Performing Arts Department Course Descriptions

The Performing Arts Department seeks to provide opportunities for students to explore their potential for personal expression and growth through music, theater, and dance. While these three disciplines each have their own techniques and concepts, they share a common set of educational values:

•Craft and discipline

•Teamwork and mutual support

•Individuality and self-discovery

In the Performing Arts we consider it our mission to help students to:

•Take responsibility for and become engaged with their work

•Develop a sense of trust in themselves and each other

•Learn from their mistakes

•Learn the importance of preparation and repetition

•Learn to concentrate in performance

We aim to achieve these ends by creating a safe environment for risk-taking, promoting understanding of commitment and responsibility to the group, setting high standards for performance, allowing creativity to grow both from imitation and from within, and instilling a sense of fun and play.

Graduation requirements: 1.5 credits or three semesters in either the visual or performing arts. Only 1/3 of the requirement may be fulfilled by art history.

Jazz Ensemble I

This is the introductory class in the US jazz ensemble sequence. Students are acquainted with the basics of jazz improvisation, rhythm section skills, and horn section skills.

Jazz Ensemble II

This is a performance group that focuses on the development of a number of musical skill sets: Improvisation technique and conception, ensemble playing, music theory, ear training and jazz history. The band performs at a variety of school events including concerts, community time, and other school and out of school events.

Jazz Ensemble III

This is an advanced group open by audition only. The class seeks to teach students how harmony and rhythm intersect to create sophisticated improvisations. The ensemble material focuses on advanced level material from the Jazz cannon.

Orchestra

In US Orchestra, students have regular opportunities to perform as an orchestra, while learning the distinct stylistic elements of a broad range of repertoire from the baroque era to newly- written pieces. Students practice leadership and teamwork.

Philharmonia

An auditioned group which, in addition to participation in US Orchestra, includes frequent Chapel performances for the school community, at a high level and sometimes with very limited rehearsals. Its members take private lessons outside school and may also participate in selective conservatory pre-college programs.

Guitar Ensemble

The Guitar Ensemble performs a variety of styles of music. Students perform using both electric and acoustic guitars and electric bass and are exposed to a variety of musical styles such as: classical, folk, pop, country, rock, jazz and Brazilian. The ensemble performs at various schooland community venues including chapel, community time, evening concerts and community service performances.

Chorus

The Upper School Chorus is a vocal ensemble that will prepare and perform choral music spanning various genres, cultures, languages, and time periods. Students will sing music in multiple vocal parts, both accompanied and unaccompanied, and focus on basic concepts of good vocal production.

Madrigals

The Madrigals ensemble is an advanced, select/ auditioned group that will prepare and perform technically demanding choral music spanning various genres, cultures, languages, and time periods. Students will sing music in multiple vocal parts, often times unaccompanied. There will also be a heavy emphasis placed on expressive details in singing and phrasing, choral blend, and stage presence.

Technical Theatre

In this course, students will be introduced to the basic concepts of design and technical operation in the theater. They will work in class and hands-on to gain an understanding of the concepts and safe working practices of stagecraft, lighting, sound, costumes, and stage management. The objective of this class is to provide a foundation of technical production knowledge and experience to help students appreciate the theatrical medium, whether as a member of the production or a member of the audience.

Advanced Portfolio Theater

Continuing on skills learned in Technical Theatre this course is open to students looking to develop and focus their interests in technical theater and design into specific fields. This course will allow students to partake in the design process of Trinity productions from a leadership standpoint and will aid in the building of a portfolio suitable for presentation purposes.

Intro to Acting

This course is an introduction to acting technique for the stage. This class is designed to teach the basic skills, concepts and methods of contemporary acting technique. Coursework includes individual and group exercises and improvisations that explore relaxation, focus, observation, the senses, voice and emotional and physical life.

Actors Studio: Play Production

Following the acting study covered in Introduction to Acting and Actors Studio: Improvisation, students will perform a full-length play directed by the instructor in the Morse Theatre. Students will read through potential play options based on the demographics of the class and audition techniques will be covered as students prepare to audition for the play chosen by the class.

