The Department of Drama and Dance at Colorado College bases its daily routine and existence upon certain unspoken tenets. As the External Review of the department is about to happen, we feel that our student population should have a written reflection of our commitment to undergraduate education. Our 1991 Strategic Planning Report stated the case straightforwardly, and our basic adherence to its policy has not changed: “Most of all, we stress the importance of the original, unique, creative endeavor for the student as a means for self-understanding, self-critique, and progressive education and pedagogy.” We stated further that “we do not wish to become a performance conservatory striving for ‘product perfection,’ but rather wish to stress the educational process of drama and dance, and its innate benefits of discipline, ensemble, discovery, and revelation. We have come to feel that the educational processes of drama and dance-the day-in and day-out study, the literary and historical contextualization, the personal sacrifice, the grappling with important issues-are most rewarding to students and faculty.” Some of that 1991 statement should be augmented here by new specifics as we approach a new era of liberal arts education and arts pedagogy. Therefore, we reaffirm our commitment to certain pedagogical approaches in order to make our expectations clear to the college community and to our students.

  1. We believe in the imperative of performance. Drama and dance are inherently connected by their dependence upon the live theatrical event, and we encourage all our classes-technical, literary, studio, and performance-not to lose sight of this imperative. Also, we believe that there are philosophical ties between drama and dance strong enough to encourage us to develop a new cross-disciplinary major in Drama and Dance, stressing the interrelatedness of all live performance.
  2. We believe in the power of opportunity for students. To foster such opportunity, we intend to continue our Block Guest program, setting aside one professorship for guests in order to enrich the curriculum, to provide for lively discussion, and to help our students network. Further, we promise to continue to expand off-campus opportunities and programs, including ACDF, ACTF, USITT, LDI, Costume Con, Internships, ITI, Touring in the Schools, and the CC Dance Troupe. We also hope to offer Drama Away every Block 8 instead of every other year, going to London every other year and to another world center of theatre the remaining years.
  3. We believe in a liberal arts education and in the central role drama and dance can play in that education. Creativity comes from a broadened mind, and we suggest that a more educated and enlightened student makes a better artist: they can think on their feet, exhibit a commitment to rigor in the classroom, challenge a difficult text, and foster compelling interpretations. We do not intend to be a conservatory, and in that light, promise to honor the primacy of students’ class work. Though we do not wish to establish “professional theatre,” we believe that professionalism is an attitude we wish to foster in students.
  4. We believe that creativity is a noble enterprise. The resurgence in interest in the humanities and, in particular, performing arts programs in recent years is a backlash against the supposed surety and objectivity of science-related disciplines and most certainly a yearning for the artistic endeavor as a creative and necessary outlet.
  5. We believe in the importance and necessity of co-curricular enterprises. For example, it is important and necessary that technical theatre work is required of all students and that students learn to work as a team, realizing how such a communal and collaborative effort is needed in drama and dance. Hence, we intend to keep the 20 hour crew requirement for DR108 and the 60 hour crew requirement for the major. Other co-curricular enterprises, such as Dance Workshop and Theatre Workshop, will continue to receive any necessary support that we can give as a department. And our own departmental productions are co-curricular as well, albeit more central to our mission. As the Strategic Planning Report said, “We perform for the larger campus and for an interested community outside the college. We view these performances as part of our purpose, our charge, and as part of our own teaching and learning process.”
  6. We believe in the strong future of interdisciplinary arts teaching and the central role that new arts technologies will play in that future. For a thorough discussion of this goal, please see the Cornerstone Arts Initiative and its related documents.

We commit ourselves first and foremost to our students, for Colorado College is an institution that is measured by its success in the classroom and in the mentoring relationship between professor and student. And commit ourselves centrally to the meshing of actual performance into every one of our classes, from Basic Elements of Production and Design to History of Dance I to Origins and Early Forms of Drama.

Federico Garcia Lorca, in 1934′s The Authority of the Theatre, states:

The theatre is one of the most useful and expressive instruments for a country’s edification, the baromenter which registers its greatness or decline. A theatre which in every brand, from tragedy to vaudeville, is sensitive and well oriented, can in a few years change the sensibility of a people, and a broken-down theatre, where wings have given way to cloven hoofs, can coarsen and benumb a whole nation.

The goals of the Department of Drama and Dance are posited upon this notion of performance as an edifying experience for teacher, performer, student, and audience alike. We believe that such a vision is supported by the power of opportunity, the liberal arts curriculum, a stress on creativity, strong co-curricular components, and the possibility of interdisciplinary arts teaching.