Courses

Permanent Courses

Course information found here includes all permanent offerings and is updated regularly whenever Academic Senate approves changes. For historical information, see the Course Catalogs. For actual course availability in any given term, use Course Search in the Portal.

Lessons

Lessons are domain 2A, requires the consent of the instructor, and requires an additional course fee. Please refer to the Portal for further details.

[PART 011] Conducting (.25)
[PART 012] Voice (.25)
[PART 013] Piano (.25)
[PART 015] Harpsichord (.25)
[PART 016] Organ (.25)
[PART 018] Guitar (.25)
[PART 021] Flute (.25)
[PART 022] Oboe (.25)
[PART 023] Clarinet (.25)
[PART 024] Bassoon (.25)
[PART 025] Saxophone (.25)
[PART 031] Horn (.25)
[PART 032] Trumpet (.25)
[PART 033] Trombone (.25)
[PART 034] Tuba (.25)
[PART 035] Percussion (.25)
[PART 041] Violin (.25)
[PART 042] Viola (.25)
[PART 043] Cello (.25)
[PART 044] String Bass (.25)

Ensembles

An innovative string ensemble (violin, viola, cello, bass) that explores non-conventional genres for strings. This course includes but is not limited to the following styles: jazz, blues, folk, bluegrass, rock, pop, urban, classical, experimental, and world musics. Students are encouraged to engage through performance, group collaboration, and improvisation, with opportunities for arranging and composition. All repertoire, compositions, and arrangements are chosen or adapted to best utilize the ensemble’s strengths while challenging each member’s abilities at whatever level they may be. The course is open to all students but some familiarity with the instrument and music fundamentals is recommended. Prior improvisational skills and theory background are not required. Note-reading ability recommended but not required. (2A)

Courses

This course offers individualized piano instruction in a group setting. Students of all skill levels are welcome, but it is particularly targeted to those with little or no piano background. Reading skills are developed, while also increasing the student’s familiarity with basic musical terms and directions. For those students with more extensive background, there is flexibility regarding choice of repertoire to achieve these goals. This is an excellent way to prepare for higher level courses and/or participation in ensembles offered by the music department. This course may be taken twice for credit. (2A)

This course is meant to provide theatre and dance students with basic sewing and makeup application skills for the stage. The first half of the term focuses on introductory hand and machine sewing skills, understanding the sewing machine, lessons on fabric, how it is produced and utilized, and ends with a midterm sewing project. The second half of the term focuses on safe makeup application processes, understanding the skull, and how to manipulate shape using makeup as a tool. As all theatre and dance artists interact with costumes and are expected to know how to apply stage makeup, this course sets our students up for success after leaving Beloit. (2A) Offered every other fall, odd years.

This is a mod course that examines collaboration across disciplines teaching students the skill set to be effective collaborators. Students engage with professionals from various fields discussing collaborative practices. Students put the skills learned in the classroom into practice through a collaborative experience approved by the instructor. Examples of experiences include taking part in a theatrical production (performing, directing, designing, crewing etc.), participating in dance performances (choreography, performing, design etc.), participating in music ensembles, working on marketing for productions, dramaturgy, stage management, work on historic costume collection. Students keep journals that reflect their growth as collaborators. Offered every semester.

In this mod course that focuses on collaboration specific to arts disciplines. Students will have the opportunity to hear from professionals in Music, Dance, and Theatre as they discuss collaborative projects. Students will put the skills learned in the classroom into practice through a collaborative experience approved by the instructor. Examples of experiences will include taking part in a theatrical production (performing, directing, designing, crewing, etc.), participating in dance performances (choreography, performing, design, etc.), participating in music ensembles, working on marketing for productions, dramaturgy, stage management, work on historic costume collection. Students will keep journals that reflect their growth as collaborators. (2A) Offered every semester

This course explores how and why it is that we, as individuals and communities, read, write, and interpret histories to justify our love of or identification with musics and sounds. The purpose of this course is to learn how we can use music history (including the methods and tools of musicology and music historiography) to empower and liberate our sense of self, our identities, our communities, and our values. (Also listed as History 211 and Critical Identity Studies 142.) (5T) Offered every fall.

