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.)

New York University Tisch School of the Arts offers a summer program in Amsterdam exposing students to a range of approaches to live performance and the creation of original work. But for those of you who can't wait until next summer and want to experience experimental theatre now, check out the New Island Festival at Governors Island.

The event offers a variety of performances and installations, including an improv comedy group, a silent disco, and dinner of stamppot, a hearty potato dish, and klapstuk, a veal stew, while dancers perform on your 400-foot-long wooden table.

Photo courtesy of Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times.

Inspiration for the festival comes from two similar events in the Netherlands: the Terschellings Oerol Festival, which takes place on Terschelling, an island in the north, each June; and De Parade, a traveling festival that moves around the country in summer. Read more and see a slide show at The New York Times.

Summer may have just begun, but Tisch Special Programs is now serving up a generous helping of Spring Study Abroad locations. In Spring 2010 you can act in London, shoot photos in Havana, make a music video in Dublin, study arts and culture in Johannesburg, or direct a 35mm film in Prague.

The choice is yours.

Application now live!

Gregory Needham is back from his semester in London with New York University Tisch School of the Arts. Tisch Special Programs caught up with Gregory about his training at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC):

Training with the BBC as a college student is truly a rare experience. What did you take away from it?

I can honestly say on my résumé that I have been trained by the BBC. How cool is that? It truly was a unique opportunity that I feel very privileged for. The training programs were outstanding and when it came to the placement. I fulfilled a dream of working on the children’s programs I watched as a child. My placement was outstanding. Everyone was very friendly and encouraging. I made some dear friends with the team I worked with. They gave me so many opportunities that I never believed could happen in a hectic production environment. I was able to pitch sketch ideas, invited to staff meetings and had a personal tour of the puppets on one of the shows. They were more than willing to fulfill my needs, as I was theirs. I got to spend time discussing different jobs on the productions with professionals.

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.

Cheerio to London but hello to the experience!

Students who studied abroad with New York University Tisch School of the Arts this spring have found that their life has been altered academically, personally, and professionally.

Here's what Young-Do ‘Josh’ Lee, who studied at the BBC in London, had to say:

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.

Class photo of Tisch School of the Arts students studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London this spring.

Want to get the inside scoop on a semester in Shanghai with Tisch? Check out student Ryann Weir's blog from her fall 2008 semester in China. Here's a sample and link to her blog:

Last night was our big Chinese Opera performance. It occurs to me that I haven't written much- or anything- about Chinese Opera even though it's the primary focus of my studies in China. I guess I haven't written about it mostly because it's very strange to describe. As I'm sure you can observe, it's not much like the western theater we know.

The singing is often high-pitched, nasal, shrill- frankly, difficult to listen to. The movement- all of it from your eye balls to your toes- is highly controlled and calculated. It's choreographed to the second in time with music.

But the most interesting thing, i think, is the design. Everything is extremely ornate. The make-up takes an hour at least to apply and each piece of hair is applied individually to your head. There's a photograph of it above, I think. Anyhow, they take chunks of hair and soak them in sap and then glue them down to your head. After that, they put on a face tightener. Those are the white straps in the picture. They're excruciatingly tight pieces of tape that are meant to stretch your face. They pain is incredible. Our teacher told us that when she trained as a little girl, the first time they tried on the face tighteners, all of the students began to vomit. It's really, really awful. But it looks pretty cool.

I'm fairly certain that I have no future in Chinese Opera but at the end of the semester, I have a lot to take away from studying it. Telling a simple story can be incredibly complicated, it's often nice to have a right and wrong answer, if you have to, you can assimilate to almost anything, and everywhere you go, people are mostly the same but the subtle differences of mannerisms and language and perspective are the most interesting parts.

The LAB, brought to you by Dublin City Council is pleased to invite you to FROM CONTEXT TO EXHIBITION at the LAB, Foley Street, D1 on Thursday 23rd April at 6pm.

The exhibition will be launched on Thurs 23rd April by Peggy Shaw, New York based international performance artist and co-founder of UK based performance company Split Britches. The exhibition will run from 23rd - 30th April inclusive.

Create, the national development agency for collaborative arts, will host a series of talks, supported by The LAB, to accompany the exhibition of work that arts students from National College of Art and Design, Dublin Institute of Technology, Institute of Art Design and Technology and Tisch School of the Arts, New York University have created with communities of place and/or interest.

