Tisch Special Programs

The number of students studying abroad is on the rise.

The Washington Square News reports today that applications to NYU's 10 study abroad sites increased 8 percent this year. Read the article.

Go global! Tisch School of the Arts also has study abroad programs in five locations this spring, which are open to all NYU students : Dublin, Havana, Johannesburg, London, and Prague.

Tisch spring study abroad applications are due October 12. Apply now or get started at the Tisch Special Programs Open House.

It's two weeks into the fall semester. Students studying in Dublin with New York University Tisch School of the Arts are nestled nicely in their new home in the Temple Bar district of Dublin. Aside from their studies, students are hitting the town and exploring all things Irish.

Where did they go? What did they see? Here's a peak into their life in Dublin so far:

Took a trip to the Powerscourt Waterfall and Gardens. Check out the photos on Facebook.

Ate a traditional Irish lunch at The Boxty House.

Stepped into the historical walking tour of Dublin guided by history teacher Tommy Graham.

Attended Brian Friel's 'Faith Healer' at the Gate Theatre and Beckett's 'Act without Words II' at the Fringe Theatre Festival. (The show is directed by Sarah Jane Scaife, director of the the Tisch summer study abroad course Acting Contemporary Irish Playwrights and is acted by Bryan Burroughs, director of the Tisch Summer High School Acting Workshop in Dublin.)

It's the start of a new season, a new semester and soon, a new decade. So get ready for a barrage of best of the decade/year lists. Pitchfork has a jump start with P2K, an entire series listing the best in music from the 2000s. They recently posted their take on the top 50 music videos of the decade. It's an interesting selection, and well worth checking out.

See the entire list here.

Below is Fionn Regan "Be Good or Be Gone," coming in at number 42 on the list.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced in her New York University commencement address on May 13 that funding for the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program will increase by more than 40 percent.

Photo courtesy of CNBC

"You know, study abroad is like spring training for this century. It helps you develop the fundamentals, the teamwork, and the determination to succeed. And we want more American students to have that opportunity," Secretary Clinton said last week.

The Gilman Scholarships provide funding for undergraduate students seeking to study abroad for a semester or a full year. Additional funding is offered to students who wish to study in 'non-traditional' study abroad places. Read more about this scholarship on the Web site for the U.S. Department of State.

Secretary Clinton received an honorary degree at the 177th NYU Commencement held at Yankee Stadium. Watch Secretary Clinton's video for her full commencement address.

New York University Tisch School of the Arts offers semester-long fall and spring study abroad programs for all undergraduate NYU and visiting students. Short-term summer undergraduate and graduate programs are also available.

True-life stories of Muslim women were re-edited in "Beyond the Veil" in Dublin this semester.

New York University Tisch School of the Arts student Catherine Clark collaborated with Dublin Institute of Technology student Nadia Shah this semester to create the community-based arts project aimed at correcting misconceptions of Muslim women.

Catherine and Nadia worked with a small group of Muslim women to produce The Revealer, a newspaper with articles offering an alternative representation of these women.

The exhibit was hosted at the Lab in Dublin during the last week in April.

Hear all about "Beyond the Veil" in the Podcast.

Read all about it in Catherine and Nadia's blog.

Interested in community-based arts projects? Learn more about the Tisch program How Arts Creates the World: Dublin.

New York University Tisch School of the Arts and Hot Press Magazine will celebrate the 100th music video made by students for professional Irish artists at a special screening at The Odessa Club in Dublin on May 6.

This year's videos include collaborations with Irish bands The Laundry Shop, Moth Complex, One Day International, and The Dirty 9s.

Photo courtesy of Hot Press.

Tisch and Hot Press have worked together for the past six years to pair students up with some of the most popular Irish acts to produce professional music videos. The semester-long undergraduate program runs every fall and spring. Learn more at Dublin Music Video.

Check out videos from fall 2008 at Hot Press.

Go on location in Dublin with Tisch Special Programs.

