Viewbook 2016/17

2016/2017 VISUAL ARTS ART, DESIGN, FILM + MEDIA PERFORMING ARTS DANCE, MUSIC, THEATER PERFORMANCE PRODUCTION SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

NOT JUST HOW YOU MAKE ART, WHY YOU MAKE ART

“For those of us who choose to participate in the arts, whether creating, teaching or performing, our “why” is the fuel. It is what pushes us from wish to reality.”

– Lyndsey Marie Gray, Dance ’14

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At Cornish College of the Arts, your enthusiasm, your originality, your creativity, and your dreams will shape your experience.

Cornish serves as the center point where both the visual and the performing arts meet, collaborate, and create in a city famed for risk-taking and invention. The journey from Cornish’s downtown urban campus to all of Seattle’s major cultural institutions takes mere minutes.

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NOT JUST HOW YOU PERFORM, WHY YOU PERFORM

“The passion and drive to charge into the unknown is what makes us artists.”

– Ryan Christopher Dominguez, Theater ‘12

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A LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

hroughout Seattle and the Northwest, whether in theaters celebrating original voices or in one of our progressive technology companies creating groundbreaking changes, you’ll often find a meaningful Cornish connection whether playwright, musician or designer—that is the pivotal impetus for imagination and creativity.

Seattle companies in all fields use Cornish interns and hire Cornish graduates.

But Cornish graduates don’t just succeed in Seattle. You’ll find them both onstage and backstage in theaters, in front of and behind cameras, in art galleries, dancing or choreographing for prestigious companies, making award-winning music, and solving design problems across America and around the world.

Throughout my tenure here, I’ve watched as Cornish students explore the newest ideas, techniques, and technology, and serve as a living connection to all the great artists who have gone before them. One part of the Cornish tradition remains clear and strong: it’s not just what our students create or HOW they create it, but WHY they are driven to create that is making a difference in our society. Whether Mary Lambert is using her music to speak out for those suffering in silence or a recent student-created film raises awareness of issues facing Nepal, our Cornish community looks to achieve more than excellence in the arts. They work to create a better world.

Cornish supports our students’ passion to understand their art, helping them to discover where their disciplines are going, always looking ahead to what’s next.

I hope you enjoy this brief overview and will take the time to visit our growing campus in downtown Seattle. We want to show you why the arts are a powerful global influence and catalyst for social change.

Warmly,

PRESIDENT NANCY J. USCHER, PH.D.

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CONTENTS

VISUAL ARTS_22

52_ PERFORMING ARTS

FOUNDATIONS_24

54_DANCE

ART_26

62_MUSIC

DESIGN_36

70 _PERFORMANCE PRODUCTION

INTERIOR_44 ARCHITECTURE FILM+MEDIA_46

LIFE AT CORNISH_8 THE CAMPUS_14

80_THEATER HUMANITIES & SCIENCES 20 CREATIVE CORRIDOR 50

92_VISIT & APPLY 94_FINANCIAL AID & SCHOLARSHIPS

WORK SPACES_16 PERFORMANCE SPACES_18

98_AT A GLANCE & ACCREDITATION

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Life at Cornish is about making friends, exploring Seattle, finding out where your art will take you, and more than a few late night pizzas.

It’s about living on campus in a high rise residence hall. It’s about having your work seen and getting to see the work created by your peers. It’s about sharing interests and being inspired.

“And, most importantly, I found my passion. I found the one thing in this world I was meant to do. The thing that energizes me, that forces me to keep a notebook next to my bed so I can write down the ideas that come all night instead of sleep. I found something that I love more than free time or regular hours or guaranteed financial security. I found myself. I learned to stand on my own two feet.”

– Kendra Lee, Performance Production ’15 page 8

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At Cornish, you’ll find plenty of peers with the same interests. We may not have a football team or cheerleaders, but our Student Interest

“We’re creating a network, a community, that we can lean on

Groups are devoted to everything from a capella singing to tabletop adventuring. SIGs provide opportunities outside the classroom for Cornish

for the rest of our career as artists.

students to participate in educational, intellectual,

We are the community that I had

encourage students at Cornish to join or form their

hoped to be part of.”

interdisciplinary, and cultural events. We own SIGs to share mutual interests.

– Katherine Wheeler, Design ‘15

Student Interest Groups (sample list) n BELTER’S ANONYMOUS n COMPWORKS n CORNISH CURATORS (ART SHOWS) n CORNISH SOCCER CLUB n CORNISH STUDENT LEADERSHIP

COUNCIL

n FRESH PRESS (STUDENT NEWSPAPER) n FEMINISM AT CORNISH n INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE GROUP n MAKING STUFF INSTEAD OF BREAKING STUFF (ZINE) n MIND, BODY, NATURE n PHOTOGRAPHY SOCIETY n TABLETOP ADVENTURER’S GUILD n TONIC RHYTHM n UNDERSTANDING MULTICULTURAL

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“We are a force to be reckoned with and I know you all felt the potential energy building up under our feet from the first moment we stepped inside…”

– Samantha Anne Whalen, Art ‘13

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“We have learned to hold ourselves accountable to a higher standard of work than we ever thought possible.”

– Emiliesa Lorraine Horwitz, Design ’15

DANCE, MUSIC, PERFORMANCE PRODUCTION, THEATER CORNISH COLLEGE OF THE ARTS

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DANCE, MUSIC, PERFORMANCE PRODUCTION, THEATER page 12

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“Cornish gave us a place to grow and rebel. A ‘No’ at Cornish didn’t mean something could not be done. It just meant we had to think creatively.”

– Victoria Patricia MacNaughton, Theater ‘15

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TWELVE BUILDINGS AND ONE AMAZING CITY Live, work, and play on campus. Cornish Commons, a state-of-the-art residence hall, is located in the center of our vibrant South Lake Union campus. Designed for you, Cornish Commons features plenty of space and special amenities that allow you to create and perform without ever stepping outside. Commuting students also use Cornish Commons as a launching pad to explore all that Cornish and Seattle has to offer.

Nellie’s CafÊ, our full-service cafeteria with its own espresso bar, is located on the second floor of the Main Campus Center across the street from Cornish Commons.

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VISUAL ARTS WORK SPACES

From individual and shared studio spaces to special labs, Cornish offers artists and designers what they need to create new work and explore their craft.

3D FABRICATION LAB The 3D Fabrication Resource Area helps students progress from sketchbook to actual object. Use our well-equipped lab to build your skills in woodworking, metal welding and fabrication, mold-making for cold casting, and ceramics. Whether you need handheld wood carving tools or a Makerbot 3D printer, you’ll find it here.

DIGITAL AND ANALOG EQUIPMENT LIBRARY Interested in photography or filmmaking?

The digital and analog equipment library includes an array of cameras, tripods, lights, microphones, projectors, and digital displays that students can sign out.

DIGITAL LABS Our digital computer labs will give you access to a range of creative software including Adobe Creative Cloud. In these labs, you will be able to take advantage of greater processing power to work on larger and more complex digital projects as well as having access to printers and plotters for digital output.

MATERIALS LAB With access to a wide variety of materials, students explore different ways of working across drawing and painting in the Materials Lab. The Lab is stocked with both acrylic and oil mediums, and is bright, spacious, and well ventilated. Drawing media include charcoal, pastels, oil bars, water-soluble crayons, charcoal and graphite powder, and inks, as well as fixatives and other finishing processes.

Hand tools and an array of fasteners are on hand to facilitate the display of completed work. page 16

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PHOTOMEDIA LAB In the Photomedia Lab, you can explore blackand-white analogue photography as well as digital photography. You will be able to work with digital image manipulation and large format printing and can venture into Super 8mm film processing.

PRINT ART LAB The Cornish Print Art Lab is comprised of several lab spaces prepared for both traditional and contemporary practices, including a darkroom, silkscreen facilities, a lithography press for aluminum plate lithography, and presses used for relief, monotype, and large intaglio printmaking.

