ART & ART HISTORY / DIGITAL MEDIA & DESIGN / DRAMATIC ARTS / MUSIC
WE ARE THE ARTS We balance innovative learning with creative practice. Our teaching philosophy is based on creating fluid connections among disciplines and providing professional opportunities for our students. We offer a vast array of creative specialties in four departments—Art & Art History, Digital Media & Design, Dramatic Arts, and Music—that prepare our students for success. We reach out to our entire student body, and to the larger community, both nationally and internationally. We are committed to reflecting the cultural of our world through our educational philosophy and our creative practice. We engage entrepreneurially with the arts. As a community of energetic theorists and practitioners, our faculty and students actively produce art in all its varieties, for commerce and for culture. We map the past, create the present, and visualize the future of the arts. sfa.uconn.edu
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“The School of Fine Arts fosters artistic and cultural legacies with innovative approaches and techniques of contemporary art to serve University of Connecticut students in both their educational and professional development. Our teaching philosophy emphasizes various forms of experiential learning and creates intersections between our classrooms and the creative industries crucial to today’s economy. Not only do we offer professional opportunities to students on our Storrs campus, but our location between two of the east coast’s major cultural hubs supports faculty and institutional engagement with the professional arts world beyond the university.” Bríd Grant Dean, School of Fine Arts
NEW FACULTY FACES The School of Fine Arts is always eager to recruit the best and brightest faculty members from a wide range of experiences and expertise. Here are few of our more recent members.
ART & ART HISTORY Alison Paul (Lecturer, Illustration/Animation) is known for two widelyacclaimed books for children, The Crow (A Not-So-Scary Story) and Sunday Love. She is also a noted animator who has exhibited stop-motion animations, including “The Rabbit Hole,” an original take on Lewis Carroll’s classic, at national film festivals. Yan Geng (Assistant Professor, Art History & Asian American Studies) received her BA from Peking University in China and MA from Northwestern University. She completed her PhD in East Asian Art History at Heidelberg University in Germany in 2012. Her research focus is on modern and contemporary Chinese art, with particular emphasis on political discourse and transcultural studies. Currently, she is completing her book manuscript on the representation of Mao Zedong in the early People’s Republic of China, examing the turbulent careers of modern Chinese artists and their diverse responses to the historical transition to the communist period. Her next research project concerns liminal space, urban architecture, and politics in modern China.
DIGITAL MEDIA & DESIGN Ken Bowen (Assistant Professor, Game Design & Mechanics) earned two BS degrees, in Management and Electronic Media, Arts, & Communications, and an MS in Human Computer Interaction from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Before joining UConn, Ken worked in the game industry for eight years, using game development tools, directing projects, and working on blockbuster franchises with
publishers such as SEGA, Electronic Arts, and Activision. His video games have earned multiple popular and critical awards. Samantha Olschan (Assistant Professor, Animation) received her BFA from Carnegie Mellon and her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has designed, animated, and composited commercial and creative projects for national clients and taught at Pratt Institute, Wesleyan University, Quinnipiac University, Columbia College, New York Film Academy, and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She continues to experiment with all forms of storytelling through short films, animation and interactivity, with recent exhibitions and screenings at film festivals and arts foundations around the world.
DRAMATIC ARTS Greg Webster (Assistant Professor, Movement) focuses on teaching Movement Theatre and the pedagogy of the renowned French theatre master Jacques Lecoq. Greg is also the Movement coach and the resident fight choreographer for the Connecticut Repertory Theatre. As a performer, choreographer, and teacher, Greg has worked from Broadway to the West End. He is a founding member of the Split Knuckle Theatre Company, an intentionally acclaimed company that creates dynamic, physical, and visually striking theatre from simple materials. Dale Edwards (Assistant Professor, Arts Administration & Marketing Director of the School of Fine Arts) has a BS in Communications from
Ohio University, and an MFA from Brooklyn College. His career in New York City began in the marketing department of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater before moving to Disney Theatrical Productions, Manhattan Theatre Club, entertainment advertising agency SpotCo, and most recently as the Associate Director of Marketing and Advertising for the Metropolitan Opera.
