Socially Engaged Artistry

Student work by Christopher Adams

This course in the College of Performing Arts was created as part of a process to create a core curriculum for incoming freshmen across the schools of Drama, Jazz and Mannes. I co-developed the course with my amazing colleagues: Amanda Gookin (Mannes), Dennis Hilton-Reid (Drama), and Amanda Ekery (Jazz), and I co-teach it with Ben Allison (Jazz).

Organized in modules that take surprising objects or concepts — sidewalks, for instance — as points of entry to creative inquiry, this course is designed to prompt deep reflection on how the world around us affects our art, how can/does our art affect the world around us, and what inspires each of us to pursue our individual artistic paths.