An additional feature of the lab is a Sukifuni, a traditional Japanese papermaking vat, for creating delicate handmade paper.

BOOK ARTS LAB The Book Arts Lab contains five working antique letterpresses with a large catalog of both wood and lead type. Hand set type, prepare bindings with multiple signatures, and create professional quality handmade books.

TUTORIALS AVAILABLE ANY TIME

Cornish offers interactive online video tutorial services like Lynda.com so students can develop their technology skills whenever and wherever they need.

“Lynda.com offers an online video tutorial library that is available around the clock.

It covers many software titles, scripting languages, as well as design and web development programming languages.

Content can be used by students in conjunction with Cornish classes. It can also be used independently in relation to an academic or personal creative project, or to develop one’s own digital literacy.”

– Hollis Near, Director of Library Services

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PERFORMANCE SPACES

Cornish College of the Arts provides performance space at the Seattle Center, on Capitol Hill, and in the South Lake Union neighborhood.

From black box to Seattle icon, performing at Cornish is performing in the heart of the city.

CORNISH PLAYHOUSE AT SEATTLE CENTER Originally built for the 1962 World’s Fair, the Cornish Playhouse at Seattle Center is one of the most famous venues in the city, having served as a home for two Tony Award-winning Seattle companies, Seattle Repertory Theatre and Intiman Theatre. Today, the theater provides performance space for Cornish student productions and college-produced events as well as more than 40 nonprofit organizations annually.

The Cornish Playhouse’s 434-seat Main Auditorium is used for dance performances, theater productions, film screenings, concerts, and more. The space is fully equipped and popular with Seattle audiences who have been attending performances there for more than 50 years.

Under Cornish’s stewardship, both the main theater and the Marleen and Kenny Alhadeff Studio Theater have undergone extensive upgrades. page 18

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The Marleen and Kenny Alhadeff Studio Theater is a flexible black box space that hosts smaller productions such as our Original Works readings, Shakespeare at the Center, and annual Clown Show.

Because the Cornish Playhouse is a professional theater venue on the Seattle Center campus, students working backstage have the opportunity to earn hours toward their membership in the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE).

PONCHO CONCERT HALL The PONCHO Concert Hall is located within the historic landmark Kerry Hall in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. This intimate venue of 200 seats has presented the work of local, national and internationally-based composers, choreographers, and musicians since the 1920s. Every year, hundreds of events occur here including the Cornish Presents series, Earshot Jazz, dance department productions, music student recitals, faculty and alumni concerts, Scores of Sound music festival, artist residencies, and master classes.

RAISBECK PERFORMANCE HALL The Ned & Kayla Skinner Theater at Raisbeck Performance Hall is the principle performance venue at Cornish’s South Lake Union campus. Built more than 100 years ago as a Sons and Daughters of Norway lodge, Raisbeck hosts a variety of community events during the summer, including the Seattle International Dance Festival and the Black Box Film Festival. It also made a cameo appearance in the movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.

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humanities & sciences

Becoming an educated artist means more than just knowing HOW to make something or deciding on a particular performance style. Understand WHY your work matters—and gain the intellectual grounding necessary to negotiate your way in the world with communication, critical thinking, and problem-solving abilities.

All students at Cornish participate in one of two first-year experience programs.

Each provides you with a rich, engaging learning community of peers and faculty to situate your reading, writing, and creative and critical thinking in the context of the arts. You explore the intersections between making, performing, and thinking about ideas across the liberal arts.

If you’re in the Visual Arts departments (Art, Design, Film+Media), learning in the Humanities and Sciences is integrated with Studio and Critical & Contextual studies in the Foundations program. Studentcentered courses are designed around program themes and shared student learning outcomes. You have opportunities page 20

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HUMANITIES & SCIENCES

to develop relationships with faculty and peers in learning communities. In your first two years, you gain instruction and practice in writing for diverse purposes and audiences, read across diverse genres and styles of texts, and explore liberal arts ideas across three disciplinary domains: the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Sciences. As you move into your third and fourth years, you direct your learning with increasing independence, guided by your intellectual and imaginative curiosity to know, question, and connect ideas with your own practice and your practice with rich histories of liberal arts.

If you’re in the Performing Arts departments (Dance, Music, Performance Production, and Theater) you will participate in Integrated Studies, a first-year experience, where you explore ideas in a student-centered environment that integrates instruction and practice in reading, writing, and critical thinking with liberal arts content in diverse course themes. In the first year, you’ll write for diverse audiences and purposes, read a variety of texts in multiple genres and forms, and develop relationships with faculty and students in learning communities. Beyond the first year, students select additional coursework from a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary themes and topics. All performing arts students are required to have at least six credits of college writing in their program, including expository writing and research writing or their equivalent.

HUMANITIES & SCIENCES

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“Our Foundations program allows students to explore a breadth of opportunity across the contemporary visual arts. Through a series of dynamically structured modules, students work across the disciplinary bounds of art, design, film, media, science, social science, humanities, and critical and contextual studies to produce works of combined practical and intellectual engagement.”

– Dawn Gavin, Interim Chair of Visual Arts

foundations program for visual artists

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FOUNDATIONS

From its inception, Cornish College of the Arts recognized the value of integration across the arts. The Foundations curriculum now amplifies that opportunity, allowing visual artists to understand, explore, and develop a range of disciplinary and transdisciplinary skills. Whether you plan to pursue Art, Design, or Film+Media, Foundations will give you the opportunity to strengthen your own unique vision while simultaneously exploring diverse approaches to research and creative practice. A series of integrated modules allows for liberal arts course content to simultaneously inform with the topics studied in the studio, and vice versa.

A cohort-based model, Foundations will allow you to work alongside peers and faculty both inside and outside your chosen discipline, and form important professional connections that will sustain you for the next four years, and beyond.

FOUNDATIONS

MATERIALS AVAILABLE 24 HOURS A DAY

With collaboration being key to a successful Foundations year, both faculty and students use Canvas, a learning management system, to maximize their time outside of the classroom. Through Canvas, students track the assignments needed, find links to study, and take online tutorials for graphics or film software when it is most convenient for them.

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art

At Cornish, art is led by ideas, and your studies focus on investigating the best way for you to express, investigate, and create.

Every artist expresses an idea differently— and in the studio you may find that your idea needs to become a large-scale oil painting while your classmate perfects a series of photographs and another works on sculpture.

A Cornish education goes beyond attaining technical proficiency. Here, you’ll acquire the intellectual skills necessary to be successful in today’s art world.

Throughout all four years in Art, you’ll have opportunities to exhibit your work.

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ART

“As a performance artist interested in crossing borders and blurring lines, I treasured the opportunity to study along side individuals of all cultures and artistic disciplines…Cornish has, time and again, rewarded this spirit of experimentation and risk taking.”

– Reilly Sinanan, Art ’15

Cornish’s fine arts faculty, the majority working artists themselves, empower your artistic choices and help you shape the practice that you want. Either specialize in a chosen medium, such as painting, or embrace cross-disciplinary approaches.

The program enables and supports both throughout your four years at Cornish.

ART

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In your junior year, opportunities exist to study abroad, to compete for participation in the AICAD’s New York Studio Residency Program (NYSRP), or to take part in the AICAD Mobility Program.

The NYSRP is located in DUMBO Brooklyn, New York. Participating students receive individual studio spaces, weekly critique sessions, and a diverse seminar/visiting artist program which includes a comprehensive introduction to the New York art world. The AICAD Mobility program allows you to attend another AICAD college in a city of your choice.

AICAD

The Alliance of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD) is made up of 43 colleges in the United States and Canada, including Cornish College of the Arts. For more information, go to www.aicad.org.