MUSIC Dionne Jackson (Associate Professor, Flute) received her bachelor’s degree in flute performance from Indiana University, and went on to study at Julliard and the Paris Conservatory of Music, where she won the prestigious First Prize in Flute. She comes to UConn from Chicago, where she was Assistant Principal Flute of the Lyric Opera for fourteen years, held a one-year position with the Chicago Symphony, and was a frequent guest artist of the Chicago Chamber Musicians. Dionne served on faculty of Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of the Performing Arts from 2005 to 2014. Solomiya Ivakhiv (Assistant Professor, Violin and Viola) graduated from the world-renowned Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and holds a DMA from Stony Brook University. She currently enjoys an international career as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe, North America, and China. Prior to joining UConn, Solomiya taught at Ohio University and collaborated with prestigious universities in the US and China. She taught at Mannes College of Music, and has served as Artistic Director of the concert series MATI (Music at the Institute) for the past three seasons.
ART & ART HISTORY Majors Communication Design Illustration/ Animation Individualized Study Painting Photography Printmaking Sculpture & Ceramic Art Art History
Performance Units The William Benton Museum of Art Contemporary Art Galleries Counterproof Press Visual Arts Installation Space
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he Art & Art History Department facilities over the past two years. The offers the best of both worlds: new Bishop Center Studios include the creative excitement of an art stellar printmaking and book arts school and the intellectual energy of facilities and labs for Communication a major research university. Whatever Design, Illustration and Animation. In you’re interested in— the main Art Building, literature or history, we have established the physics or animal Digital Arts Services science—you can Lab to support digital pursue that interest photography and other 2D and combine it with digital arts with state-ofyour passion for art. “Our students are able the-art equipment. We’ve Our faculty has won installed a large gas kiln to lay the foundation major international in the ceramics studios for a successful career honors and awards, and opened a Digital Arts in the arts and grow as from Fulbright Materials Lab to support individuals—creatively, Scholarships to digital work in sculpture, Getty Foundation intellectually, and printmaking, and other Fellowships to media. personally.” National Endowment Our alumni experience a for the Humanities high degree of professional Anne D’Alleva Grants. They and creative success. They Head of Art & Art History exhibit in major art go on to leading graduate centers globally and professional programs. and publish with They work in museums and premier academic presses. All of their galleries, animation studios, design firms, knowledge, creativity, and professional fashion labels, and publishing houses. expertise are available to students in They teach at colleges and universities and out of the classroom. across the United States, and exhibit their We have expanded and improved our artwork nationally and internationally.
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FEATURED FACULTY Deborah Dancy (Professor, Painting/ Drawing) is a painter whose abstract work describes unusual invented spaces and structures. She exhibits regularly in New York City, as well as nationally and internationally. Her work is included in numerous private and public collections, including museums in Boston, Baltimore, Detroit, and Birmingham. She has received numerous honors and awards, including a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, an NEA Artist Grant, and a Nexus Press Artist Book Project Award.
ONLY AT UCONN The William Benton Museum of Art is the Connecticut State Art Museum and brings the history of art to life at UConn, featuring over 6000 works in its permanent collection and eight special exhibitions each year. Its work is interdisciplinary, addressing themes and issues of interest to many departments on campus. Through student jobs and internships, the Benton is an important training ground for budding art historians and arts professionals. The Contemporary Art Galleries bring cutting-edge contemporary art and culture to the Storrs campus with four exhibitions each year, plus symposia and visiting artists. CAG’s reach is global, with recent visiting artists from Sweden, Australia, and New Zealand.
Year-Round Study Abroad Programs offer students a chance to engage with art in a global destination. • Each Fall, our Florence program immerses students in art and its history in a city where culture has been at the center of civic life for centuries. • Every Spring, our Design faculty work alongside our counterparts at Central St. Martins in London, engaging in practice and study in a center of contemporary design. • Each Summer, Professor Jean Givens brings students to Copenhagen for a short-term focus on architecture and urban environments. • Over the brief Winter term, Fulbright artist and Professor Kathryn Myers shares her knowledge of India’s creative traditions and contemporary artists with students.
Alexis Boylan (Assistant Professor, Art History & Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies) specializes in art and gender in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century, and contemporary art and popular culture. She edited Thomas Kinkade: The Artist in the Mall (Duke University Press, 2011), and has a forthcoming book, Man on the Street: Masculinity, Urbanism, and Ashcan Art. Edvin Yegir (Associate Professor, Design) directs Design Center, the main studio that serves as a professional training ground for our undergraduates. As a designer, his specialty is strategic visual communication for culture and commerce, and his clients include Amnesty International, GE Foundation, Harvard University, Tufts Medical Center, and UNICEF. His work was recently included in the national traveling exhibition “We the Designers: Reframing Political Issues in the Obama Era.”