Musical Theater: Dance, Song and Scene

The class, with its incorporation of both dance and song/ scene work, approaches the teaching of musical theater repertoire from multiple angles. While the focus stems from a strong movement-based perspective, including both choreography and stage physicality, it allows the students to put what they learn to use immediately within the musical theater framework

Rhetoric & Public Speaking

In this class, students will learn the basics of public speaking. Students will learn both how to tell stories that captivate an audience as well as how to convey arguments in a persuasive and compelling manner. In addition, students will have the opportunity to practice speaking in a variety of contexts-- including speaking games and in-class competitions-- so that they can feel confident presenting themselves in any situation.

Songwriting

In this course students will study songwriting and all its components, focusing especially on lyric writing and thematic content, point of view, song form, melody and harmonic structure. They will work together and individually to apply these concepts, coupled with their own creative voice, to songs they create.

Music Production

This course is designed for students in grades 9-12 interested in recording and producing music on computer. The course provides an overview of the wide range of tools available to the modern musician/songwriter. Through hands-on exercises and projects, students will experience the process of developing the original musical idea through distributing a final mix. Students will learn how to set up audio interfaces, microphones, MIDI sequencers, synthesizers, drum machines and more, to effectively create and produce music ideas.

Religion, Philosophy & Ethics Department Course Descriptions

The study of Religion, Philosophy & Ethics at Trinity School assists students in developing literacy in cultural, philosophical, and religious worldviews, in addition to helping them formulate their own personal ethical positions and existential identities. Seminar-style classes allow for a safe and stimulating environment in which students are challenged to share their perspectives on the human condition.

Upper School students enroll into at least one Religion, Philosophy & Ethics seminar as a requirement for graduation. Taken in either the junior or senior year, these college-level courses offer students an opportunity to study world religions or ethics. Recent religion seminars have included Religious Phenomenology, Literature in Asian Religions, and Sin & Redemption. Some of these seminars approach religion as a lived experience, and others follow historical or comparative theological models. The department’s ethics seminars encourage a deep critical engagement with a host of socially relevant ethical issues from violence to bioethics.

The unifying mission of the department is to examine how individuals and groups construct and experience meaningful worldviews. Whether the topic is animal research, religious conversion, or mystical experience, students explore an array of questions and themes by entering into conversations with classic and contemporary texts. These conversations span traditional disciplinary boundaries and draw upon knowledge from other courses and disciplines.

An Upper School student will leave a Religion, Philosophy & Ethics Seminar with an exposure to at least two world religions and familiarity with a specific methodological approach. Students leave the department’s seminars with much more than an introduction to the disciplines of Religion and Philosophy. They leave with an interdisciplinary language for thinking about what it means to be a questioning person in a pluralistic world.

Classics in Translation: Philosophy/ The Good Life

This elective offers students who have not studied Latin or ancient Greek languages the opportunity to read ancient literature in English. The focus of the course is on ancient answers to the question: “What is a good life?” Particular authors include Aristotle, Epicurus, Pyrrho, and Augustine.

Dreams: A Symposium

Dreaming is a curious phenomenon because while dreams are a universal human experience, there's little theoretical consensus as to what dreams are or why we have them. In them, though, we find the imprints of the cultural, social, religious, and personal forces that make us who we are on the deepest levels. This Religion, Philosophy & Ethics seminar will explore multiple theories of dreams. The first half of the semester will be spent examining a range of theoretical writings on the significance of dreams, including texts by Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and the Dali Lama. Equal time will be spent exploring scientific, psychological, and theological perspectives. The second half of the semester will focus on the interpretation of literary works and films in which dreams play a central role, including Ismail Kadare’s The Palace of Dreams, Patti Smith’s Year of the Monkey, and the films Inception and Laurie Anderson’s Heart of a Dog. In addition to regular readings, class discussions, and writing assignments, you’ll keep a dream journal that will serve as the foundation for a creative final project.

