academic courses

Two New Interdisciplinary Courses
Designed to foster innovation and student research, courses taught in the EMMA Lab are interdisciplinary laboratories for creative investigation.

DANCE 760.01–760.02
New Ground Cycle: Engaging Bodies, Technologies, Environments and Aesthetics
Professor Norah Zuniga Shaw and Collaborators

The New Ground cycle is a two quarter long advanced seminar that fosters innovation and the creation of new knowledge in the engagement of the body with emerging technologies (in theater, dance, music, art, photography, design, computing, communications and other allied fields). The specific subject of study varies each year as new opportunities and technologies become available. Work completed can include performances, art installations or written analysis.

In 2006, students from art and dance researched the multiple points of articulation between Bodies, Interactive Technologies (MAX/MSP Jitter), and Performance. This cycle was taught with ACCAD's graphics research specialist Matthew Lewis.

In 2007, Professor Zuniga Shaw teamed up with photography professor Robert Derr for a cycle investigating Image – Body – Landscape.

DANCE 660.21
Media in Performance
Professor Norah Zuniga Shaw

For this core course in the EMMA Lab, undergraduate and graduate students from dance and theater explore multimedia performance hands-on using all of the EMMA resources. Each day we create compelling environments for performance with the hanging screens and scrims, projectors, sound system and theatrical lighting readily available in the space. Together we conduct choreographic, improvisational, and creative experiments combining the moving body and the moving image to convey new ideas, illuminate old ones, and expand the horizons of the performing arts.