DIGITAL & MEDIA DESIGN Majors 2D Animation – Motion Graphics, Animation & Visualization 3D Animation & Visualization Digital Game Design & Development Digital Media Strategies for Business Digital Humanities Web Design & Development
Performance Units Digital Media Center Digital Humanities -ATION, Student Agency
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he Digital Media & Design practitioners, students work in our Department is a dynamic state-of-the-art labs and studios using department focused on preparing leading-edge hardware and software students to become makers of the systems. The department’s experiential revolution in communication and the learning model makes classrooms into arts. Digital media collaborative workspaces. is the result of the Each of our concentrations creative convergence fosters collaborations with of digital arts, outside business leaders science, technology, to address creative, and business; intellectual, technological, “DMD’s strong which has opened and production challenges curriculum, a dazzling array of as part of our outcomepreviously unimagined experiential learning driven commitment to communication, education. Within this opportunities, and visualization, cooperative learning research initiatives are entertainment, and environment, students, establishing UConn as social interaction faculty and third-party a state and national possibilities. It has companies come together become vital for to tackle creative leader in this evolving presenting complex challenges, leading to industry.” ideas with simplicity, the development and and for crafting highly implementation of new Tim Hunter original messages with ideas and methodologies. Head of Digital Media & Design exceptional impact. The combination of The department is classroom study and realcommitted to all areas of digital education world experience prepares our students and research. for challenging and rewarding careers in Under the guidance of faculty who one of the fastest-growing employment are all experienced professionals and sectors in the United States.
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FEATURED FACULTY Tom Scheinfeldt (Associate Professor, Digital Media and Design & Director of Digital Humanities in the Digital Media Center) received his AB in History and Science from Harvard, and his graduate degrees from Oxford. Formerly Managing Director of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, Scheinfeldt brings more than a decade of leadership in digital humanities research and management to UConn. Scheinfeldt’s award-winning, grant-funded research projects include groundbreaking experiments in digital scholarly opensource software projects, generative web events, and efforts in scholarly communication.
ONLY AT UCONN The Digital Media Center, the research unit of the digital media program at UConn, allows faculty and students to collaborate in the rapidly expanding discipline of digital media ideation, production, and new product development. By partnering extramural digital industry leaders with faculty and students, we are able to address a broad landscape of creative challenges in a unique, holistic fashion yielding new artifacts, instruments, and processes for the digital community. Paid Internship Programs are a required component of our eight-semester plan of study. The department recognizes the value of cooperative learning through paid internships, allowing students to acquire real-world experience, and companies to meet high-achieving innovators of tomorrow. One of our most high-profile collaborations is with
Cigna, which engages students in the development of healthoriented communication game and digital marketing strategies they then deploy in support of their partners and clients. Relationships built through internships during an academic career can, and often do, lead to career opportunities with the hosting companies following graduation. Special Projects place students and faculty at the forefront of creative research and development. Together, they have collaborated on the concept, technology, programming, and creative content for a motion media-based experience for children with emotional and physical challenges at Boston Children’s Hospital. This two-story high interactive LED video wall will premiere in the hospital’s lobby in October 2014.
Perry Harovas (Associate Professor in Residence, 3D Animation & Visualization) studied Film & Television at Emerson College, and began his career when legendary producer Roger Corman hired his company to create digital visual effects for several of his films. He then started working as a VFX supervisor for television and film features for studios such as Universal, Trimark, and Capital Arts. He’s directed animated children’s shows, co-authored the best-selling book Mastering Maya, and speaks regularly on the subjects of animation and visual effects across the country. Bill Congdon (Assistance Professor in Residence, Digital & Social Media Strategies) graduated with a BS in Marketing from UConn and an MBA in Marketing/Finance from Cornell. He worked as an account manager and a marketing manager at Golf Digest before joining the Hearst Corporation, where he was promoted to Publisher/Chief Revenue Officer of the Popular Mechanics brand. In 2013, Bill returned UConn.