Practical Bioethics

This Religion, Philosophy & Ethics seminar will introduce students to contemporary issues in bioethics. The seminar will explore a range of ethical theories and apply these theories to topics and case studies pertinent to environmental and medical ethics. Issues of particular relevance to our contemporary world will be emphasized (e.g., global warming, poverty, race, and healthcare). In the spirit of philosopher Paul Taylor’s “biocentric” approach, the seminar will spend time thinking about the complex relationships between human and non-human life within larger intricately-linked ecosystems. Students will be asked to share their evolving perspectives regularly. The ultimate goal of the seminar is to equip students with conceptual and practical tools so that they can live the vita activa (active life) with sensitivity, purpose, and virtue.

Religion & Ecology

This course will introduce students to the field of religion and ecology and will explore our relationship with the natural world through the symbols and texts of the world’s religious traditions. Students will study the ways in which scholars, faith practitioners, artists, and activists have rediscovered and reinterpreted these religious traditions in light of our current ecological crises. Together we will seek to identify ways of interacting with nature that reimagine our relationship with the natural world, emphasizing respect, protection, and interconnectedness. Ultimately in this course, students will be asked to consider the possibility that the ways of valuing nature found in religious traditions are as essential as the ways of utilizing nature expressed in scientific traditions, and that we will need both perspectives in order to understand and respond appropriately to the ecological challenges we face.

Religion in the United States

This course will be an exploration of the religious experience in the United States, and the role that religion has played in shaping our culture and society. It will focus on religious pluralism and diversity and the specific complexities of the American approach to religion, in which we maintain a secular society and government and a freedom of religious expression. It will be interdisciplinary in that it will incorporate historical perspectives and methodology, and materials and methodologies from Religious Studies. There will be three units: Religious Pluralism, Community and Identity, and Religion in the Public Sphere.

Spiritual Healing

This seminar will focus on healing practices in a number of ancient and living faith communities where people go in search of psycho-spiritual (and occasionally physiological) health and healing. In addition to being a study in comparative religion, the course will explore methods for spiritual healing (e.g., mindfulness practices/meditation, dream incubation traditions, etc.) that can be utilized by the members of the class over the semester and through life. The course will begin with a brief unit dedicated to the presuppositions of Freud and Breuer’s psychoanalytic model of mental health and therapeutic healing (1895) followed by an examination of the biomedical model of mental health that dominates contemporary Psychiatry. The focus will then shift to an exploration of several religious/spiritual models for what mental health looks like and how individuals and communities achieve it. Attention will be given to Catholic Christian, Christian Science, Theravada Buddhist, and Crow Indian approaches to therapeutic healing.

Environmental Ethics

This course is an overview of the many issues that inform our current understanding of the environment and our place in it. It is broadly interdisciplinary; our readings present the ways in which the earth and environment is conceptualized within several major worldviews and philosophies. In addition to the readings from the required texts, we will be looking at works by contemporary economists, social and natural scientists, activists, writers, and artists, with which we will explore the current material, political, and social dimensions of our relationship to the Environment.

The American Philosopher

What, if anything, can be considered distinctly American philosophical thought? As students seek to answer this question, they explore the richness and diversity of the American intellectual tradition. Beginning with the works of Jonathan Edwards, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, they study the earliest giants of this heritage alongside the American Enlightenment thinkers Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Significant attention is given to what revivalists call classical American philosophy, the pragmatism of Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and Columbia’s own John Dewey (Faculty 1905-1930, Emeritus 1939). Concluding this journey, students survey 20th-century American moral philosophy by reviewing works on W.E.B. Du Bois, C. Wright Mills (Faculty 1945-1962), Reinhold Niebuhr (Faulty, Union Theological Seminary, 1928-60), John Rawls, and another Columbia giant Lionel Trilling (Columbia College 1925, PhD 1938, Faculty 1927–74.) These thinkers, scholars, and cultural critics were engaged public intellectuals, significant figures of the last century who have often been referred to as respondents to pragmatism. Students analyze the impact their work had in the tradition of American philosophical discourse.