Open to all students, this course investigates theories of sound/music, space, and embodiment with a particular focus on listening, playing, and doing. Students develop tools to describe what they hear, feel, and perform sounds, and are introduced to rudimentary concepts of notation, melody, harmony, rhythm, and meter. Yet critical listening takes us beyond the notes on the page as we recognize that a given piece of music is shaped by myriad social, political, historical, and aesthetic influences and demands unique listening and performing strategies. Multidisciplinary readings and discussions about musical notation, classical ideals of structure, psychoacoustics, improvisation, musical affect, notions of musical time, and music’s intersection with the body, race, gender, and class enable students to think more broadly about systems and structures of sound. (1S). Offered every semester.

This is a movement-based improvisation course using dance improvisation techniques. Students experience movement discovery through individual and group improvisation. The course fuses creation with execution and focus on developing the skill of listening and responding with the body while emphasizing movement as a sensorial experience. Contact Improvisation fundamentals are introduced. (2A) Offered occasionally.

A continuation of the acting skills studied in Fundamentals of Acting with a focus on precision and timing. By focusing on comedy, students develop a sense of rhythm and timing that can be repeated while creating a character that is truthful and fits into the world of the play. Stage combat, comic theory and practice, as well as an introduction to intimacy choreography are addressed. Prerequisite: Performing and Applied Arts 100, 106 or consent of instructor. Offered even spring semesters.

The purpose of this course is to examine how the loosely related concepts of “authentic,” “original,” “real”, “natural,” “pure” and even “human” are used as a powerful tool in the construction and protection of identity in the worlds of music, art, anthropology, museums, science, marketing, historical reenactments, language, and others. In particular, this course examines how the idea of “authenticity” both originated and developed alongside histories of nationalism and colonialism, the developments in tourism, the expansion of global markets and the spread of capitalism as well as more recent challenges imposed by AI and cyborg technology. The course includes guest discussions led by various college faculty/staff and challenges students to think more critically about all walks of life, their study of other courses and disciplines, their place in today’s world, and prepare them for studies or travel abroad. But the course is more than a preparatory study of history and theory. Rather, students have the opportunity to explore how the concept of authenticity is constructed, enforced, and negotiated in “real world” contexts. (Also listed as History 210 and Critical Identity Studies 265.). Offered every other year.

This course starts with the premise that “The point of recording and reproduction is not to mirror sound but to shape it actively (Jonathan Sterne).” From Edison cylinders and 78s to mp3s and streaming services, the medium of recorded sound and the transmission of disembodied voices has radically and actively transformed, distorted, and helped us to reimagine our sense of self, community, and aesthetic and social possibilities. In addition to surveying the evolution and development of sound technologies (those that record, transmit, and playback sound), this course examines the impact that these changing technologies have on the conception, creation, distribution, policing and evaluation of sound and music. (Also listed as Media Studies 270.). Offered every other year.

“Art happens when you intend it to happen. It happens when you leap with intention— The act is the point, more so now than ever,” says Anne Bogart. This course explores theories about the creative inspiration, the performative instinct, the creation of meaning, the artist’s relationship with the audience, the politics of performance, and the “rules” of narrative, spectacle, and performance. The goal is to examine the role of the performance artist in a postmodern world. Throughout the course, students explore interdisciplinary approaches to stretch the boundaries of their imagination. Those interested in media will gain insights to theories critical to understanding and critiquing media (Also listed as Media Studies 202.). (5T) Prerequisite: sophomore standing and must have completed one Performing and Applied Arts course, or consent of instructor. For Media Studies majors, sophomore standing is necessary. Offered every other Fall semester, even years.