DRAMATIC ARTS Majors Acting Arts Administration Design & Technical Theatre Set Design Costume Design Sound Design Technical Direction Puppet Arts Theatre Studies Theatre History Playwriting Directing Dramaturgy Stage Management
Performance Units Connecticut Repertory Theatre Harriet Jorgensen Theatre Nafe Katter Theatre Studio/Mobius Theatre Nutmeg Summer Theatre Ballard Institute & Museum of Puppetry
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he Department of Dramatic Arts will house shops for scenery, lighting, brings together celebrated theatre props, paints, and costumes. Our three faculty, professionals, and students theatres are the 500-seat Harriet S. from all over the world to prepare student Jorgensen Theatre, the 100-seat Studiopractitioners for professional careers in the Mobius Theatre, and the 235-seat Nafe theatre and related entertainment fields, Katter Thrust Theatre, new in 2004. Other as well as to prepare facilities include design young scholars for an studios for graduate and intellectually rigorous undergraduates, a lighting life devoted to research design laboratory, and a and new knowledge. The suite dedicated to Theatre “By training the next department is studentStudies students. The Puppet generation of theatre centered, dedicated Arts program occupies a artists alongside the to hands-on learning recently renovated space experiences in our professionals at CRT, we on our Depot Campus with studios, classrooms, specialized labs, shops, know that our students and our three stages. studios, and rehearsal rooms. gain a competitive edge Our academic programs Our alumni find when entering the job and production employment worldwide in the market.” activities provide the highest levels of the industry, finest preparation and in top-ranked graduate Vincent J. Cardinal through classroom programs. Recent alumni Head of Dramatic Arts & instruction in a dynamic of note include EmmyArtistic Director of Connecticut research university, winning lighting designer Repertory Theatre conservatory-style Dan Rousseau, actor Brooks studio training, and Brantley (War Horse), and professional level production experiences. puppeteer Ulysses Jones (Spiderman: The department is in the design phase of Turn Off the Dark). We are committed to a new, state-of-the-art production facility. supporting our students and alumni in their Slated to open in 2016, the new building transition into the profession.
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FEATURED FACULTY Michael Bradford (Associate Professor, Playwriting & Director of Theatre Studies) is an award-winning writer, director, and designer whose work has been produced OffBroadway as well as across the nation. The recipient of multiple awards, writing fellowships, and residencies in New York, he is considered one of the most promising African American playwrights today.
ONLY AT UCONN Connecticut Repertory Theatre is the professional producing arm of the Department of Dramatic Arts and connects with our classroom instruction as institutional partner. CRT, an Actor’s Equity Regional Theater, stages an array of the best in theatre, from classic plays and musicals to premieres of the latest contemporary work, with the highest professional standards. In production, the department’s most promising students work side-by-side with the nation’s finest theatre professionals, forging career alliances that last a lifetime. Summer Nutmeg Series is CRT’s summer series, and draws its company from the most talented university students as well as professional actors like Terrence Mann, Leslie Uggams, Jerry Adler, Richard Kline, and Liz Larsen. The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry is an international center for material
performance, with an extensive collection of puppets, artworks, and audio-visual materials. Directed by internationally recognized puppet scholar Dr. John Bell, the institute hosts rotating exhibitions, performances, lectures, workshops, symposia, and forums. BIMP offers a vibrant public extension of departmental studies and performance, with numerous internship opportunities for puppetry studies, museum studies, and arts management. Study Abroad Programs offer two distinct opportunities for students: • Each Fall, third-year BFA actors travel to London to study with leading teachers from the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, and the Globe. • During the Winter Term, students focus on the thriving theatre culture of Cuba. Students work directly with Cuban master teachers in all areas of the dramatic arts.
Laura Crow (Professor, Costume Design) designs costumes seen in more than 300 productions around the world. Best known to New Yorkers through her designs for Lanford Wilson’s Broadway productions and as the resident designer for Circle Rep, her work has won dozens of national and regional awards. She has represented American Theatre Design at the Prague Quadrennial five times. Recognized as a Distinguished Professor by the School of Fine Arts in 2011, she has also been rewarded with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Bart Roccoberton, Jr. (Professor, Puppet Arts & Director of the Puppet Arts Program) has a BA from Monclair State College and a MFA from UConn. He has worked as professional Puppet Artist since 1972 and has toured with his own troupe, The Pandemonium Puppet Company, and UConn students for 15 years. Recognized worldwide as a leading advocate for Puppet Arts, he serves as a counselor for the Professional Training Commission of the Union Internationale de la Marionenette, and was recently elected to the Board of Trustees of UNIMA-USA.