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.

Studying television production with Tisch School of the Arts is an exciting opportunity. Studying television production with the BBC in London through Tisch can only mean one thing: a rare and incomparable opportunity.

Hannah Schleuder tells Tisch what the BBC program has brought to her academic and professional career.

Hannah edits with Ian at the BBC.

The Tisch London Program BBC course has exceeded my expectations on all fronts. The practical hands-on learning we have done at actual training sites combined with the integrity for television programming that our instructors have all displayed have made this study experience incomparable. I feel more comfortable calling my seven classmates “colleagues” as we perform directing, camera work, research, and scriptwriting weekly alongside professionals in the industry. Our training at BBC sites could be viewed as an abridged version of the two to three-year program that most young English professionals compete aggressively for. Acknowledging that this circumstance is extremely rare seems to have given us even more of a meaningful responsibility toward it.

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.

Eden Jeffries, studying with Tisch School of the Arts in South Africa this semester, feels a "sense of home..."

The cultures, the faces, the foods, the languages, are many. In appearance, the diversity in this city makes it easily mistakable for Los Angeles and at times even New York. Although I’m across the globe I feel a sense of home, but at times I have to wonder, where I would fit into this “rainbow nation”. Truly it is a rainbow. Its colors remain distinct, but I am finding that in many respects the lines do blur, mostly through a common love for democracy. Even more, a common love for the arts and for celebration. One of the most exciting parts of my experience so far is the observation, exploration, and dissection of race relations. You’ll find some racial experiences and dynamics so familiar, but in conjunction with some very eye opening and intriguing ones. An advantage of being with a group of NYU students that have varied interests (academically, artistically, culturally, and musically) and intentions in coming here is that the people we meet, the places we socialize at, the perspectives arisen, the obstacles faced, and the encounters we have are so multidimensional and heterogeneous. This past weekend we went out quite a bit to celebrate my birthday. Moving from venue to venue each night we experienced different demographics, different music, different classes, and it made me and I’m the sure the rest of us, hyperaware of how this incredible heartbreaking yet moving history that we are soaking up in the Arts & Culture class, by going to the apartheid museum, and in the books we read, has manifested itself in the culture and lives of the young people but also how in this same group of people it is evolving and being reconstructed. We found same groups of people we saw at one club dancing to Indie dance and electronic music, at another club dancing with us to Hip-Hop and DJ mash-ups. Recently, went to a party at one club in which myself, and two other girls in the NYU group were three of about six black people in the whole venue. Later we went to a party only a few blocks away and nearly the entire place was filled with black Africans “jamming” to reggae and house music. Our definitions of what South Africa is and what it means to be African continues to be challenged week by week and it’s important that we keep embracing these challenges.

Eden Jeffries

Thanks Eden for sharing your thoughts on South Africa!

New York University Tisch School of the Arts offers three spring programs in South Africa: Arts and Culture in Post-Apartheid South Africa, Video and Documentary Production, and Performance Theatre-Making and Collaborative Theatre.

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.

Students studying with New York University Tisch School of the Arts in South Africa this spring are engaging in what will be 'a very fruitful environment for art making.'

Tisch student Ben Lundberg shares the latest happenings:

Greetings from South Africa!

Second week of classes is over and the NYU group is still having a blast. Weekends are full, friends have been made; it seems that we're meshing very well with people here.

Last night the performance students started our rehearsals for our collaborative piece we are creating with four South African students. We are all very excited about embarking on the process. Rehearsal has yielded a great deal of very interesting information about perceptions about the Untied States and South Africa. The Americans were asked in a series of improvisations to create positive and negative dialog about South Africa; likewise, the South Africans did so about America. The cast is beginning to share stories from home as means to illuminate the the narratives of the piece. Most exciting was that talk continued between some of the cast for an hour after rehearsal had ended. The cultural exchange is fascinating and will be a very fruitful environment for art making.

Cheers,
Ben Lundberg (Third year performance)

Keep up with Ben on his blog at http://benjofaman.blogspot.com/.

Want to study in South Africa? Visit Tisch Special Programs to learn how.

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.