Casey Craig, a drama student at Tisch School of the Arts, helped develop a local history walking tour of the Magdalen Laundry in Ballybough, Dublin.

Photo courtesy of The Sunday Tribune.

Casey tells The Sunday Tribune that the project "opened my eyes to a whole other type of art practice."

The project was part of How Arts Creates the World: Dublin, a joint program with Tisch and the Dublin Institute of Technology and the National College of Art and Design. Four students are participating in this program this spring.

The students' art installations are part of the show "From Context to Exhibition" which runs at the Lab, Dublin City Council's art space until April 30. Read more at The Sunday Tribune.

Thanks to Dublin Playwriting student Olga Kreimer for the following blog entry:

Man, no wonder Yeats was a poet.

County Sligo (a region in a northwestern-ish part of the country which the five of us in the Irish Dramatic Renaissance class, along with our teacher Sara and the program director, Susanne, were lucky enough to visit last weekend) is best known for being the birthplace of W.B. Yeats, one of Ireland's most prominent writers and a co-founder of the Abbey Theatre in the early 20th century.

The correlation between the poet and the place must be more than incidental; not only was the weather appropriately fickle (we got sunshine, mist, windy rain and hail by turns over the course of twenty-four hours), but the rolling hills, imposing mountains and abundance of the greenest green you've ever seen were exactly what most people imagine “Ireland” to look like. We visited some of the specific geographic locations that Yeats refers to in his plays and poetry, including the Lake Isle of Innisfree (“I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree”), and believe me, once you see the place, you can hardly blame the guy for being homesick.

Dublin playwriting student Dylan Lamb recounts a group trip to the West of Ireland in this entry:

The gang ventured Westward to the Island of Inis Oirr, the smallest of the three Aran Islands, just off of the coast of Ireland's mainland. The island boasts about 250 full-time residents, probably four streetlights, and just about as many pubs. We stopped in Galway on the way over and spent the afternoon perusing through street markets, walking the beach along Galway Bay, and squeezing in some fish and chips at McDonagh's, which Susanne dubs "the best in Ireland" (we got cod -- they were out of the ray). Erin recommends the mushy peas for a lighter vegetarian alternative.

Tigh Ruari

On the Island, we were treated to a home-cooked meal at one of the pubs, Tigh Ruari, which warmed us up a little from the nasty weather outside. After checking out the local night life (read: drinking some really cheap Guinness with a few, shall we say, regulars), we called it an evening and snuggled in at a local hostel. (Some slept more soundly than others: I apparently snored -- uncharacteristically, of course).

Far away places were close to home this semester.

Students studying with Tisch School of the Arts in Dublin this semester traveled to Africa, Belgium, France, Germany, and Morocco for spring break. Some students made it back just in time to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day in Dublin.

Here are some highlights shared by our students:

This is in the “backstage” area at the parade—one of the marching
groups is warming up, and we aren't the only ones watching... These
were just two of what must have been at least a dozen groups waiting
to start the parade. For about two hours it was all tuning and drums
and bells alternating with music blasting from the floats floating by.

Amy Meche, a student studying with Tisch School of the Arts in Dublin this semester, shares her weekend in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland.

Photo courtesy of Amy Meche

Crossing the Border

Awakening in the morning perhaps earlier than many of us were accustomed to, we boarded a bus and traveled for two and a half hours to cross an international border. As a city, Belfast differs from Dublin in a variety of ways. Although I expected to encounter a number of these variations, I was struck by how strongly I felt their presence within the city’s borders, even though our group spent only a day’s time there. Belfast boasts a number of visual features that add to its distinction.

Students in the Tisch School of the Arts program How Arts Creates the World: Dublin are collaborating with students from the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) and the National College of Art and Design to create community-based arts projects, including:

Meghan Griffin is working with a student from the DIT to create an exchange via Skype between six 9 to 12 year olds in the Aisling Group and Meghan's former secondary school in New York.