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FOUR YEARS AS AN ARTIST AT CORNISH

YEAR 1:

Explore

YEAR 2:

Know and Understand

YEAR 3: Analyze,

Evaluate, Apply

YEAR 4: Synthesize

and Disseminate

ART

“It has been a pleasure to watch my daughter develop as an artist during her time at Cornish. She chose to move from her native New York City to attend a school that offered a strong foundation year where she could explore all mediums and venues. As so much work in the contemporary art field today is interdisciplinary, Cornish provides its students the tools to excel in multiple arenas. In addition, studying with students in the performing arts offers opportunities for fine arts majors to expand their focus into the wide breath of what contemporary artists address today.”

ART

– Barry Friedman, parent

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In your senior year, you’ll have a body of work ready for your final exhibition. The BFA exhibition serves as both a point of departure from the academic world and the commencement of your professional practice.

“We’re taught agency and that we have the power to take ideas in our heads and realize them in the world.”

–Alicia Nicole Hatfield, Art ‘14

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ART

“By doing things again and again and again, I became aware of my role and my responsibility in the outcome of my work.”

–Charlotte Dean, Art ‘12

ART

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VISITING ARTISTS AND GALLERIES

Through the year, visiting artists connect with our students, both in lecture series and in the studio. Travel to nearby galleries and exhibitions is easy from our downtown campus.

Cornish also maintains multiple galleries for the exhibition of student work as well as the work of visiting artists. Throughout your four years here, you’ll have an opportunity to showcase your work while pursuing your degree.

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ART

ART

Heather Hart ’98 Heather Hart’s The Western Oracle: We Will Tear the Roof Off the Mother invited and stimulated Seattle viewers to climb on it, crawl under it, and interact with it. More importantly, her work encouraged people to interact with each other.

“I am interested in how we, as humans, relate to each other,” Hart ’98 recently told Brooklyn Magazine. “How we relate to space. Perception. Assumption. Tradition.

Nostalgia. Phenomenology. Semantics. And how these contribute to our forming our identity.” She also means her work to start a conversation, not end one. She is adamant that being biracial does not define either her or her work. “I don’t want to be boxed in,” said Hart. “My work is about more than that, it’s not didactic.”

ART

After graduating from Cornish, Hart got her MFA from Rutgers University and today works out of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, New York.

CORNISH STUDENTS HAVE GONE ON TO: ATTEND GRADUATE SCHOOL

Virginia Commonwealth University, California Institute of the Arts, New York Academy of Fine Arts, Glasgow School of Art, Pratt Institute, Cranbrook Institute of Art, Carnegie Mellon COLLABORATE WITH

Degenerate Art Ensemble, Saint Genet, Pendleton House WIN AWARDS FROM

National Portrait Gallery BP Portrait Award, Smithsonian Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition CORNISH COLLEGE OF THE ARTS

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MASTER OF ARTS IN TEACHING

Cornish students pursuing a BFA in Art, Design, or Film+Media can earn an accelerated Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) at Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA). This program offers undergraduate art, design, and media majors a flexible and accelerated route to a licensed teaching career in art and design.

Through our partnership with VCFA, students can complete both their BFA and MAT, while acquiring teaching licensure in five years.

This summer-residency program offers an innovative curriculum that will prepare students to be successful, confident teachers with a focus on contemporary artistic practice and in high demand for hiring.

With its innovative curriculum and collaborative structure, VCFA attracts exceptional faculty from across the country, all highly respected pioneers in the field of arts education. The faculty have infused the program with a focus on diversity, social justice, authenticity, contemporary practice, leadership, and creative-maker research.

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ART

Juniors at Cornish in good academic standing are eligible to apply for this dual degree option. Students enroll and participate in their first VCFA MAT summer residency—which focuses on pedagogy, theory and hands-on materials workshops––between their junior and senior years. They complete their fieldwork/ observation cycle and pre-thesis work in Seattle while completing their undergraduate degree. MAT students return to VCFA for their second summer residency after earning a Cornish BFA degree. The second summer residency provides an immersion in teaching methodology and hands-on, real-time teaching practice.

Students collaborate on designing curricula, presenting, building and assessing their curricular units in pre-practicum environments working with elementary, middle and secondary school students, with direct support from program faculty. The student teaching practicum and completion of the capstone thesis is done at the student’s chosen location during the second fall, winter, or spring semester.

ART

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design There are many pathways to a design degree at Cornish: narrative systems, type and image, user experience (UX), or interior architecture. Build your technical skills while pursuing your interests following your Foundations year.

Seattle’s burgeoning design community gives students valuable internship opportunities with industry leaders. Design also offers you the chance to participate in various juried exhibitions throughout your four years, introducing your designs to professionals in Seattle’s flourishing design community.

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DESIGN

“It’s a great time to be a designer!

Many kinds of design, once in silos, are converging, and graphic novelists now find themselves working with motion, illustrators make package design, UX designers partner with interior architects—the possibilities are endless.” – Jeff Brice, Chair of Design

DESIGN

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NARRATIVE SYSTEMS

How do certain stories rise above the noise in today’s media environment?

Narrative systems explores the structures and concepts of compelling stories told through sequential images, text, and audio.

Stories are told through a diverse range of traditional media of print as well as emerging new technologies. Animation, product branding, games, graphic novels, motion graphics, and video are vehicles for narratives of all kinds. Self authored as well as client driven stories are fusions of visual and audio aesthetics, narrative structure and a range of evolving technologies expressed through print or screen. The proliferation of video over the internet and the high demand for graphic stories make narrative systems an important tool for designers.

AREAS OF STUDY 2D ANIMATION 3D ANIMATION BRAND STORYTELLING GAME DESIGN GRAPHIC NOVELS MOTION GRAPHICS VIDEO

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DESIGN

ANIMATION Pen-and-ink, stop-motion, key frame, digital 3D­–you’ll develop many animation skills in our small, focused classes. Animation technology is constantly changing, and we stay on top of it, making sure our digital tools are absolutely current. But animation isn’t just tools and techniques. Visual storytelling, explorations in narrative, and collaboration with faculty and peers make animation at Cornish a well-rounded and complete experience in craft and content.

MOTION GRAPHICS Our curriculum will encourage you to become an innovative thinker in the complex and thriving media environment.

Study motion design, film titling, motion effects, and 3D modeling. Develop indepth approaches to 2D and 3D video graphics and animation for gaming, web development, and interactive presentations. And prepare for a vibrant career in a growing, fast-paced industry.

GAME ART AND INDIE GAMING Delve into character development, world development, and game theory while collaborating with peers and experienced faculty. Work with artists across disciplines to reimagine the possibilities of game art.

Seattle is home to some of the best game companies in the world. Gaming is fast becoming part of our daily experience in all forms of media, and designers are leading the way.

DESIGN

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TYPE & IMAGE

At Cornish, you will become expert on the basic tools of type and image. The mastery of these essential elements can be used to communicate data, personal ideas, and client messages. Your personal aesthetics are expressed through packaging, posters, and digital publishing. Typography, layout, and Illustration provide the foundation for working in a variety of media including traditional printing and media to the screens on our tablet devices and everything in-between.

AREAS OF STUDY BRANDING GRAPHIC DESIGN ILLUSTRATION POSTER DESIGN PRINTMAKING AND BOOK ARTS PRODUCT PACKAGING PUBLISHING TYPOGRAPHY

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DESIGN

ILLUSTRATION Today’s illustrators work in game art, graphic storytelling, packaging, print, and dynamic media. At Cornish, you’ll have the opportunity to hone your craft and handskills in digital and traditional media, as you learn about narrative structures working closely with professional illustrators.

COMICS /GRAPHIC NOVELS Learn sequential arts, narrative storytelling, and character development in courses taught by faculty with extensive work experience. Team up with fellow students who are passionate about design, illustration, and the graphic world.

PRINTMAKING & BOOK ARTS The traditional crafts of silk screen, etching, and woodblock printing are still very popular forms of design. The art of the poster offers you the opportunity to integrate type and image into a large format. Our letterpress room is a favorite hang out for making hand-made books and prints with hundreds of traditional metal typefaces to work with.