You’ve got something to say, but you can’t find a way to communicate your perspective? Why wait for the play? Street theatre, psychodrama, and guerrilla theatre can offer exciting possibilities to create dialogue in your community. Taking Action is created for students who are interested in using theatrical techniques to take a message to the masses. The course will cover improvisational acting; Augusto Boal’s Image Theatre, Forum Theatre, and Legislative Theatre; Jacob Levy Moreno’s psychodramatic techniques; as well as other international trends in street and psychotherapeutic performance. Taking Action is a performance course that asks students to turn political and personal issues into action. The focus is on developing a persuasive message that has the possibility to incite discussion and eventually bring about change. In addition, students are given the opportunity to create activist performances in the surrounding college and Beloit communities. Offered occasionally.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet advised the players that theatre was, “To Hold as ‘twere the mirror up to nature”; today, documentary theatre places a contested story in front of an audience making it more real, more urgent. This course focuses on a local story and develops a means to stage its heart. Students develop archival skills, oral history interviewing techniques, group storytelling activities, and composition and script analysis approaches. Ultimately, the goal of the course is to create a finished script for the following season, and along the way students become better collaborators, clearer storytellers, insightful community members, and ethical theatrical journalists. Documentary theatre may be repeated for credit if the topic is different or a different development approach is being taught. Prerequisite: sophomore standing and one Performing and Applied Arts or Media Studies course. Offered most fall semesters.

Whether you plan to offer a play-by-play on air or want to be understood on the stage, this course increases your awareness and control of your own vocal life. Students learn techniques and exercises that facilitate vocal development and control. Voice for Stage and Screen introduces a variety of vocal training systems (Linklater, Berry, Houseman, and Skinner) to help students study their whole voice. This course covers: International Phonetic Alphabet, dialects, classical verse, character voices, Elevated Standard speech, vocal work with a microphone, and exercises that assist in gaining vocal control. (Also listed as Media Studies 229.) Offered occasionally, spring semesters.

This course introduces the principles of drafting skills for theatre and the entertainment industry. While learning about drafting standards, students develop techniques for drafting accurate drawings both in hand drafting and computer aided drafting. Students also learn how to accurately read and interpret drawings. (2A) Prerequisite: Performing and Applied Arts 112, 140, or permission by instructor. Offered occasionally. This course has a fee.

This course introduces students to the process and paperwork required to design props for a production. Students learn the fundamentals of prop making for the entertainment industry by working with a variety of materials to create the props necessary for each “production”. Students research, develop potential budgets, and fabricate a variety of different props. Various props created may require the use of power tools, painting techniques, casting, molds, sculpting, or other processes. (2A) Offered occasionally. This course has a fee.

In this half credit course students learn the building blocks of visual design for the stage. They learn ways to manipulate the elements of design specific to discipline and how to realize design concepts. Students work through the design process and leave the course with a realized final design project. Throughout the design process students learn how to analyze design choices, receive constructive feedback, and alter design decisions and build processes to better realize their final designs. Students get to apply their design and creation skills to a current Performing and Applied Arts production, with a chance their designs will be seen onstage. (2A) Prerequisite: Performing and Applied Arts 112. This course has a fee.

For students looking to develop skills in composing and songwriting, this course blends lessons in music theory and compositional techniques with creative projects in students’ chosen musical styles and mediums. Topics include crafting melody, harmony, and rhythm; developing core musical ideas; and designing individualized creative processes. Returning students investigate instrumentation, voice-leading, form, and markers of musical genres. Class sessions include listening, analysis, discussion, and workshopping. Assignments include both guided compositions using specific techniques and student-designed projects. Students may work in any style as they are also encouraged to explore new territory. Culminating concert features a new piece by each student. (2A)

This course introduces students to the role of a costume designer, the collaborative process, and how to successfully use research and the elements of design to create successful costume designs. Students learn a range of design-related skills, which include the following: understanding of design elements such as color, proportion, scale, and line; script and character analysis; drawing the figure and rendering with watercolor; developing a familiarity with fashion history and how to effectively compile research for a production; and understanding the process of costume development from concept to performance. (2A) Prerequisite: Performing and Applied Arts 112 or 114. Offered every other fall, odd years.

This course is an introduction to sound design and sound editing. The course examines the role of sound in entertainment, be it theatre, film/TV video games, etc. The course allows students to understand the processes by which sound is created, manipulated, and implemented for use in the entertainment industry, from the beginning analysis all the way to a finished product. (2A) Offered every other fall, odd years.

