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Zooming to UCI

Artists from around the world paid virtual visits to UCI students, opening new windows of opportunity By Christine Byrd When music major Cassandra Leisher asked the New York Philharmonic’s Ryan Roberts, a classical French horn and oboe player, how he calms pre-audition nerves, she was surprised...

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Choreographing the Future

Dance department chair and UCI alumna Molly Lynch prepares students for long, diverse careers By Christine Byrd Molly Lynch wants UCI dance students to envision careers beyond professional dancer — from choreographer to artistic director, and nonprofit administrator to teacher. As professor and...

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Is A Career In Dance Worth All The Sacrifices?

Sometimes, there’s a struggle between your passion and a longing for financial stability. At other times, your practical grandmother has the answer. By Sydney Leong, a feature from Dance Major Journal, Volume 8, 2020 “Are you impressed, Lola?” I always showed video clips of rehearsal to my Lola,...

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Empowering the Artists of Tomorrow Amid the Pandemic

By Christine Byrd Theaters, concert halls and art galleries have been closed for nearly a year, but the global pandemic hasn’t stopped artists from creating. If anything, it’s fueling rapid incorporation of technology across all artistic mediums and inspiring new ways to create and share art. “I...

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Tapping Into a New Era

By Christine Byrd In his dance, “Waiting for Amazon,” Carl “Dougie” Sanders, M.F.A. ’21, moves in his living room, expressing the exhausting boredom of being stuck at home, and the angsty anticipation before a parcel delivery. We may not move quite like Sanders, but we know exactly what he’s...

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Arts and Wellness

By Christine Byrd The seats were empty, the orchestra silent, the studios dark. More than 700 undergraduate and 150 graduate students, and the scores of faculty and staff who teach and support them, disappeared literally overnight. It was March 17, and the Claire Trevor School of the Arts, like...

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Artist for the Future

Gabby Miller, M.F.A. ’20, crosses disciplines to explore the possibility of a future that is not predetermined By Christine Byrd “Can we turn the black box theater into an Oracle Machine?” was a question burning in Gabby Miller’s mind during the final year of her M.F.A. program at the Claire...

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#UCIArtsAnywhere

As our faculty, students, and staff prepare for an unusual spring quarter of remote teaching and learning, the lyrics to Barbra Streisand’s “People” keep swimming through my mind. “People, people who need people, are the luckiest people in the world.” In a world facing an international pandemic, it...

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An important update from Dean Barker

As the situation with COVID-19 continues to evolve, we want to keep you, our valued supporters and community members, updated on how the Claire Trevor School of the Arts (CTSA) in collaboration with the greater UCI community are responding. We are working diligently to quickly adapt to the rapidly...

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COVID-19 Update | Spring Quarter Arts Events

March 12, 2020 While there are no confirmed cases of COVID-19 at UCI at this time, the greatest priority at the Claire Trevor School of the Arts (CTSA) is the health and well-being of our students, faculty, audiences, and staff. CTSA is taking all appropriate precautions as it monitors the public...

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Faculty Research: Embodying Humanity

What if dance could make us all better people? S. Ama Wray, associate professor of dance, believes it can. “The world needs dance to connect with our bodies in terms of rhythm (since the constraints of time impact everything), and to connect with empathy to one another,” Wray says. “These things...

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Student Research: Jehbreal Jackson

New Tools for School Students at the Claire Trevor School of the Arts explore the human experience through a variety of creative avenues by using skills as classically trained fine artists, but also through emerging technology and media. Students from all four departments have access to a range of...

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The Dance Scientist

View the full pictorial in CONNECT, the quarterly magazine for UCI Claire Trevor School of the Arts Dr. Kelli Sharp is not your typical dance professor. She spends her days collecting and analyzing motion-capture data to investigate movement patterns, responses to stimuli, and the acceleration of...

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Alumni reunite at the American College Dance Association (ACDA) Baja Regional Conference

Spring break on college and university campuses can be quiet. This was not the case in March 2019 for the Department of Dance, which hosted the American College Dance Association (ACDA) Baja Regional Conference. The ACDA’s goal is to promote and exalt the existing and potential artistry visible...

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Professional Pathways

It’s summer in Rome and, inspired by the architecture of the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, a UCI student ties on her pointe shoes and begins dancing in the cobblestone plaza. As if on cue, a street musician emerges from an alleyway playing Brahms’ “Hungarian Dance” on his harmonica....