“At Cornish, I learned to be the champion of my ideas, to let them out of my head for others to see.”

– Samantha Brooks Shockley, Design ‘13

DESIGN

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USER EXPERIENCE

Learn how the intersection of design and technology is the new frontier for innovative product development through the study of user experience design, social media, and design research. Become immersed in the design of our digital world and learn to create dynamic user experiences for the Internet, mobile applications, wearables, immersive digital environments and the IoT (the internet of things). Discover the expanding world of social media and how it is transforming visual culture and communication. Explore through research and product prototyping how designers can create products to meet consumer needs. Located right in the heart of Seattle’s ever-expanding high-tech community, Cornish offers students the opportunity to interface with cutting-edge design professionals through seminars, site visits, and internships.

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AREAS OF STUDY INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE INFORMATION VISUALIZATION INTERACTION DESIGN (WEB, MOBILE, APPS, PRODUCT) INTERFACES DATA VISUALIZATION USABILITY RESEARCH WEARABLES WEB DESIGN

DESIGN

DESIGN

Justin Kane Elder ’02 Justin Kane Elder ’02 presented his work all over Seattle, picking up small design jobs as he went along from clients attracted to his irreverent style and wit. All this led him at last to a partnership with Seattle artists Patrick “Duffy” De Armas and Brennan Coyle in a firm named Electric Coffin. The partners in EC describe it as “makers of fine art objects and conceptual innovations and adaptations.” Elder and EC have made themselves one of the go-to design firms for big projects in Seattle and the Northwest. Working out of their garage-like shop in Ballard and combining fine art, graphics, interior design, and general craziness, the firm constructs interactive pieces that provoke thought and facilitate discussion. At home with projects as small as the top surface of a skateboard and as large as an entire building, Electric Coffin has broken through to that most rarified height of design, where clients simply turn them loose on a project.

DESIGN

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INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE

AREAS OF STUDY ENVIRONMENTS INTERIOR DESIGN LIGHTING

Sustainability is the cornerstone of technology driven environment. Cornish provides the learning environment that allows you to become analytic creators and transformers of space. Working with a thorough understanding of spatial and visual elements, you’ll apply your knowledge to commercial, residential, and public space design—always considering the culture, history, and environment of the place.

MATERIAL & CONSTRUCTION TECHNOLOGY OBJECT DESIGN SUSTAINABILITY & WELL-BEING

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DESIGN

DESIGN

Alexa Williams ’16 Design senior Alexa Williams ’16 won the prestigious Donguia Scholarship for designers interested in interior architecture.

Williams, who attended high school at Blanche McDonald in Vancouver, British Columbia, chose Cornish for a variety of reasons.

“In the fall of 2011, I started looking at interior design programs in the Northwest,” she says. “When I came across Cornish, my mother and aunt, who are designers, CORNISH STUDENTS HAVE GONE ON TO: were impressed with the structure of the program and the faculty. I just knew that ATTEND GRADUATE SCHOOL the school would be a great fit. The first NYU Tisch School of the Arts, School time that I visited the campus, I was so of Visual Arts, Rhode Island School of inspired and excited to have the chance to Design be involved in such a creative and talented WORK FOR COMPANIES environment.”

Callison Partnership, NBBJ, Starbucks, Amazon, Hornall Anderson Design Works, Microsoft, Digital Kitchen, Pop Cap Games, Turnstyle, HBO COLLABORATE WITH

Amazon, Starbucks, Microsoft Research, EMP Museum, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation DESIGN

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film+media

Cornish’s BFA in Film+Media is its newest program, but Cornish students have been involved working on film and media projects for decades. Theater graduates, such as actor Brendan Fraser, appear in blockbusters and television series. One of our art alumni, Colleen Atwood, translated her studies in painting into an awardwinning career as a costume designer in Hollywood, including a recent Oscar nomination for Into the Woods.

Today, choosing film as your career means pursuing all aspects of film from feature-length narrative to documentary and experimental filmmaking. As with any Cornish degree, the majority of your time is spent in creation. You’ll make pieces individually as well as with a larger crew and graduate with a solid portfolio of work.

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FILM + MEDIA

Classes include video, film, and sound arts.

Explore filmmaking, editing, videography, cinematic lighting, sound design, narrative and non-narrative storytelling, documentary, and intermedia using a variety of exhibition formats. At Cornish, filmmakers can collaborate with other departments, interacting with actors, musicians, scenic designers, costume designers, and art directors.

Internships are being developed to take full advantage of Seattle’s growing popularity with independent filmmakers and pioneers in new media. In 2014/15, Cornish students presented their work at major film festivals such as the National Film Festival for Talented Youth (NFFTY) and even journeyed to Cannes.

FILM + MEDIA

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INSTITUTE OF EMERGENT TECHNOLOGY + INTERMEDIA (iET+I)

Image courtesy of the Vasulkas

Cornish’s Institute of Emergent Technology+Intermedia (iET+I) fosters student research, activities, and projects in emerging technologies. In the techmeets-arts environment that is Seattle, iET+I supports interdisciplinary projects with local and international partners. Recent projects include sponsoring the alternative film festival Black Box 2.0, which played on campus, and bringing famed video artists Steina and Woody Vasulka to Seattle.

Photo courtesy of Noisefold

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FILM + MEDIA

AWARD-WINNING FILMS CREATED

BY CORNISH ALUMNI & STUDENTS FILM+MEDIA

The short documentary on a Seattle public housing project, Even the Walls, screened at the 2015 Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), the largest film festival in North America. Three members of the film’s seven-person team were Cornish graduates: director of photography Canh Nguyen ’12, sound engineer Adam McCollom ’96, and composer Carlos Esparza ’07. The documentary was awarded audience favorite in its category. (top) Even The Walls photo by Canh Nguyen. (left) Even The Walls’ Carlos Esparza ‘07, Saman Maydani, Canh Nguyen ‘12, Sarah Kuck and Warren Etheredge. Courtesy of Seattle International Film Festival

A culinary-themed video photographed and edited by Reva Keller ’13, Wall of Fire, won a 2015 James Beard Foundation Award for “Visual and Technical Excellence.”

Cornish dance student JuJu Kusanagi and her sister Lisa Kusanagi won the 2015 Audience Choice Award at the 40 North Dance Film Festival.

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creative corridor

Launching in spring 2016, Creative Corridor offers you an exciting opportunity to meet required college electives by taking courses that cross disciplinary boundaries or dive into subjects in your major with students outside your department. The Creative Corridor brings together students, faculty, and community partners. A painter interested in dance? A dancer wanting to try filmmaking? A singer fascinated by costume design? A designer longing to write? The Creative Corridor sets you in a lively mix of innovation and inspiration across the arts.

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Creative Corridor courses meet in a blocked-schedule, ensuring all students are available to take courses they want across the college timetable. Learn how to build a winning public art proposal and apply for funding by working directly with arts organizations partnering with Cornish faculty. Collaborate on ways to transfer knowledge across science, movement, animation to learn how the arts are informing biotechnology, gaming, or work in forensics. Participate in a service-learning course that crosses the arts to engage social activism through community arts.

CREATIVE CORRIDOR

critical & contextual studies

Critical & Contextual Studies at Cornish embrace history, philosophy, cultural, critical, and/or aesthetic theories and the social, economical, political, religious and numerous other contexts from which the practice of making and performance arises, exists, develops, and fulfills its purposes.

ACADEMIC SERVICES

The Office of Student Life provides students with many services designed to support the ‘whole’ student. Among the resources offered are: Career Services, Counseling Center, Disability Accommodations, Transportation, Health & Wellness Education, and so much more.

The Writing Center provides Cornish students with personalized writing support through individualized half-hour conferences or online reviews.

