March 2008 Archives

Ge G. Wang *03 conducts the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk) at Richardson Auditorium.

The Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk) is an ensemble of computer-based musical meta-instruments. The students who make up the ensemble act as performers, researchers, composers, and software developers. PLOrk, who have performed at Carnegie Hall in New York, the Annenberg Center in Philadelphia, and the National Academy of Sciences Museum in Washington, DC, recently received a Digital Media and Learning grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to support a mobile musical laboratory that students will use to explore new ways of making music with laptops and local area networks.

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Photo: Jon Roemer

The Princeton University Jazz Composers Collective performing at Richardson Auditorium.

A recent gift of $4 million from Anthony H. P. Lee ‘79 will enhance the study and performance of jazz at Princeton, significantly expanding the University’s ability to support performances and develop innovative research and teaching in this uniquely American and broadly influential art form.

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Photo: Jon Roemer

Theodore S. Beers ‘09 taking a bass lesson from instructor Jack Hill.

The University’s new arts initiative will expand opportunities for students in music. Starting with the Class of 2010, a new program will offer qualified Princeton musicians the chance to spend the fall of their junior year at the Royal College of Music in London and to audition for a five-year double degree program (A.B. and M.M.). The program also supports the University’s goals to provide new ways for students to gain international experience.

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Photo: Andrea Kane

Students stretch at the beginning of class in an lofty 185 Nassau Street dance studio.

The Program in Dance at Princeton exposes students to professional artists through courses, special workshops, and guest choreographers, with an emphasis on Modern and Contemporary Dance. The Program also produces a Spring Dance Festival each year, which features works created by faculty, guest, and select student choreographers.

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Photo: Jon Roemer

A collection of shoes in the costume shop of 185 Nassau.

In addition to acting, directing, and playwriting, the Program in Theater and Dance also offers classes in various aspects of theatrical design: lighting, set design, and costuming. Studio projects are designed to work collaboratively with other theater and dance courses and productions.

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Photo: Jon Roemer

Chris T. Rucinski ‘10 and Nell E. Diamond ‘11 perform scenework from the play “Uncle Vanya” by Anton Chekhov as instructor Tim Vasen looks on.

Princeton’s Program in Theater & Dance, part of the Lewis Center for the Arts, offers workshop courses in writing, acting, directing, design, dance and choreography—all taught by professional performing artists. The program also presents a series of student-acted productions each year in the Berlind Theatre and the Matthews Acting Studio.

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Photo: Andrea Kane

Actors in a 1978 Princeton production of “The House of Blue Leaves” by John Guare.

The University has a long and storied tradition of theater—from Princeton’s Triangle Club, the oldest collegiate musical-comedy troupe in the nation, to the prestigious McCarter Theatre, to student groups like the Princeton University Players, Theater Intime, Quipfire, the Black Arts Company or the Princeton Shakespeare Company.

Ambitious collaborative productions like the University’s 2007 World Premiere of Alexander Pushkin’s “Boris Godunov” continue the lively tradition of theater arts on campus.

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Photo courtesy of Princeton Alumni Weekly.

Skylit painting studio on the top floor of 185 Nassau Street.

Concentrators and certificate students in the Program in Visual Arts are allocated individual studio space to pursue their independent work, which culminates in a creative senior thesis or senior exhibition.

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Photo: Jon Roemer

A still life patiently awaits a drawing class in a 185 Nassau Street studio.

The Program in Visual Arts, part of the Lewis Center for the Arts, offers studio courses in drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, digital photography, sculpture, ceramics, and video/film, as well as seminars and lectures in both contemporary art practices and the history and theory of film.

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Photo: Jon Roemer

A student works in charcoal in a life figure drawing class in the 1970s.

Princeton’s Creative Arts Program was first organized in 1939. In 1966, the program found its new home in the Nassau Street School (now named 185 Nassau) and student interest in the arts grew rapidly through the late 60s and early 70s. By 1975, there were three separate programs in Creative Writing, Theatre and Dance, and Visual Arts.

Today President Shirley M. Tilghman has launched a new era for the arts at Princeton by announcing a new initiative for creative and performing arts including the establishment of the Lewis Center for the Arts.

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Photo courtesy of Princeton University Archives.