Interdisciplinary Arts & Performance Program

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Description

The Interdisciplinary Arts and Performance Program (IAP) at ASU's West Campus features a world class faculty actively engaged in contemporary arts research, performance, and production.  Students pursue a Bachelor of Arts degree focused on interdisciplinary and collaborative approaches to the arts, technology, and performance. The interdisciplinary curriculum allows students to more effectively study, create, and prepare for a complex and changing world through current approaches to the arts and aesthetic research.

The IAP program includes courses on the traditions of 20^th/21^st century interdisciplinarity, experimental arts, and technology.  Courses are offered in Digital Media, Sound and Music, Game Study and Design, Theatre/Performance Practice, Performance Studies, and Visual and Installation Arts. Faculty mentoring encourages students to develop creatively and to work collaboratively. 

The IAP B.A. degree is nationally recognized for its unique approach to the arts and is the first of its kind in the Southwest. Students become versatile artists with skill sets that prepare them for significant careers and professional opportunities in the 21st century. 

What is “interdisciplinarity”?

As a research method, interdisciplinarity involves using two or more disciplines to solve what is typically a more complex problem, or address a most multifaceted issue, with the hope of a transformative result, meaning the creating of something new that couldn’t have been discovered using a single discipline.  Disciplines in a traditional college are usually thought of and taught as majors, including bodies of knowledge like physics, psychology, or history, etc.  Interdisciplinarity acknowledges the need for multiple disciplines to work in an integrative way, often leading to the development of new concepts and/or refining definitions from the various areas. 

How is interdisciplinarity applied in the arts?

In the arts, individual disciplines are traditionally separated into genres, such as: theatre, music, visual art, digital art, dance, film, game design, etc. However, throughout the 20th into the 21^st century, traditional and newer art forms, along with changes in technology and genres of performance, have blended together and changed the arts and education. Interdisciplinary arts means an approach to study and training in the arts, performance and creativity that focuses on how multiple artistic disciplines combine in an integrated way with an emphasis on new concepts and experiences and artistic way of working. 

In most colleges and universities, students chose single artistic “majors” and study the background, knowledge and training in a particular genre. In the IAP Degree Program, students take courses in performance, sound, digital media, and visual representation, as well as conceptual development and historical perspectives on experimental work to create new work.  Some courses also consider the history and theory of interdisciplinary arts and interdisciplinarity between the arts and other areas of study and culture.

Degree Description:

The IAP curriculum requires students at the lower division to take five IAP courses, with a minimum of two Foundation courses in distinct genres and ideas of art-making, as well as a Gateway course introducing them to interdisciplinary practice in the arts.  The upper division student then takes a series of six Core courses that offer the conceptual and technical knowledge needed to work collaboratively and create interdisciplinary projects.  Finally, students are asked to choose from upper division electives (a minimum of two at the 400-level) to pursue their own paths as future artists and arts professionals, culminating in the Senior Project/Internship taken in the last semester of the degree. 

Junior-standing transfer students are accepted into the degree program with a minimum prerequisite of five arts courses taken in the lower division, then begin the degree with a Gateway course, followed by the upper division path described above.

Students from western states who select this major may be eligible for a reduced nonresident tuition rate of 150 percent of Arizona resident tuition plus all applicable fees. See more information and eligibility requirements on the Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE) program web site.

Additional Program Fee: No

Second Language Requirement: No

Minimum Math Requirement: MAT 142 - College Mathematics

Interdisciplinary Arts & Performance, BA Checksheet 2013-2014 (pdf 173 KB)

IAP Faculty

IAP Facilities

The IAP program features facilities on the West campus that encourage collaborative work both in the classroom and in performance and installation.  These include:

• Digital Recording Studio
• Two dance studio/rehearsal spaces
• MAC-based Digital Media Lab with the latest software in film and video-making, music, sound creation and graphic design
• Visual Art Drawing and Painting Studios
• Second Stage West, a 85-seat performance space
• ArtSpace West, the program’s gallery installation space

Career Opportunities

This Interdisciplinary Arts training can be the basis for a variety of personal and professional pursuits. Students who major in the program receive practical, professional training and solid academic skills. They gain extensive preparation for careers as artists, performers and creative professionals. They also develop critical backgrounds useful for becoming future teachers and scholars. Graduates of the program are prepared for advanced study in the performing arts or arts-related professions in education, art and cultural journalism, government and community arts administration, media services and production.

Contact Information

Ready to start your future?

Contact SHArCS to learn more about the Interdisciplinary Arts & Performance Program.