The College Central Job Site allows you to post up to 15 portfolio pieces, an Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) file, and two animation files to your portfolio page for our currently registered employers to view. The performing arts departments also provide internship, audition, and off-campus performance opportunities for students. Workshops, career fairs, and individual counseling also help students connect with employers that match their career goals. This support continues after graduation through our alumni services.

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DANCE, MUSIC, PERFORMANCE PRODUCTION, THEATER CORNISH COLLEGE OF THE ARTS

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dance

Experience the excitement and energy of people who love to dance as much as you.

With an equal emphasis on performance and choreography, Cornish dancers leave the college ready to step into professional companies or start their own.

A challenging curriculum and supportive faculty help you discover your unique artistic path. Visiting artists from Seattle’s impressive professional dance community and international touring companies contribute to your education through master classes and residencies.

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Throughout your time at Cornish, you will perform new works by professional choreographers as well as renowned masterpieces. While developing your unique choreographic voice, you’ll have the opportunity to collaborate on creative interdepartmental productions and explore collaborative processes.

With equal emphasis on wellness and entrepreneurship, Cornish dance courses are focused on educating healthy dancers who have the self-confidence, professional skills, and physical knowledge required for a sustainable career in dance. Our alumni pursue careers in every aspect of the dance field.

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PERFORMANCE AND TECHNIQUE Intensive ballet and modern dance courses form the core of your technique curriculum, supplemented by training in many additional dance styles. We teach you to make the most of your physical potential by emphasizing anatomically sound technique and injury prevention. Performance opportunities include professionally choreographed productions presented by the Cornish Dance Theater, our student ensemble.

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“We walk out of Cornish with the gift of life experience from our teachers, armed with the courage to rise to any challenge, to jump in with both feet, and to accept change as it comes.”

– Jolene Winner-Ziemer, Dance ’12

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CHOREOGRAPHY Coursework in choreography and improvisation develops your knowledge of craft as you explore your creative voice. Professional faculty will mentor you as you create new work for student-choreographed productions. You will use digital technology to explore your choreographic ideas in the medium of danceon-film, and will collaborate with artists from other disciplines in cross-disciplinary works.

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TEACHING Your Cornish education, which includes a Pilates Matwork Teaching Certificate, prepares you to teach and pursue dancerelated careers beyond the stage. Courses in teaching methods, community arts, stage production, and dance business practices (website design, concert production, and grant writing) give you the entrepreneurial tools to create your own professional opportunities and pursue social activism through the arts.

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DANCE

Photo by Nate Watters

Amy O’Neal ’99 Amy O’Neal ’99 is an independent dancer, performer, producer, and teacher whose work encompasses a dynamic investigation of contemporary performance practices and Hip Hop and Street Dance culture.

Her work has been presented by On the Boards, PICA TBA Festival, Joyce Soho/ NYC, Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, Northwest Film Forum, among many others. Amy has received financial support from the Creative Capital, National Dance Project, Mid-Atlantic Arts, National Endowment for the Arts and the James W. Ray Project Venture Artist Trust, and is a two-time Artist Trust Fellowship awardee. She has taught and performed throughout the US, Japan, Italy, and Mexico and has choreographed (continued next page)

Ezra Dickinson ’07 Ezra Dickinson ’07 is a choreographer, performer, street artist, painter, ceramicist, animator, and photographer.

His choreography and movement installations have been presented at On the Boards, TEDX Rainer, Seattle International Film Festival, ACT Theater, Henry Art Gallery, 911 Media Arts Center, Zocalo Mexico City, Spectrum Dance Theater, and more. Velocityʼs Made In Seattle program commissioned and produced Dickensonʼs critically acclaimed site-specific performance/activism work “Mother for you I made this,” aimed at activating a conversation about the failed mental health care system in America through memories of Dickinson’s childhood caring for his schizophrenic mother. Co-artistic director of The Offshore Project and Actually Really, he also is a member of The New Mystics, HYPERNOVA, The Murphy Lachow Company and The Maureen Whiting Company.

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for stage, commercials, rock shows, galleries, dance films, and music videos. She has been an artist in residence at Bates Dance Festival, Headlands Center for the Arts, the US/Japan Choreographer’s Exchange, Velocity Dance Center, and a Guest Artist at Mills College. She has worked extensively with musician/comedian Reggie Watts on stage and screen since 2002. Her dance writing has been published in Dance Magazine, City Arts Magazine, and ArtDish Forum.

CORNISH STUDENTS HAVE GONE ON TO: PERFORM WITH

Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Shen Wei Dance Arts, Trisha Brown Dance Company, Victor Quijada/RUBBERBANDance, Sidra Bell Dance, Ballet Nouveau, Seattle Dance Project, Chicago Crash Dance, Pat Graney Company, Scott/Powell Performance, KT Niehoff/LINGO, Korhan Basaran and Artists, Whim W’him, zoe/juniper, Murphy/ Lachow Company, Mark Haim, locust, Maureen Whiting Company, WolfBird Dance Company, Cirque du Soleil, El Teatro Danza Contemporanea de El Salvador, Banana Peel Dance, Scorpius Dance Theatre, Ashani Dances, tEEth, Reggie Watts, Massive Monkees, Vox Mo, Saint Genet, Pendleton House, Spectrum Dance Theater, Tahni Holt, and many others.

START DANCE/PERFORMANCE COMPANIES

Kate Wallich & The YC, Salt Horse, Amy O/locust, Catherine Cabeen/Hyphen, d-9, Rebollar Dance, Entropy, The New Animals, Coriolis, The Offshore Project, Maya Soto/Soto Style, Blind Tiger Society, Alana O’ Rogers Dance Company, HYPERNOVA Contemporary Dance Company, Conundrum Theatre Company, Inc., The Three Yells, to name a few.

ATTEND GRADUATE SCHOOL

The Ohio State University, California Institute of the Arts, SUNY Purchase, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Mills College, University of Washington.

WIN GRANTS AND AWARDS FROM

James W. Ray Project Venture Award, Artist Trust Fellowship, Creative Capital, National Dance Project, National Performance Network, Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture, 4Culture, Artist Trust GAP, Washington State Arts Commission, National Endowment for the Arts, SCUBA National Touring Network.

PERFORM THEIR ORIGINAL WORKS AT

On the Boards, Velocity Dance Center, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art/T:BA Festival, Northwest Film Forum, Chop Shop, BOOST Dance Festival, Ten Tiny Dances, JOYCE SOHO (NYC), Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, Off Center Festival, Seattle International Dance Festival, Bumbershoot Festival, Myrna Loy Center/Helena, ODC/San Francisco, American Dance Institute, Dance Place, Ten Tiny Dances, St. Mark’s Church, Highways Performance Space, Kyoto Art Center, Henry Art Gallery, and many others.

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music Whether you major in performance ( jazz or classical, vocal or instrumental) or composition, you’ll quickly be making something new through composing, improvising, and learning entrepreneurship skills at Cornish.

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“With a focus on creativity, diversity, and innovation, we want to give you the tools to make music that no one has ever heard before.”

– Tom Baker, Chair of Music

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JAZZ Our jazz program has a reputation as one of the most respected programs for creative, improvised music in the country. We have a strong focus on ensemble work and generative musicmaking. The program offers a dozen different ensembles in a variety of traditions from bebop to blues, fusion to free jazz, from improvisation with dancers to the vocal jazz ensemble. You will work one-on-one with accomplished faculty who are themselves working artists and active members of the Seattle music community.

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INSTRUMENTAL AND VOCAL PERFORMANCE Our Bachelor of Music curriculum in instrumental performance emphasizes contemporary chamber music and solo performance. Highly personalized training and individualized student attention is the hallmark of our intimate, intensive program.

All performers are also enabled and encouraged to explore their own creativity through composition and improvisation.

Classes are small and your performance opportunities will be numerous from chamber music to guitar or string quartets, percussion ensemble, or chamber orchestra. In the vocal arts program, you will be exploring your passion for classical singing, opera, jazz, or popular song. Our emphasis on new work means that you will have the opportunity to create and perform music that is fresh and forward-looking.