MUSIC Majors Composition General Music Jazz Studies Music History Music Theory Music Education (Integrated Bachelor’s/ Master’s) Performance Instrumental Vocal
Performance Units von der Mehden Recital Hall Instrumental Ensembles Marching Band Jazz Ensemble Percussion Ensemble Symphonic & Concert Bands Symphony Orchestra Wind Ensemble Vocal Ensembles Choirs Collegium Musicum Earthtones
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he UConn Department of Music skills necessary for all musicians, as well as has a proud tradition of preparing the discipline and rigor for advanced study future performers, composers, and performance. and teachers while also enriching the The department’s public performances life of the campus and wider community. present exciting new music as well as Students are UConn’s first priority, and re-examinations of the musical tradition individual advisement in light of current informs each student’s practices and research. academic and musical Professionally engaged progress. A competitive faculty members ensure audition process allows the availability of scholarly the best and brightest works, performances, and “Our comprehensive to learn with and from discussions that stimulate program lays the each other, and small and enlighten. Guest ground work for class sizes permit artists, master classes, and a career in any faculty to devote careful lectures bring additional attention to students’ aspect of music awareness of and exposure abilities and needs. to the “real world” of and also explores More than 40 music, as does working intersections with outstanding faculty with other learners—older other disciplines.” educators, performers, and younger—in UConn’s and scholars create Community School of the Eric Rice an unmatched Arts and in Connecticut’s Head of Music environment for musical public schools. study and performance, Music alumni credit and our facilities their success to the start include ample practice rooms, an electronic they received at UConn, prizing both the music lab, a recording studio, and multiple focus given to their specialties and the performance venues. All of our programs opportunities to experience new, often stress the development of fundamental path-changing instruction and events.
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FEATURED FACULTY Louis Hanzlik (Associate Professor, Trumpet & Coordinator of Applied Instrumental Studies) has established himself as an accomplished chamber musician, orchestral player, and educator. He is a member of the Grammy Awardwinning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the American Brass Quintet. As an educator, he promotes chamber music as an important component of a musician’s education. His research examines chamber music’s unique social attributes and suggests that chamber music classrooms foster artist-citizenry in addition to advanced musicianship. Alain Frogley (Professor, Music History & Director of Research and Creative Practices) is a specialist in the music of the late nineteenth and twentieth century, particularly in Britain and America. He has also worked extensively on Beethoven. His research centers on sketch studies, reception history, and the cultural contexts of musical nationalism. His most recent work includes research into the reception of British music in Nazi Germany, racial Anglo-Saxonism in music, and post-colonial issues in musicology.
ONLY AT UCONN Music Education IB/M Program is an integrated bachelor’s/ master’s degree program in music education offered in collaboration with the Neag School of Education. Graduates of this program earn a BA in Music, a BS in Education, and a MA in Education with a focus on Curriculum and Instruction. Graduates are certified to teach vocal and instrumental music for K-12 students. Our Metropolitan Opera Program offers students the opportunity to interact with performers and technicians, tour backstage, and attend rehearsals and performances. Thanks to our special affiliation with the Met, trips from the Storrs campus occur four times each academic year, and UConn students have been regularly awarded prestigious internships at the Met after graduation.
The Metropolitan Opera
The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in Composition is the largest prize for music composition offered by an institute of higher education in the US. The winning composer creates a piece for one of UConn’s student ensembles, which then performs and records the work. Students have an unparalleled opportunity to interact with composers during the rehearsal process, and to observe collaborations between composers and faculty conductors.
Jamie Spillane (Associate Professor, Music & Director of Choral Studies) directs numerous choirs and teaches undergraduate and graduate choral conducting and choral literature. He is an active festival conductor, adjudicator, and clinician who enjoys working with choirs of all ages. He has conducted All-State or honor choirs in Connecticut, Colorado, New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Indiana, Missouri, Arizona, North Dakota, Nebraska, Rhode Island, and Iowa, and has presented interest sessions at state and divisional conventions.
CONNECTING TO OUR COMMUNITY Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry is an international center for material performance, with an extensive collection of puppets, artworks, and audio-visual materials. William Benton Museum of Art is the Connecticut State Art Museum and brings the history of art to life at UConn, featuring over 6000 works in its permanent collection and eight special exhibitions each year. Community School of the Arts is an interdisciplinary arts education program focusing on linking the University to the communities of Eastern Connecticut. Contemporary Art Galleries bring cutting-edge contemporary art and culture to the Storrs campus with four exhibitions each year, plus symposia and visiting artists. CAG’s reach is global, with recent visiting artists from Sweden, Australia, and New Zealand. Connecticut Repertory Theatre, the professional producing arm of the Department of Dramatic Arts, is an Actor’s Equity Regional Theater. CRT stages an array of the best in theatre, from classic plays and musicals to premieres of the latest contemporary work, with the highest professional standards. Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts, the largest college-based presenting program in New England, presents 25-30 nationally and internationally acclaimed artists and ensembles annually.
We invite you to learn more by visiting sfa.uconn.edu, where you can link to all our departments, venues, and programs. We hold open houses every Fall and Spring semesters, and we welcome your visit. For inquiries, please email one of the following departments: art.info@uconn.edu dmd.info@uconn.edu drama.info@uconn.edu music.info@uconn.edu
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