Ari, one of the students studying in South Africa with New York University Tisch School of the Arts this semester, shares her sights and sounds of South Africa:

Hey everyone, this is Ari, the first of the bloggers here at the NYU Tisch/WITS study abroad program.

So, it’s only been a week, but it feels like a good four years since I’ve arrived. The weather here is AMAZING, close to 80 everyday, which is surely more than welcome coming from the below-zero wind chill of New York. And yes, thanks to my now forgotten animosity towards sun block; I am quite sunburn and my skin is peeling. Which is very attractive I’m sure.

But on to better topics than dead skin. OK, the people here are wonderful. I thought I’d feel more alienated, and more alone at my time here at WITS, but the other students were not just cordial but ecstatic to meet us. It’s funny to have the South Africans find me exotic for being an American; especially because I want to know everything about everyone I meet. And they want to know everything about me. I’m like: “I’m boring! Tell me your life story.” No, but really, I’ve already made a bunch of good friends here, and had the pleasure of talking to them about their way of life, how it’s changed in these years following apartheid, and South African politics. Politics was and is a hot topic with their pending election, and, much like in America, the young people are thoroughly invested.

The first week we got here was Orientation Week, or “O Week” as it’s more commonly dubbed. O Week was a lot of fun, there were parties and events every day and night, and it gave the NYU group a chance to bond with each other and also meet a lot of other students. The first week I went to a few parties, but mostly just explored the campus and talked to as many people as I could. The group also visited “the outside,” meaning outside of campus. I think I speak for everyone when I say it’s really weird to have an actual campus. Feels like a real college! Transportation here is a bit difficult, but I made friends quick with those with cars. Smart idea.

As far as food goes, there’s a convenience store, plus a whole bunch of fast food joints on campus in a place called the Matrix, but down the street from WITS is a food store that we all ventured to for some much needed snack-age. I’ve been a huge fan of the fruits and vegetables here and they are delicious. I may never be satisfied by a Florida orange again. I have yet to try some good hearty South African cuisine, but I’m planning on it ASAP! I’ve heard Indian food here is really good as well, which is wonderful for a curry queen like me.

As a theatre major, I’ve made it a point to see as many shows as I can here, and also be as invested in the theatre community as possible. I’ve seen three WITS productions, one was a musical, one a physical theatre piece, and the other a one man show, and I was really impressed. I’ve also had the privilege of attending rehearsals for a show that goes up next week called “The Game”, a physical theatre exploration of the games people play with each other. It’s been a joy to just observe and take notes at how the rehearsal techniques, directorial endeavors, and overall group energy here compares and contrasts with my NYU experience thus far. A lot of input from the actors in the show is taken into consideration from what I understand, and many of the shows here are workshop shows starting with actors’ impulses and improvisational techniques. The show that we are doing is a workshop directed by Leila Enrique’s, dealing with the lives of four Americans and four South Africans during a time of change, focused on the night that Osama was elected. We haven’t started rehearsals yet, but I’m dying to. Most if not all of the theatre here is politically charged with issues of race, gender, economy, etc. A lot of what I’ve seen is comedic; they tend to make light of dark situations to kind of make it more accessible.

Most of the students don’t live on campus, but as international exchange students we are staying at the appropriately named International House. It’s right on campus, and complete with a kitchenette and bathroom. Roomy compared to cramped NYU dorms. Plus we have a sundrenched lawn to look out upon.

Classes started this week, and I’m excited to continue. As a performance studies major I am taking movement, voice, comedy, applied theatre, and the arts and culture course. Movement is mostly clowning, which I’ve never done before, so I’m thoroughly intrigued. And the arts and culture course is really just a breath of fresh air; it’s so good to be learning some of the history as my level of understanding this country and it’s struggles is still fledgling at best. I think learning more about it will make this experience that much more informative and add depth to the conversations I’ve been having with the locals. For applied theatre, we’re all creating our own site specific piece working with 2nd year actors, and non-acting community members. We haven’t started official class yet, but it sounds terrifying and challenging in an incredible way.

SO, pretty much that’s about it for now! OH! Also, the South Africans have some really funny phrases. Like instead of saying: “See you later,” they’ll say “I’ll see you now,” or “just now” or (my personal favorite) “I’ll see you now now.” They all connote different amounts of time, though I don’t think I’ll ever figure it out. The first time some one said “I’ll see you now,” to me, I said “Hey! I see you now too! What a pleasure vision is.” They shook their heads at my silly American ways.