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COMPOSITION Our composition program is the heart and soul of our music department. We provide composers with a rigorous course of study in the foundational skills of theory, music notation, conducting, arranging, and orchestration while allowing students to explore their own passions and to realize their own creative dreams. There are no arbitrary limits placed on your creativity, and we encourage our composers to be experimental and innovative. Our composition practicums allow student composers to gain valuable experience composing for film, symphony orchestra, chamber music, jazz ensemble, musical theater, or dance.

“Our role is to inquire upon the deepest questions of our existence, to stir people’s sense of wonder and beauty, to get them to think outside of their existing worldview, and to give them a fuller reason for being alive.”

– Michael Lee Moore, Music ’12

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ARTIST DIPLOMA IN EARLY MUSIC

Our post-baccalaureate, performanceoriented program, the Artist Diploma in Early Music, provides intensive private instruction, coaching, and performance experience in historical performance practices from 1600 to 1750. Designed to be completed in two semesters, enrollment in the Artist Diploma in Early Music program is highly selective and limited to those who have attained a Bachelor of Music degree.

While enrolled in this program, you receive individual private instruction with a primary instructor as well as individual coaching sessions with a primary instructor and a secondary instructor, weekly performance studio and chamber ensemble rehearsals, a weekly class in Renaissance or Baroque dance, and weekly topics in a performance practices seminar led by the Cornish early music faculty.

Public recitals comprise an essential component of the Artist Diploma in Early Music program. You must complete a total of three recitals while in residence; one solo, one ensemble, and one lecturerecital. For all of these public performances you will be accompanied by faculty and student colleagues.

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MUSIC

Mary Lambert ’11

Since graduation, Griffin Boyd ’14 has worked consistently as a producer, sound editor, recording engineer, composer, and performer. He recently was asked to collaborate with world-renowned kinetic sculptor and sound artist Trimpin, on a commission by the Seattle Symphony for a new piece: Above, Below, and In Between.

The work featured a piano that can be played and conducted without being touched, suspended chimes, a wandering soprano and strategically placed Symphony musicians. Boyd composed all music played by the orchestra, and he designed the digital systems by which the conductor would interact with the mechanical instruments, using the motionsensing device Kinect.

Grammy Award nominee Mary Lambert ’11 moved audiences and brought notice to important issues during her national tour for her Capitol Records album, Heart On My Sleeve. In 2015, she was honored by the Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration for her song “Secrets” about her experiences with childhood trauma and bipolar disorder. “All I’ve ever dreamed of was to use my art, my music, my voice to shine light on issues that are important to me,” said Lambert. She also received national attention for her performance in “Same Love” with Seattle artists Macklemore and Ryan Lewis at the 2014 Grammy Awards.

Photo: Vivian Hsu, Team Photogenic

Griffin Boyd ’14

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MUSIC

Cat Harris-White ’08

Photo by Victoria Kovios

When she’s not making music, Cat Harris-White ’08 is helping others find their path in today’s DIY music industry.

Her column in the Seattle Weekly, co-written with Stas Irons, tells about her days at Cornish as well as how the pair created THEESatisfaction. “My best advice to any DIY musician or artist is that you never give up. Find your truest, most comfortable everyday skill and perfect it,” she said. THEESatisfaction’s albums are produced by Seattle’s SubPop and their tours recently have taken them across the United States and to Europe.

CORNISH STUDENTS HAVE GONE ON TO: ATTEND GRADUATE SCHOOL

New York University, Royal Academy of Music, Northwestern University, Stanford University, The Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, Yale University, University of Missouri Kansas City, California Institute of the Arts SIGN WITH RECORD LABELS

Sub Pop, Capitol, Navona, Grammavision, hatOLOGY, Origin COLLABORATE WITH

Macklemore & Lewis, Bill Frisell, Bjork, Beck, Laurie Anderson, Brandi Carlile, Allen Stone, Carla Bley WIN AWARDS

Fulbright Fellowship, Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, The Stranger Genius Awards MUSIC

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performance production In Performance Production, designers, technicians, and artisans create and manipulate the environment that surrounds the actors, dancers, and musicians on the live stage. Work beside awardwinning professionals as you prepare for a career in taking ideas from notes on a napkin to a fully realized production. Graduates from this department work in all fields of production design and in all types of performing arts and visual arts.

Design costumes, scenery, lighting, and sound for shows. Stage management and technical production courses lead directly to working on crews, building and running real shows for theater, dance, and music.

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PERFORMANCE PRODUCTION

“Our shops and production facilities, our phenomenal staff, the solid curriculum, and vibrant community of artists like you are only a few highlights of the Cornish experience.”

– Denise Martel,

Chair of Performance Production

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Besides having multiple performance venues on campus and with a host of theaters nearby looking for interns, Cornish has a complete professional-level scene shop near the Seattle Center where students work alongside our talented staff learning best practices in scenery and prop construction and scene painting.

The costume shop likewise provides a busy workspace for realized productions and for learning costume construction skills.

At our main venue, the Cornish Playhouse at Seattle Center, you’ll work beside IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) stagehands. You’ll also have the opportunity for a professional internship in a Seattle theater or any number of professional theaters throughout the US and abroad.

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PERFORMANCE PRODUCTION

COSTUME DESIGN Learn the history, traditions, and wellestablished techniques of costume design and costume craft and then take what you learn to our labs with industrial machines, high-end sergers, and a commercial dye vat. Start out on crews, then serve as crew head and assistant to designers on production teams, as you work your way up to being a costume designer for a play, musical or dance performance.

LIGHTING DESIGN Become proficient in the nuanced art of theatrical lighting, using lighting cues to establish movement, passage of time, motivation of characters, and a range of emotional states. Begin your study of the lighting arts with electrical theory, the variety of lighting instruments used in live performance and progress into drafting, color theory of light and the collaborative process. Progress in your training through assignments such as master electrician, light board operator, and assistant lighting designer to lighting designer for a departmental production.

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SCENE DESIGN From drafting and rendering to model making, carpentry, and scene painting, explore all facets of scenic design while studies in theater history enhance your work. As your skill grows, so will your assigned projects until you find yourself serving as the scenic designer on a fully realized production in your final years at Cornish.

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SOUND DESIGN Transport audiences into a different world— even before the curtain lifts. Study sound theory, sound instruments, recording, and live-sound reinforcement in small classes with individualized attention. With a fully equipped music department at Cornish, you’ll be able to go beyond recorded sound and work with live musicians on a range of projects, including sound design for theater, dance, and concerts. Become a sound designer for a production in your final year.

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“Watching us all grow and see the people we’ve become since that first day, I cannot feel more enthusiasm or pride in the whole of my body to see what we do in the world.”

– Gabrielle Ray Strong, Performance Production ’13

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STAGE MANAGEMENT Connecting the actors with the director, designers, and technicians, the stage manager is the central hub of communication for the theater team. Our stage management program prepares you to be a confident and distinctive member of the performance production industry.

In your third and fourth year, you’ll serve as a primary stage manager on a Cornish production, having progressed through assignments such as assistant stage manager and assignments in other areas of production design.

TECHNICAL DIRECTION Develop skills in drafting, labor and budget projection, carpentry, welding, props construction, rigging, and electrics while you take courses in theater graphics and production design. Learn to analyze a designer’s ideas and create practical working drawings for the shop to realize on stage. Work your way up on production crews, serving as master carpenter and assistant technical director, to technical director of a realized production.

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Sarah Nietfeld ’11

David Brack ’12

Sarah Nietfeld ’11 was accepted into the Yale School of Drama MFA Design program in 2015.

