The Arts at Mount Holyoke

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The Arts at Mount Holyoke

The Arts at Mount Holyoke

Collage of students engaging in all types of visual and performing arts

Pushing the boundaries of expression

Follow your creative spirit to reveal a fuller understanding of yourself and the world around you — it’s what the arts at Mount Holyoke are all about. We’ll share the resources and approaches you need to get started and then encourage you to go beyond the limits of genre, medium and format.

However you choose to create, you’ll refine and build skills you’ll use throughout your life — like how to think creatively and analytically and how to express yourself with originality. Most importantly, you’ll learn how sharing your perspective can change the world.

Discover programs in the arts

Performing Arts at Mount Holyoke

Welcome to Dance; Film Media Theater; and Music at �� – home of cutting-edge theater artists, award-winning choreographers and dancers and renowned musicians.

Our performances are relevant, vibrant and inclusive and celebrate the many facets of life at the college. Join us this year for a slate of exciting performances featuring work by students, faculty and guest artists. about upcoming performances.

The Dance Department inspires students to become impressive dancers, creative makers, critical and abstract thinkers, problem solvers, collaborators, effective communicators and affecting artists. Areas of study include performance, choreography, historical and cultural contexts, rhythmic analysis and scientific foundations. Studio courses include modern dance, ballet, street forms and West African dance.

With an interdisciplinary approach to teaching and learning, faculty share their expertise in our studios, classrooms and performance spaces, engaging in creative collaboration and mentoring individuals to define their unique research trajectories. Multiple performance opportunities are available each semester at Mount Holyoke and with our partners in Five College Dance.

During the academic year, the Dance Department produces four concerts: a faculty concert in the fall and senior, student and commencement concerts in the spring. Students are heavily involved in the production aspect through dancing, choreographing, producing, working and supporting the concerts both behind the scenes and on stage.

Learn more about Dance

The Department of Film Media Theater integrates creative and critical thinking with the practice of making theater, film and other media-based communicative forms. Our curriculum consists of courses in acting, directing, design, playwriting and screenwriting, as well as courses that study film, media and theater through the lens of history, theory and cultural studies.

In addition to a comprehensive curriculum that balances critical study with practical production and performance experiences, students have multiple production-based opportunities. The department annually presents three main stage productions, a short play festival, a film festival and numerous student performances.

During the academic year, the Department of Film Media Theater presents three main stage productions, a short play festival, a film festival and numerous student works and performances.

Learn more about Film Media Theater

The Music Department regards the study of music as an artistic discipline with an essential role in liberal arts education. Through courses in music history, music theory, ethnomusicology, performance and composition, we foster creative, intellectual and critical abilities.

The curriculum is designed for a broad range of interests, backgrounds and career goals. The integration of creating, performing and thinking about music fosters musical fluency across multiple styles and cultural contexts. With over 20 concerts a year, our department offers hands-on performance experience for students.

Music has always played a central role at ��. Over nearly two centuries, the Music Department has developed unique traditions that are now central to campus life. With over 20 concerts a year, our department offers hands-on performance experience across a broad range of musical styles and cultural contexts.

More in Music:

Learn more about Music

The Performing Arts

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2024 Student Choreography Concert dance performance of In Her Hands

2024 Student Choreography Concert of TUNK.

Students in performance at 2024 Spring Senior Concert

Students performing in As You Like It, 2024. Photo credit Tom Kelleher.

Students perform in Marisol, 2024. Photo credit: Tom Kelleher.

Annual and biennial events in the arts

Each year several signature events provide a platform for you to share your creative projects and connect with the Mount Holyoke and Five College arts communities. Several of these are sponsored by the InterArts Council, a group of representatives from the arts departments and programs at Mount Holyoke, Art Museum staff, and students who meet monthly to collaborate and keep members informed about campus arts activities.

Crafting a Life in the Arts

This is a biennial daylong career workshop that brings together students and alums working in the world of the arts to explore career options and artistic practice beyond graduation.

Claudia Rankine’s “Citizen: An American Lyric” received numerous awards when it was published in 2014.

Leading Women in the Arts

This event includes public presentations by scholars, artists, writers and practitioners who find common ground between the academic and public spheres.

An excerpt from a poem by Kathryn Irene Glascock ’22, namesake of the Intercollegiate Poetry Competition

Glascock Poetry Contest

This is an opportunity for you to showcase your best work for a panel of three distinguished poets — as students have done every year since 1924.

Signature events in music

Throughout nearly two centuries of history, the music department has developed unique musical traditions that are now central to campus life.

Happening at Mount Holyoke

The arts on campus — and beyond

Suzan-Lori Parks ‘85 (left) and Debra Martin Chase ‘77 (center) join �� President Danielle Holley (right) on stage at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre in New York City on Nov. 17.

�� announces two new endowed chairs

The $6 million gift by an anonymous donor will endow two new faculty chairs named for illustrious Mount Holyoke alums in the arts: the Debra Martin Chase ’77 Chair in Film Media Theater and the Suzan-Lori Parks ’85 Chair in Creative Writing.

Chloe Zhao from Variety - Day after the Oscars cover story

Five on Film Series: Nomadland

�� President Danielle R. Holley provided an introduction for a showing of “Nomadland,” directed by Chloé Zhao ’05, at Amherst Cinema. The event, part of a series called “Five on Film,” highlights alums of the Five College Consortium.

Harmonia Rosales (left) and Stephanie Sparling Williams. Photo courtesy of Laura Shea.

Harmonia Rosales and “The Harvest”

Artist Harmonia Rosales spoke at the �� Art Museum about her work, including her painting “The Harvest.”

More news

Alum Connections

Stories from art alums

Daniela in NYC for The Outsiders on 11/17/2024

An insider’s view of “The Outsiders”

Daniela Chamarro Angeles ’27

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Leaping into center stage

Liz Almonte ’24

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The chemistry of leadership

Mackenzie “Mack” Windus ’24

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Explore stories

Contact us

The InterArts Council

The InterArts Council is a group of representatives from the arts departments and programs at Mount Holyoke, as well as Art Museum staff who meet monthly to collaborate and keep members informed about campus arts activities.

The InterArts Council

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