International
School of Theatre
Summer Study in London
Because the city of London plays such a vital role in the international theatre scene, Penn State graduate students in theatre “cross the pond” to learn from British masters during a six-week summer session following their first year in residence. They engage in intensive study and text work with Charmian Hoare, teacher of voice training at London’s Guildhall School and vocal coach for the Royal Shakespeare Company. The students enhance their study of dramatic literature by attending numerous productions and meeting with important actors, directors, designers and other theatre artists.
Students Accompany President
Penn State President Graham Spanier frequently calls on musical theatre students to display their singing, dancing and acting skills at high-profile events for alumni and donors. During spring break in 2002, a group accompanied Spanier on a tour of the Far East, performing at dinners he hosted. They visited Tokyo, Hong Kong, Taipei, Taiwan and Seoul. This year, musical theatre students joined Spanier on his spring break tour of Great Britain, performing a Broadway revue for alumni in London and at the universities of Southhampton, Bristol, Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester.
School of Visual Arts
International Inspiration
For Penn State School of Visual Arts faculty, international travel often serves as inspiration for their work. Lonnie Graham, assistant professor in photography, is one example. A Conversation with the World, his fall 2004 one-person exhibition at the Robert B. Menschel Media Center in Syracuse, featured photographs he took during his journeys throughout Asia and Africa, in addition to North America. The exhibition was initiated as a pilot project consisting of photographic portraits and digital video inventory of the homes and cultures Graham visited, where he interviewed members of the community at large about their culture, heritage and traditional practices.
According to Graham, although the participants’ responses created a literal portrait, the photographs of the interviewees reinforced those words with a visual depth. As part of this ongoing project, Graham has also collected sounds and music from Papua New Guinea, India and Kenya. In the coming months, he plans to collect and archive material from the high Himalayas. The project has been conducted with the support of the Pew Fellowship, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and a College of Arts and Architecture Faculty Research Grant.
From photography professor Lonnie Graham’s exhibition, A Conversation with the World: “Young Monks Festival,” Lama Yuru, India, 2003.
College-Wide International Initiatives
Faculty Exchange Program
In spring 2002, the College of Arts and Architecture instituted an annual faculty exchange program with the Victorian College of the Arts at the University of Melbourne in Australia. The program is rotating through the academic units in the college to give all students the opportunity to learn from and interact with an educator from another culture. Participating Penn State faculty have included James Lyon, professor of music in violin (summer 2002), Brant Pope, professor of theatre (summer 2003), and Helen O’Leary, associate professor of art in drawing and painting, who will be going to Australia this summer.
According to Randy Ploog, coordinator of international programs in the College of Arts and Architecture, the exchange program was started in order to expose more students to an international perspective. “We hope that, by seeing our faculty participate in the exchange, they will be encouraged to study abroad.” Most recently, Marie Sierra, head of sculpture and spatial practice at the Victorian College of the Arts, spent five weeks in residence in the School of Visual Arts. A Philadelphia native who has lived in Australia for 20 years, she says international experiences are essential for artists. “Artists form an important part of cultural practice, and therefore need to step out of their own culture and into the culture of others to keep themselves informed, relevant and grounded.”
Study Abroad
The study of visual arts, performing arts and built environments
is inherently intercultural and international.
For that reason, the College of Arts and Architecture is
committed to international education. Several programs
in the college require study abroad for students to complete
their degrees. In addition to the dozens of university-wide programs that offer courses in the arts during
the academic year, the college sponsors or co-sponsors five summer study abroad opportunities that are
led by its own faculty.
The College of Arts and Architecture’s summer programs take students across the Atlantic and south of the border. The School of Theatre sponsors a summer session in London in collaboration with the Department of English. The School of Visual Arts sponsors summer programs in Puebla, Mexico, with the Department of Spanish and in Ireland with the Department of English.
In addition to the new Department of Integrative Arts program in Rome, the college offers a summer program in Todi, Italy, co-sponsored by the School of Visual Arts and the Department of Art History in collaboration with the Department of Italian. Undergraduates in architecture and landscape architecture are required to study for a semester at Sede di Roma, Penn State’s “campus” in Rome, located within the Palazzo Doria Pamphili in the heart of the city. As mentioned previously, all graduate students in theatre participate in a summer session in London. For more information on the college’s summer study abroad programs, visit www.artsandarchitecture.psu.edu/current/interntl.html.
Students at work at Temple-Town Hierakonpolis Project in Egypt, winter 2005.