OK, now that’s really really it for now. I must be off. Talk to you nownow!

Ari

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!

Some of our staff and students recently returned from trips to South Africa and Cuba. These photo albums from their trips are worth a thousand words.

We will be adding more and more photos and videos to our Facebook page, so keep checking in with us!

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!

The New York Times reports today that a "record number of students are studying abroad," with less traditional destinations like China, the Czech Republic, and South Africa increasing in popularity. Not one to be outpaced, Tisch Special Programs offers you programs in all three of these artistic and cultural hotbeds, not to mention many others.

The article—which cites the Open Doors 2008 report from the Institute of International Education—goes on to state that the number of Americans studying in China increased by 25% last year over the previous year. The number of Americans studying in South Africa is up by a whopping 28%.

We at Tisch Special Programs are committed to bringing you an intensive academic and artistic experience in an ever-broadening list of countries. We continually develop new programs in new locations so stay tuned!

Graphic credit: The New York Times

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!

Scott Tanzer, a Tisch drama student, spent the fall 2007 semester studying Chinese Opera Training at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. After an intense semester of training, Scott reflects on his training and his time in Shanghai and beyond.

1. In your own words, what is Chinese Opera Training?

Chinese Opera is an intense physically based movement class. While in actual Chinse Opera, there is usually a voice aspect to this art form, for our purposes of study, voice was impractical to learn. Our Chinese Opera class not only opened my eyes to another art from to which I had no prior exposure, but it also made me so much more physically aware of my body and the power that I have over it.

As I began the training I struggled with my flexibility and the many combinations we learned proved to be challenging, but by the time out final presentation rolled around I felt confident that I had become somewhat of a master at what I had learned. The movements we focused on are very specific and almost posed, so the work can be very tedious and painstaking, but we always had a great time in class. We learned combinations using swords and spears, and in one of favorite combinations, a boy was paired with a girl and we would fight: boys with a spear and girls with two swords.

Though at times I felt frustrated with my ability in the class the pay off in the end was great. I learned new thing about myself and I gained an intense appreciation for this incredible form of art. Our teachers were some of the kindest and most patient people I have ever met in my life. They truly want you to succeed and really made this course worthwhile.

Casey Crowley, a drama student at Tisch School of the Arts, studied Chinese Opera Training at the Shanghai Theatre Academy during the Fall 2007. Below is a look back at Casey's time in Shanghai with mentions of her trips throughout China and Tibet.

People hear the word "opera" and they automatically think of Western Style operas with Western singing. Chinese Opera could hardly be more different. There are two main types of Chinese Opera. Those that favor singing and those that favor the martial arts. Since the singing style of Chinese Opera is a. in chinese, b. difficult for the Western ear to get used to, and c. extremely difficult for an English speaker to learn (especially when your teachers don't speak English), we focused on the martial arts. Warm Ups consisted of high kicks into the air and special Chinese Opera "walks." We all came out of that class more flexible (and by more flexible, I mean we were putting our legs up in the splits against a wall) than when we went in. We learned the basic movements of different characters and then progressed to certain choreography for those characters. The class was separated by gender with the boys and girls learning different choreography. We did, however, get a chance to perform a routine together where the girls danced with two long knives and the boys had spears. The relationship between student and teacher also progressed dramatically from September (where our teacher, Linda Lao Shi, would shout "yan jing, shining eyes") to Decmeber (when we were all capable of carrying on conversations in Chinese. It is very clear to me that to become a master of Chinese Opera requires years and years of training (this was always especially evident when little 9-year olds would outperform us and there were boys next door practicing back hand-springs so fast they were staying in place), but the introduction to Chinese Opera has definitely sparked an interest in Chinese dance that may one day take me back to Shanghai.

At Tisch Special Programs, you’ll never know who’ll be stopping by our classes for a visit!

Ever heard of The Commitments?

Recently, famed Irish novelist, playwright, screenwriter and Booker Prize winner, Roddy Doyle dropped into one of our Dublin classes and did what he does best – wax poetic about the Irish life.

You can find out more information about our Dublin program by going here. (We also do Dublin summer programs too!) Or, to have a gander at all our programs please visit our website.