Spring 2026 Course Search

The Voice Performance Intensive is an advanced voice technique course designed for experienced singers looking to elevate their vocal craft and take their performances to the next level. We will explore a diverse range of singing styles, including classical, contemporary, and other genres, enabling students to develop a versatile portfolio of repertoire. 

Chemicals often get a bad rap, from headlines warning of "toxic chemicals" to marketing labels that boast "chemical-free or all natural" products. But what are we really afraid of? In this course, we’ll use chemophobia as a starting point to explore the fundamental principles of chemistry. Why do certain substances evoke fear, and are those fears grounded in science? Through a combination of lectures, discussions, and hands-on experiments, students will critically examine the chemical nature of  us, everyday substances, from food and water to cosmetics and cleaning agents.

In her essay, Violence, director Anne Bogart writes, "Richard Foreman, perhaps the most intellectual of American directors, said that, for him, creation is one hundred percent intuitive. I have learned that he is right. This is not to say that one must not think analytically, theoretically, practically and critically. There is a time and a place for this kind of left-brain activity, but not in the heat of discovery in rehearsal and not in front of an audience. As soon as the door closes in rehearsal or as soon as the curtain goes up in performance, there is no time to think or reflect.

Dance, Musicals, Opera - a costume studio practice

The class will consist of three elements-

1) Designing a produced piece in drama or dance

2) A paper project designing costumes for a music based narrative piece (ie:opera, musical theatre, dance)

This advanced level intensive course is designed for students who have prior experience of making a work around a body, especially (yet not limited) in dance, theater and visual arts contexts. Inspired by butoh-based movement practice, Buddhism and French post-structuralism philosophies, students will seek a way of liberating a body from a socially pre-conditioned self.

This advanced Chinese course engages students in a deep exploration of China’s two most influential philosophical traditions—Confucianism (儒家) and Daoism (道家)—through direct engagement with authentic classical texts. We will read selections from The Analects (《论语》) by Confucius, The Daodejing (《道德经》) by Laozi, and the Zhuangzi (《庄子》), accompanied by the instructor’s own translations to facilitate comprehension of classical Chinese.

Born to a multilingual family and culture, with connections to both India and Pakistan, and educated at Cambridge in the UK, Rushdie was already a celebrated writer when an Iranian clerical fatwa against him in 1989 launched him to another level of fame (or infamy). Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini charged Rushdie with blasphemy in his novel, Satanic Verses, published the prior fall (1988), offering a bounty for his life. The fatwa was never repealed.

This course delves into the interdisciplinary art of screendance, examining the mediatization of the moving body within cinematic and site-specific contexts. By exploring the dynamic collaboration between camera, body, and environment, students will study a range of methods used by film and video artists—both historical and contemporary—while also developing their own experimental approaches.

This 2-credit course will explore the use of medium format film, its purpose, benefits and drawbacks, and the appeal of photographing with a significantly larger film than 35mm. Students will learn about the history of medium format film, the versatility of its sizes that varies from camera to camera and how to enhance their photographic practice with its use. Most of the coursework will involve developing, photographing, printing digitally and in a darkroom, and scanning negatives made with medium format film.

The Voice Performance Intensive is an advanced voice course designed for experienced singers looking to elevate their vocal craft and take their performances to the next level. We will explore a diverse range of singing styles, including classical, contemporary, and other genres, enabling students to develop a versatile portfolio of repertoire. 

Learning to draw is as much about learning how to use your hand as it is about learning how to see. The focus of this course is on learning to draw from observation and developing close looking skills. Drawing from observation fundamentally alters our day-to-day experience by heightening our attention to details and the specificity of our surroundings. In this course, you will work with various materials, including ink, compressed and vine charcoal, graphite, and/or collage to represent a range of subjects.

The dramaturg serves as a powerful medium in the theatre. They bridge the past and the present, the creative team and the audience, while providing critical generosity and historical and literary insight. In this course, we will learn about the history and practice of dramaturgy, while learning how the critical and research skills of the dramaturg can apply to a wide array of theatrical and artistic disciplines. Through a varied blend of weekly readings, discussion, small-group activities, and independent projects, students will engage with various tools and methods of dramaturgy.

When you first learn how to paint, the focus is typically on gaining facility with the application and manipulation of paint to articulate the subject. In this intermediate course, we shift our attention to the often overlooked step that precedes painting: preparing the surface. 

This course will look into the use of the kiln as an integral tool and part of the creative process in ceramic art. We will explore various different kilns and firing techniques, learning the roles of fire and atmosphere in transforming glaze components into desired surfaces. We will also discuss the history of kiln technology and how it has influenced the development of wares, kiln building, and the theoretical basis for kiln design and firing. Students will be expected to develop and produce work independently outside of class time for use in the firings.

The captivity narrative is a uniquely American literary form, a distinct, adventure-driven offshoot of the Puritan spiritual autobiography--with affinities to the slave narrative--that has more in common with today's reality-based media programming that you might think. We'll spend the term looking closely at the captivity narratives that form the canon, beginning with the Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682), and charting developments in the genre as it exploded with the so-called Indian wars between the U.S.

Fundamentals of 2-D animation principles will be explored through drawing, from basic motion cycles to straight-ahead animation. Students will primarily work with wet/dry mediums on paper, with additional instruction in After Effects compositing workflow, and digital drawing. Weekly exercises will explore a variety of animation techniques to create short projects. While Screenings, critiques and demonstrations parallel regular viewings of student work.

Catastrophic events—droughts, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and landslides—are growing in frequency and intensity around the world. As more of the global population concentrates in urban areas, the nature and consequences of these natural hazards are taking on a distinct and often violent shape in today’s metropolises and megacities. This course investigates how urban life reshapes both the impact of disasters and our capacity to respond to them.

What does intimacy reveal about our social worlds? This seminar explores a range of recent methods in the study of intimacy, as well as what it means to make intimate knowledge claims. Through neighboring concepts in Anthropology, such as kinship, friendship and relatedness, as well as through intimacy’s imbrication with economy, sexuality, violence, and more-than-human worlds, this course considers the varied shapes that intimacy takes across distinct social worlds.

This course examines the history of immigration to the United States. How did this country become a “nation of immigrants”? How did immigration become so central to American national identity? What are this country’s purported ideals on the subject and has it ever lived up to them?  

The CAPA Workshop is for Seniors who are engaged in their advanced work and want to complete a project as part of it in Public Action.Students are able to connect this work to any area of study at Bennington College. Each student will be required to assemble a digital portfolio that will include their research or thesis, along with a description and implementation of their project during the term. A proposal form will be required once admitted to the class. Projects, can be local, national or international. 

This course is an introduction to the magic of copper plate Intaglio. We will explore various techniques to prepare our plates including hand working and acid etching with materials such as rosin resists and sugar lifts. By the end of term, we will be printing in color. Ultimately, the overall goal of our endeavors will be to begin a dialog about artistic production in a contemporary context while also exploring the unique history of the intaglio process.