Directly after graduation, she traveled in the UK and Ireland, and took an internship in Edinburgh. In the United States, she held a summer position at Colonial Williamsburg, worked in a textile studio here in Seattle, and was a dresser on the pre-Broadway run of Side Show at La Jolla Playhouse, working with quick changes, wigs, and SFX masks.

David Brack ’12 works for Touch Worldwide as a designer of 3-D experiences. He has worked on projects for Starbucks and Ubisoft’s E3 Media Briefing. While at Cornish, “I felt that I had a lot of freedom to direct my own path,” he said.

“There were so many people available and they were generous enough to help inform my own vision.”

CORNISH STUDENTS HAVE GONE ON TO: ATTEND GRADUATE SCHOOL

Kat Stromberger ’12 Kat Stromberger ’12 works at Pacific Studios, which designs and builds installations for such places as The Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) in Seattle and the College Football Hall of Fame.

Yale School of Drama, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Goldsmith’s College, London, SUNY Purchase, San Francisco State University, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Webster University, Goldsmith’s College, London WORK WITH COMPANIES

Lincoln Center Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Seattle Opera, ACT San Francisco, Ambassador Theatre Group, Arena Theatre, Cirque du Soleil, Microsoft WIN AWARDS FROM

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Photo by Sam Veatch.

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theater

At Cornish you will take what you learn in class into a variety of productions from your first year to your last. Between September and May, the Theater Department offers more than 40 different events, including musicals, ensemble-generated works, classical plays, and exciting new works from groundbreaking contemporary playwrights. You’ll have performance opportunities here almost every month of your school year.

With a faculty full of working professionals, Cornish students make connections while still at school to step into productions throughout Seattle and across the country.

Through internships and other professional opportunities, students have played roles and worked on the staffs of professional theaters while still completing their degrees.

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THEATER

“Cornish Theater graduates work at the highest levels of the profession.

But they don’t simply fit into what’s there already—they challenge and change the shape of the art form.”

– Richard E.T. White, Chair of Theater

Following foundational studies in core disciplines like acting, physical technique and dance, voice and speech, improvisation and ensemble creation, and theater history and dramaturgy, you can choose specific concentrations tailored to your goals.

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ACTING Following a successful audition at the end of the sophomore year, you will engage in intensive study of classical theater texts, exploring material from the Greeks to Shakespeare to Chekhov. You will learn the technical skills necessary to bring heightened and poetic language to life on stage, while imbuing your character portrayals with a sense of dramatic truth.

Acting students also have the opportunity to do at least one on-camera project each semester.

In the senior year, Acting students delve deeper into subtext, ambiguity, and mystery through the work of Beckett, Pinter, and a wide range of contemporary playwrights.

You will also explore how to launch your career, while developing useful skills such as stage combat, audition techniques, dialects, voiceover, and on-camera audition techniques.

Options for the senior thesis project may include self-producing a one-act play or performing as an acting intern in a local professional theater.

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“The minute I stepped foot on the Googleplex campus, I felt like I was back at Cornish. You could feel the innovation taking place.”

– Christopher Dodge, Theater ’11, partner education and program manager at Google

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ORIGINAL WORKS Original Works is designed for artists whose goals include directing, playwriting, generating original performance pieces, or being part of a generative ensemble or the artistic staff of a theater. You explore a wide variety of generative methods, including playwriting, directing, personal clown, and other physical/improvisational approaches, as well as self-producing and dramaturgy.

The junior year culminates in our Spring O! Fest, a festival of short plays written, directed and performed by Original Works students, as well as The Clown Show, which showcases your comic creations after a year of studying personal clown.

Your senior thesis project will be a generative piece, either written by you or created by an ensemble under your creative supervision which reflects your particular aesthetic vision.

“We are on the brink of an even larger artistic explosion in this city.

The best part is that not only will we be part of it, but we will be the ones setting up the dynamite and pushing that damn button.”

– Jonathan Crimeni, Theater ’13

THEATER

GUEST ARTISTS AND MASTER CLASSES

Seattle possesses a vibrant theater scene that ranges from Tony-Awardwinning regional professional theaters to groundbreaking experimental companies, as well as major touring venues. This gives Cornish students the chance to engage with guest artists through workshops and master classes.

In 2014/15, these included a Seattle residency by Tony Award- and MacArthur Award-winning actor, deviser, and clown Bill Irwin in conjunction with the Seattle Beckett Festival. A longtime friend of Cornish, Irwin led an exploration of the physical comedy roots of the work of playwright Samuel Beckett, and presented his one-person lecture-performance Bill Irwin on Beckett at Seattle Repertory Theatre.

Lunchtime lectures and classroom visits in the same year also included Tony-winning playwright Brian Yorkey (Next to Normal) and such performers as Chuck Cooper (The Life), Louis Hobson (Next to Normal and Bonnie and Clyde), and Faith Prince (Guys and Dolls), Chryssie Whitehead (A Chorus Line), Douglas Sills (The Addams Family), and many members of the North American tour company of Kinky Boots.

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MUSICAL THEATER This curricular emphasis is designed for artists whose goals include performing in musical theater.

As with all our instruction, we want to facilitate your development as performers with range. Musical Theater students take the core acting-based skills classes and extend their skill sets with classes in singing, dance, and musical theater. There is a three-semester sequence in the freshman and sophomore years that introduces the fundamentals of singing and dance as well as the study of music theory, including the basics of ear training, sight reading and singing, group singing, and rhythm and harmony. This sequence culminates in a musical capstone as part of the sophomore ensemble project. There is also room in the sophomore year for private singing lessons.

Starting in your junior year, you participate in classes in dance styles, musical theater performance and audition techniques, and perform in productions of both original and established musical theater works, including a cabaret at the end of the fall of the senior year. Your senior thesis project will demonstrate acquisition of a range of musical theater skills.

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THEATER

Jerick Hoffer ’10 & Richard Andriessen ’10 Distinguished Recent Alumni Awards were bestowed on Jerick Hoffer ’10 and Richard Andriessen ’10, also known as Jinkx Monsoon and Major Scales, whose internationally celebrated hit The Vaudevillians has played to sold-out houses in Seattle and New York. A documentary film about Hoffer, Drag Becomes Him, premiered in 2015. Both Hoffer and Andriessen began developing their personas and original scripts while still at Cornish.

Diana Huey ’07

Margot Bordelon ’02

After graduation Diana Huey ’07 performed locally in musicals at the Village Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre, and the 5th Avenue, receiving a Gregory Award nomination for her performance in Balagan’s Spring Awakening. She won the 2014 Helen Hayes Award in Washington, DC, for her performance in the title role in Miss Saigon at the Signature Theatre.

She returned to Seattle in 2015 to perform in a new musical being developed for Broadway, Jasper in Deadland, at the 5th Avenue Theatre.

Margot Bordelon ’02 received her MFA in directing in 2013 from the Yale School of Drama where she directed the world premiere of Jiehae Park’s Peerless at Yale Repertory Theatre. Bordelon has worked with Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre as Literary Manager and directed at Steppenwolf Theatre and Theatre Seven of Chicago. Recently she directed the New York premiere of The Jazzercise Play by fellow Original Works alumna Megan Hill ‘02.

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Ramiz Monsef ’02 Ramiz Monsef ’02 has balanced a career as a writer, actor and hip-hop artist since graduation. He has performed with regional theatres around the country, including the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The Actors Theatre of Louisville and Lookingglass in Chicago, and spent many years as a company member at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. At OSF Ramiz and the members of his hip-hop group Three Blind Mice were commissioned to create an original musical.

The (Un)Fortunates, a “bluesical,” played at OSF in 2014 and will be presented at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theatre in 2016. Monsef is now writing a graphic novel based on the show.

