started in 1989, the department sought to continue
students’ access to older, more experienced actors by creating the Resident
Professional Teaching Associates and the Distinguished Guest Artists
programs. For the RPTA program, the university selects several actors from
auditions held in New York City to come to Cornell for a one-year
residency. The RPTAs teach introductory acting classes, perform in
productions and act as mentors to theatre majors. The guest artists program
brings a range of playwrights, directors, filmmakers, choreographers, actors
and scene and costume designers to Cornell for participation in instructional
and performing programs.
Thespian activities at Cornell started in 1909 when a group of students
formed the Cornell Dramatic Club. In 1922 the university began offering
theatre classes and seven years later it added a Ph.D. program in theatre.
Courses in dance started in the following decade and film studies were
added to the curriculum in 1953. A number of graduates from Cornell have
gone on to become successful actors, stage designers and playwrights
including actor and activist Christopher Reeve '74, actor Harold Gould '48,
'53, lighting designer Jennifer Tipton '58, director/actor Gene Saks '43 and
playwright Oliver Mayer '86.
Learn by doing
The department as a whole believes people learn more by practicing than
observing, so it hosts a number of opportunities for students to create, direct
or choreograph their own productions. In the theatre department, for
example, there are four student directed and produced Black Box
productions held every year. “The Black Box Series really allows us to put
into use what we’ve learned,” said Rori Bergman ’03, a theatre and English
major who is directing “The American Century,” a 1985 play written by
Murphy Guyer. “After taking a full year of directing with David Feldshuh
(theatre professor and director of the Schwartz Center for the Performing
Arts) and assistant directing “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” with him this fall, I
think directing this play is an amazing way to put to the test everything I've
learned over the past few years.”
What Bergman, Mao and other students in the department did not learn,
however, was how to work in a specific style, genre or follow a specific
method. “Students have to be bombarded by different approaches to get a
good general understanding of the theatre,” said theatre professor Stephen
Cole. “We’re not trying to turn out actors, just well-rounded students.”