A continuation of Performing and Applied Arts 170 for students who seek to improve their facility with harmony, notation, score-reading, analysis, arranging, and musicianship skills, this course integrates music theory and musical practice. Students apply techniques from 16th-century counterpoint and tonal harmony through model compositions and original arrangements, ranging from the style of Palestrina to contemporary popular music. Theoretical concepts are exercised through the rigorous practice of musicianship skills, including sight-singing, dictation, and keyboard harmony. Workload includes weekly written assignments and projects in analysis and composing/arranging; regular independent skills practice is essential to prepare for musicianship tests. Students should have some facility with an instrument and/or voice. Prior keyboard experience is not required. (1S) Prerequisite: Performing and Applied Arts 170, placement test, or permission of instructor. Offered occasionally.

This topics course leads students through exploratory performance and installation projects. Students who identify with any creative practice (such as vocalists, instrumentalists, sound artists, poets, visual artists, multimedia artists, choreographers, programmers, etc.) share a collaborative environment in which they perform installations and pieces created together. The course may include weekly readings on devised performance, community development, and collaboration and/or work through structured exercises and improvisations to develop a group-specific creative language. The course culminates in a final public presentation of the collaborative creative work. All media styles and levels of experience are welcome. Students may repeat this course up to a total of 2 units of credit. (2A) (Also listed as Media Studies 276 and Art 176.)

Students build fundamental skills of contact improvisation through movement explorations and the study of physics. In addition, they study the history and theory of the form and how it is evolving. Students develop physical skills for basic contact by falling, rolling, giving and taking weight with the floor, walls, and other bodies, balance, counterbalance, and momentum. The students reflect on the day’s practice by journaling after each class, gaining further insight on the day’s lessons and how they relate to the academic study of the form. (2A) Offered occasionally. Recommendation: Performing and Applied Arts 180.

This course puts the fields connected to the performing arts and psychology in conversation. As students survey a range of approaches, perspectives, methods, histories, and applications through the exploration of topics including perception, embodiment, cognition, human development, neuroscience, music theory, music history, acoustics, and music/arts/dance/theatre therapy, they focus on why certain research questions are asked in the first place (and not others), what motivates certain types of exploration (and to what end), what various results actually signify or mean, and how people or society use these results. By studying both the overlap and tensions between the two general areas (performing arts and psychology), students gain an increased understanding of each disciplines’ unique positions, histories, scope, and its limits. (Also listed as Psychology 285.)

This course explores the ways gender is performed on a daily basis. Though emphasis is on the art of drag, students look at the ways that people choose to present our preferred gender and experiment with other (and othered) genders. Class time is equal parts studio practice and lecture/discussion. Studio practice includes experimentation with stereotypically Western male/female movements and gestures, make-up and padding tutorials, and the art of lip-synching. As each student develops and transforms into their drag persona over the course of the semester, they engage in ongoing reflection regarding their experience of the corporality of ‘trying on’ the movements of genders. Professional Drag Queens/Kings join as lecturers. Readings and films dealing with the politics of gender presentation round out the course. The culminating class event is an Extravaganza Show. (Also listed as Critical Identity Studies 285.) (2A) Prerequisite: performance experience preferred. Offered occasionally.

Performing Shakespeare is the most exhilarating part of performing. No other author in the dramatic canon allows actors to experience the highs and lows of life, reality, and imagined worlds. Students enter a world that witches wander, muses guide creativity, and adventures await. In this course, students were not born to sue, but to command. Learn to speak verse with fluency. Improvise in iambic pentameter. Embody great literary heroes. Discover the imaginative staging of the Elizabethans. This is your chance to discover the wonders, complexities, and joys of performance. Seize hold of this opportunity and devour it. Prerequisite: Performing and Applied Arts 106. Offered occasionally.

Clothing is a basic building block in any society. To begin understanding modern fashion and its significance, students first must understand the history of fashion, dress and adornments. In this course students will critically examine fashion spanning numerous eras and cultures to better understand its societal implications and how it has evolved into the fashion industry of today. Students learn the skills necessary to research historical dress and how to present that research to their fellow classmates. (2A) Offered every other spring, odd years.

In this course students learn the building blocks to visual design. They learn ways to manipulate the elements of design specific to discipline and how to realize design concepts. Students work through the design process and leave the course with a realized final design project. Throughout the design process students learn how to analyze design choices, receive constructive feedback, and alter design decisions and build processes to better realize their final designs. (2A) Prerequisite: Performing and Applied Arts 112.