Casey Graig is teaming up with a partner from DIT to plan an event with the Larkin Community Group in which unemployed women between the ages of 20 and 40 years become walking tour guides bringing visitors on an unusual tour of their area.

Catherine Clark, also working with a student from DIT, is finding her own community group in the culturally diverse and mostly Muslim and Jewish area of Clanbrassil Street.

Kristine Stolakis and a student from the National College of Art and Design are working in the BINI group with around six teenagers from Nigeria to create a photographic journey of self representation, questioning the stereotypical representation of immigrants.

More community news to come from Dublin!

How Arts Creates the World: Dublin is a spring Tisch School of the Arts study abroad program offered to all NYU and visiting students. Students explore Ireland's rich artistic legacy and culture through various interdisciplinary art resources. The community-based arts project is part of the final research assignment. For more information, visit How Arts Creates the World: Dublin.

Dublin continues to delight students.

Here's a snapshot of what students studying abroad with Tisch School of the Arts did this past week.

The Weekend: Valentine's in Cork and Blarney

A group of six of us headed to Cork and Blarney for the weekend and took in the holiday in style. It was wonderful, from an afternoon at the beautiful Blarney Castle to the unexpected sing-along we ran into in a bar on our way home at the end of the night. We all got our Valentine’s Day kisses in the Blarney Stone at the very top of the castle.

The next day we spent touring around Cork city, and were taken by the beautiful churches, the mural on Mutton Lane (dedicated to everyone except for George Bush), and a street performer that I know I will remember as a highlight of the semester.

Tuesday: A Couple Artistic Excursions

Those enrolled in the Modern Irish Theatre class here in Dublin got a chance to visit the Ark Cultural Center For Children and take in a play by Marina Carr entitled The Giant Blue Hand. Selina Cartmell, who apparently is the current big deal in the Irish theatre, directed it. The children’s story (which I would liken to something Roald Dahl or Tim Burton would have come up with) was very creatively done, and even though we were older than the average audience member by a good twelve years, it made for a great afternoon. For more information about the play and the theater, visit http://www.ark.ie/

That evening, the gang scored free tickets to a screening of the documentary Mise Eire (after the Patrick Pearse poem, which translates to ‘I am Ireland’), at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. It was the fiftieth anniversary of the film’s release, and the director received a lifetime achievement award from the festival before the screening. The film centered around the 1916 Rebellion here in Dublin, which perfectly coincided with what we are learning about in our Irish History, Culture, and Artistic Expression Class. For more information about the film and the festival, visit http://www.jdiff.com/

This Weekend: The Group Heads To Belfast

We’re heading to Northern Ireland to take in a Brian Friel play, as well as a tour of the city, and likely some late night dancing with history teacher Tommy Graham. We’ll make sure to take lots of pictures.

Students studying with Tisch School of the Arts in Dublin this spring are all settled in and connecting with Irish culture. Aside from their studies in Music Video Production, Playwriting, and How Arts Creates the World, students are exploring the riches of Dublin outside the classroom.

A group of students attended a performance of The Playboy of the Western World at the Abbey Theatre, which was an adaptation by Bisi Adigun and Roddy Doyle of the classic text. History teacher Tommy Graham took students on a historical walking tour of Dublin and accompanied them to Croke Park, the largest stadium in Dublin, for a celebration of 125 years of the Gaelic Athletic Association.

More to come from Dublin!

More from Tisch Dublin screenwriting student Monica Shorn:

Thanksgiving came at the perfect time for all of us here in Dublin. The twelve kids in the music video program and the twelve screenwriters have been working feverishly (with all of the delirium and hilarity that comes with any fever), and it all came to a head this past week. Pretty much everyone has been working on the music video shoots this week, running around Dublin with camera equipment and giant dice and knitted trees and paint-filled water balloons.

In case you were worried, the bear heads came out just fine. And the last-minute bear paws look great. If I never see another bear again I will be a happy, happy person.