CORNISH STUDENTS HAVE GONE ON TO: PERFORM PROFESSIONALLY AT

New York Public Theater, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Signature Theatre, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Goodman Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Guthrie Theater, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Intiman Theatre Festival, ACT Theatre, 5th Avenue Musical Theatre, Village Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre, The Actors Gang (Los Angeles), and the Vienna Kammerspiele CREATE AND DIRECT ORIGINAL WORKS AT

Seattle Children’s Theater, Humana Festival, Steppenwolf Theatre, Indiana Repertory Theatre, The Bushwick Starr, Luminato Festival (Canada), Target Margin Theater, Theatre Seven of Chicago, Washington Ensemble Theatre, Donaufestival (Austria) ATTEND GRADUATE SCHOOL

Yale School of Drama, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Harvard/American Repertory Theatre, London’s Royal Central School of Speech & Drama, University of Southern California, University of Texas at Austin, University of Illinois, Northwestern University, University of Washington, Arizona State University, the Dell’Arte School of Physical Theatre, Brooklyn College, Naropa University CREATE AND PERFORM ON TELEVISION, FILM, VIDEO GRAMES, AND ONLINE SERIES

Showtime’s Dexter, Blue Bloods (CBS), Saturday Night Live, The X Factor, Leverage, The Glee Project, The History Channel’s Texas Rising, The Mummy (1999) and sequels, The Onion’s Film Standard, Grand Theft Auto IV (game), and the award-winning web series Capitol Hill, among others.

WIN AWARDS

Emmy Award, Grammy Award, Helen Hayes Award, Gregory Award, The Stranger Genius Award, RuPaul’s Drag Race Winner THEATER

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study abroad Cornish College of the Arts believes that international understanding can enhance a student’s development as an artist and as a citizen of the world. To that end, the College supports study abroad, and is pleased to provide the opportunity for its students to enrich their Cornish degree programs with a meaningful international experience. Cornish works with consortium partners to provide access to dozens of study abroad semester programs all over the world. Cornish’s agreements with Arcadia University and the Institute for Study Abroad at Butler University allow students to choose from a wide variety of programs that will allow them to earn credit towards their degree programs at Cornish while broadening their worldviews through international study.

Recently, Cornish students have studied visual and performing arts abroad at: Accademia dell’Arte, Arezzo, Italy Burren College of Art, Ballyvaughan, Ireland Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, Scotland NYU Berlin, Berlin, Germany Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow, Scotland SACI, Florence, Italy Temple University, Japan Campus, Minato, Japan Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London, England University of Tasmania, Hobart/Launceston, Australia Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Australia

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“All of us have had our own journeys, our own collections of small moments and lessons that, added together, make up the indelible experiences of our time at Cornish.”

– Christine Janet Dickson, Dance ’15

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VISIT & APPLY Admission to Cornish is selective. We look for students who live for their art form and are interested in developing both their creative, intellectual, and technical skills.

Personal contact is an important aspect of our admission process. We recommend that, if possible, you visit our campus and talk with Admission. Your visit will enable you to ask questions about Cornish, as well as provide you with useful insights about the audition and review process. The more we are able to learn about you and your artistic vision and ambition, the better we are able to provide you with the information you need to make the right educational choice for your future.

APPLICATION TIMELINE Early Deadline: December 1 No application fee if you apply on or before December 1 Priority Deadline: February 1 $40 application fee if you apply on or before February 1 Rolling Admission through August 1 $60 application fee if you apply after February 1 Once you have completed the application, an audition or portfolio review will take place as part of the application process, which will contribute to the admission decision. More information and the dates for the auditions and portfolio reviews can be found online at: www.cornish.edu/admission, by calling 1.800.726.ARTS or 206.726.5016, or by emailing admission@cornish.edu.

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THEATER

STATEMENT OF DIFFERENCE AND INCLUSION Cornish College of the Arts is enriched by a diverse population of students, bringing their unique personalities and voices to their art forms. Placed in the vibrant city of Seattle, artists thrive among the wide variety of people and broad spectrum of creative thought that surrounds us. The college supports and engages the many cultural, personal, and spiritual facets of our community.

Cornish commits to demonstrating respect for individual expression and integrity; to promoting the equality of opportunity and rights of all persons within the community and to actively encouraging and maintaining the representation and inclusion of diverse cultures and backgrounds within the student body, faculty, staff and curriculum.

“And now we are here, and you may be thinking to yourself, what’s next? Whatever path you choose, you have to know that you did something so extraordinary that it will forever be a defining moment for you.”

– Samantha Myriah Beatrice Willis, Music ’14

THEATER

We believe that diversity refers to a number of human qualities and characteristics.

National origin, race, gender, age, socioeconomic background, religion, sexual orientation and disabilities are characteristics that combine in unique ways, forming the multiple identities we all hold. Those diverse characteristics contribute positively to the environment of Cornish and to an education that accurately reflects and contributes to the complex interplay of art, culture and society.

We hold ourselves responsible to fulfill the mission of Cornish by preparing students “to contribute to society as artists, citizens, and innovators,” and believe that the mission is best served by actively cultivating a positive environment in which to explore and express the diverse perspectives of a pluralistic society.

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FINANCIAL AID & SCHOLARSHIPS

All admitted students are automatically considered for a Cornish scholarship. Scholarship amounts vary, and are based on a comprehensive review of each applicant, including demonstrated academic success, creative success, and input from teachers, counselors, and community members. We will work to help you find a financial strategy to realize your long-term goals at Cornish College of the Arts. All students are urged to file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to ensure maximum consideration for financial aid and scholarships.

Many options for assistance are available at Cornish: merit and need-based Cornish scholarships, federal and state grants, work-study, federal loans for parents and students, and private educational loans for students.

Financial aid and scholarships are available to all who apply and qualify but some funds are distributed on a first-come-first-served basis. Therefore, you should complete the FAFSA as soon as possible after submitting your application for admission. File the FAFSA online as early as possible beginning January 1 but before February 15 using Cornish School Code 012315.

“Cornish is more than a diploma. Cornish is overcoming challenges with creative and critical thinking.”

– Sara Marie Weisenbach, Design ’14

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FINANCIAL AID

“Never stop challenging everything around you, and use your tools and your skills to shake the foundation of the world. This is just the beginning of it all. Let it commence.”

– Haley Grace Freedlund, Music ’14

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Photography by CHRIS BENNION MARK BOCEK COLLEEN DISHY JOSEPH LAMBERT DANIEL SHEEHAN MICHELLE SMITH-LEWIS CARINA SKROBECKI PRESTON WADLEY WINIFRED WESTERGARD

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“After my latest gig recording for the Seattle Mariners, the sound engineer told me that I come in on the mic hotter than any talent he has ever worked with before, which was very flattering to hear. And here’s the thing, I’m just getting started in this game: I love it, and am constantly reminding myself of the techniques I absorbed at Cornish in every single one of my classes in order to consistently elevate my performances, and keep getting better.”

– Jorge Orozco, Theater ‘11

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CORNISH AT A GLANCE ESTABLISHED 1914 PRESIDENT Dr. Nancy J. Uscher ACADEMIC OFFERINGS

Bachelor of Fine Art: Art Dance Design Film+Media Performance Production Theater Bachelor of Music Post Baccalaureate Artist Diploma in Early Music ACCREDITATION

National Association of Schools of Art and Design Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities TOTAL ENROLLMENT 767 (2014/15) AVERAGE CLASS SIZE 13 FACULTY STUDENT RATIO 1 : 7 STUDENT BODY 35 States, 18 Countries DIRECT COSTS, 2015/16

Tuition and Fees: $37,240 Room and Board: $10,680 EXTENSION PROGRAMS

Summer at Cornish Preparatory Dance COOPERATIVE PROGRAMS

AICAD Mobility Program New York Studio Residency Program Kadenze Pilchuck Glass School TheFilmSchool Vermont College of Fine Art

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Š 2015 Cornish College of the Arts

1000 Lenora Street Seattle WA 98121

EMAIL

admission@cornish.edu

PHONE 800.726.ARTS

206.726.5016 FAX

206.720.1011

WEB

www.cornish.edu/admission

SOCIAL www.cornish.edu/facebook

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