Insights revealed through creative work
In their production, performance and study, the arts — music, creative writing, theater, visual art, dance and film — are rewarding avenues for intellectual growth.
Arts and academics
The art and visual culture department teaches studio practice and the study of the intersecting realms of art, architecture, visual culture and material culture from the distant past to the present.
The music department sponsors more than 65 concerts and recitals each year. Students can take private instruction in voice and diverse musical instruments. Bates is known for its steel pan band and its offerings in the Indonesian musical form called gamelan.
In the theater and rhetoric department, the major in theater combines the study of dramatic literature from the Greeks to the present with work in acting, directing, filmmaking and theatrical design.
The major in rhetoric offers an interdisciplinary approach to the study of human communication, including theory and criticism, history of public address, and film and television studies. Bates' minor in dance is rooted in the tradition of dance as an art form, offering academic courses, studio practice and emphasizing student choreography and performance.
Students in theater and dance work in three theaters within the Schaeffer Theatre complex, while Pettigrew Hall houses a video editing suite for student filmmakers.
Open to the public
Bates presents music and dance concerts, theater performances, film screenings, readings and art exhibits year-round.
Literature has a high public profile thanks to the new Language Arts Live series and campus visits by such authors as Michael Pollan, Junot Diaz and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Elizabeth Strout '77. Among performers, Bates has hosted avant-garde multimedia artist DJ Spooky, world-punk band Gogol Bordello, the Auryn String Quartet and Bates’ own Corey Harris ’91, a roots musician featured in Martin Scorsese’s TV series The Blues.
Next: Off-campus study
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