Here's my theory on sets, though, and I think it'll help everyone not familiar with film shoots understand what it's like: being on a shoot is like going to summer camp. Except you're both the counselor and the camper.

You've got to be mature enough to keep chaos at bay, but irresponsible enough to throw any dignity in the garbage and make a fool of yourself. You hardly ever sleep, you get weird rashes, you eat nothing but peanut butter and chips for weeks at a time, and everyone smells funny. If you aren't keeping the campers from drowning in the lake, you're earning badges in bridge-painting or knot-tying or stiff upper-lip-keeping. There are rival cabins, and homesick bunkmates, and lots of secrets and gossip. After the week, you have a whole host of new memories and scars and friends. Sometimes you say never again, you'll never spend another summer locked away with such nutjobs, but then you remember about the time Joe got his sleeve stuck in the electric saw or Ellen accidentally knocked over the whole set trying to get apple slices to the actor, and you know you'll beg your parents to send you back. That's my two cents, anyway.

Also, if you're ever in Ireland and wondering what flavor of Disco Chips to buy: BBQ Beef Flava makes everything smell like cat food. Keep the morale up, and stick to Salt n' Vinegar.

Excerpted from Monica's blog Life by the Liffey.

Monica Shorn, a Tisch Film and TV student and participant in this Fall's Dublin Screenwriting program, has been assiduously blogging about her semester in Ireland. Her blog is packed with insight about life in Dublin that only a student in the program could provide. The following is just a small sample from one of her many posts:

Thankfully, we took a little field trip out to the west of Ireland this weekend, and it was just wonderful. Unlike the trip we'll be taking to Belfast in a couple of weeks, this excursion had nothing to do with any class --- it was pure fun and exploration, courtesy of Tisch. All of us students, plus our program director Susanne and our R.A. Sigita, drove out to Galway on Saturday morning, taking in kilometer after kilometer of green fields and dozy cattle.

Apparently Saturday was the best day of the entire Irish summer this year. It was nearly cloudless, with temperatures hovering in the low 80s. Coming from Washington, where the average summer day feels like the inside of a vacuum cleaner bag, hot and damp and dusty, that's laughable. But boy, did the people we encountered make the most of it! We strolled around Galway, munching on crepes as we took in the weekend farmers' market, packed with olives and leeks and blocks of limestone for sale --- all of it hawked by sunburnt smiley men. It's a sweet and good-natured town, far less industrial than Cork and less self-involved than Dublin. If only we had more time there!

But we hustled on. We had a ferry to catch, you know!

The next leg of our journey took us out to Inisheer, the smallest of the three Aran Islands. It's located between the Atlantic Ocean and the mouth of the Galway Bay.

Click here for the entire post.

Thanks Monica!

Students in the Tisch School of the Arts Music Video Production program in Dublin will create music videos for twelve bands this fall. Artists include The Japanese Popstars, Codes, Wallis Bird, 79 Cortinaz, Paranoid Visions, YNGVE, Ham Sandwich, Royseven, Declan O’Rourke, Cowboy X, Foy Vance, and Abigail Smith.

Tisch collaborates with Hot Press magazine to select bands to work with student directors. Bands must submit a photo, essay, and music sample to be considered.

Music Video Production is offered every spring and fall semester in Dublin. Applications for spring 2009 will be accepted until Friday, November 14. For more information, please visit Tisch Music Video in Dublin.

On Tuesday, April 29, students from the Tisch Music Video Production program in Dublin premiered their music videos at the Button Factory in the Temple Bar section of Dublin. The premier was a showcase of collaborative work between student directors and ten bands that were selected by Hot Press magazine. This semester's artists include The Coronas, Sinéad O’Connor & The Republic Of Loose, The Future Kings Of Spain, Pamela Connolly, The Brilliant Things, The Mighty Stef, Halves, Not Men But Giants and Choice Music Prize winners Super Extra Bonus Party. Pictures of the event are available on the Hot Press Website.

Videos will be available on the Tisch Special Programs Website soon!