Explores the collaborative process of creating new performance works. This course goes beyond playwriting to explore the possibilities of performance and media. Each year, the instructor proposes a theme. Together, students collaborate to realize a performance (with the potential for use of technical elements that aid in storytelling). This is an interdisciplinary experience where students are asked to do what they know and take risks that they never thought they would. This course may be repeated for credit. Offered every third spring semester. Prerequisite: Performing and Applied Arts 100, 106, or permission of instructor.

With elements of arts administration, non-profit organizations, educational outreach, and artistic collaboration, students curate artistic content and/or partner with arts organizations in the broader community. Each time the course is offered, it focuses on a new topic. Examples include but are not limited to: collaboration across campuses, creating and teaching workshops in elementary schools, self-producing, and working with a producing partner as an independent arts organization. Students may take the course again for credit when a new topic is offered. Prerequisite: students must apply to be in the course. Offered occasionally.

Related Links

Courses

Permanent Courses

Lessons

All Lesson Courses

Ensembles

[PART 051] Beloit College and Community Choir (.25)

[PART 055] Chamber Music (.25)

[PART 057] Creative Strings Collective (.25)

[PART 058] Jazz Ensemble (.25)

[PART 062] Chamber Singers (.25)

[PART 065] Woodwind Quintet (.25)

[PART 066] Wind Ensemble (.25)

[PART 068] Percussion Ensemble (.25)

[PART 069] Guitar Ensemble (.25)

Courses

[PART 080] Collaboration (.25-1)

[PART 090] Class Piano (.5)

[PART 100] Improvisation (1)

[PART 106] Fundamentals of Acting (1)

[PART 112] Introduction to Design and Technology (1)

[PART 113] Modern Dance I (.75)

[PART 114] Introduction to Costume and Makeup Techniques (1)

[PART 115] Ballet I (.75)

[PART 140] Stagecraft (1)

[PART 143] Collaboration I: Theory and Practice (.5)

[PART 144] Collaboration II: Collaboration in the Arts (.5)

[PART 150] Performing Arts Historiography (1)

[PART 170] Theory of Music, Sound, and Space (1)

[PART 180] Movement Improvisation (.75)

[PART 200] Topics in Performing and Applied Arts (.25 -1)

[PART 206] Acting Comedy (1)

[PART 207] Fundamentals of Directing (1)

[PART 213] Modern Dance II (.5)

[PART 215] Ballet II (.5)

[PART 219] Fakes, Forgeries, and ‘Keepin’ it Real?: The Pursuit, Defense and Deconstruction of Authenticity (1)

[PART 220] A History of Recordings, Radio, and the Transmission of Sound (1)

[PART 221] Theories of Contemporary Performance and Media (1)

[PART 222] Taking Action: Theatre, Therapy, and Activism. (1)

[PART 225] Documentary Theatre (1)

[PART 229] Voice for Stage and Screen (1)

[PART 240] Stage Management (.5)

[PART 241] Drafting (.5)

[PART 242] Props Design (.5)

[PART 245] Textile Arts (.5)

[PART 247] Design and Creation for the Stage (.5)

[PART 248] Performance Composition (1)

[PART 255] Songwriting/Composition (1)

[PART 260] Introduction to Recording and Editing Techniques (1)

[PART 263] Costume Design (1)

[PART 265] Sound Design (1)

[PART 270] Music Theory in Practice (1)

[PART 275] Career and Portfolio I (.5)

[PART 276] Multidisciplinary Arts and Media Collaboration (1)

[PART 280] Contact Improvisation (.75)

[PART 285] Psychology and the Arts (1)

[PART 288] Performing Gender (1)

[PART 290] Art Research and Presentation (1)

[PART 300] Advanced Topics in Performing and Applied Arts (.25-1)

[PART 306] Acting Shakespeare (1)

[PART 310] History of Fashion (1)

[PART 312] Design and Creation (1)

[PART 313] Modern Dance III (.5)

[PART 315] Ballet III (.5)

[PART 351] Devising New Work (1)

[PART 360] Topics in Arts Entrepreneurship (1)

[PART 370] ScreenDance: Making Dance Films (1)

[PART 375] Career and Portfolio II (.5)

[PART 390] Special Project (.25-1)

[PART 395] Teaching Assistant (.25-.5)