Faculty partnerships and curricular innovation

Dean E. Patrick Johnson’s vision for a more interdisciplinary SoC resulted in pipelines cross-departmental faculty partnerships. While such initiatives as the CommConnections seminar series and the team-taught First-Year Seminar originated with the dean, faculty are getting into the collaborative spirit all on their own.

For instance, Christina Nguyen, assistant professor of instruction in RTVF, and Melissa Blanco Borelli, associate professor and director of the dance program, found out through casual conversation that they both love dance for camera. They sat down over a series of meetings and put together a syllabus for "Dance for Camera" (DAN345/RTVF379), a class that debuted in Fall Quarter 2024. The class combines undergraduate RTVF and dance students with graduate students in the MFA in Documentary Media program and doctoral candidates in Performance Studies and the Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre and Drama programs. “The conversations are exhilarating, and the production work so far is experimental, thoughtful, and engaged,” Blanco Borelli says. 

“We’re asking students to question what is dance beyond the stage, how does the camera’s frame change our relationship to the body, and what is considered dance,” Nguyen explains. “They are collaboratively workshopping these ideas by experimenting with lighting, editing, choreography, and camera movement.”

The class will be hosting a screening of the final films created by Dance for Camera students at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, December 11 at the Helmerich Auditorium in Annie May Swift Hall.