Application deadline: January 5, 2019
The Performance and Performance Studies MFA at Pratt Institute offers innovative interdisciplinary training in the fields of performance studies and art practice in one program. Through their two years of graduate study, MFA candidates deepen their performance and art making practice, exercise critical inquiry and theory, practice pedagogy, and engage community-based methodologies.
Performance Studies is a field that engages “performance” as a lens and object of study. When approached in its multiple forms and as a series of “doings,” from ritual, dance, and drama, to performances of race, gender, sexuality or nation, performance emerges as a vital dimension of practice in everyday life. Related to this broad-spectrum view, the Performance and Performance Studies MFA welcomes performance practitioners from across the fields of dance, music, theater, performance art, poetry, social practice, and film. Students in this graduate program gain breadth, depth and flexibility as performers and thinkers in a way traditional programs can’t provide, and they are better equipped to make opportunities for themselves in a world where performance is being practiced, thought, and taught in new ways. The MFA is a terminal degree, a prestigious credential that also makes graduates eligible to teach at the college and graduate school level should they choose to pursue the job market in that area.
At Pratt, we offer a small and intensive program to maximize and individualize your graduate experience and draw on the rich performance and cultural worlds of Brooklyn and New York City. Our current faculty include: Jennifer Miller, Tracie Morris, David Thomson, Jenny Romaine, Karin Shankar, Julia Steinmetz, as well as an impressive range of artists-in-residence of national and international stature. Recent artists-in-residence have included Carmelia Tropicana, Ebony Golden, Pamela Sneed, and Richard Move, among others.
The program also emphasizes internships, community-based practice and multifaceted support for careers in the performing arts and academia. We encourage interaction between our students and eminent makers in the field through symposia, workshops, and presentations. The program is designed to take advantage of—and to evolve in relation to—its art and design school environment, with all of its courses open to Pratt graduate students in other programs and a mandate to build inter-program relationships at the student, course, and program level.
Now in its third year, Pratt’s Performance and Performance Studies MFA provides an inventive model for a range of creative thinkers and makers to come together for a vibrant exchange across practice and theory.
An ideal campus location
A 25-acre beautifully landscaped campus, located in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn, the art capital of New York, makes Pratt an ideal choice for graduate study. Pratt’s campus was ranked among the top ten in the country by Architectural Digest for the best architecture.
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View admissions requirements.
Scholarships
Graduate scholarships are available to incoming domestic and international students based on merit and are awarded upon acceptance.
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Contact: T 800 331 0834 / admissions [at] pratt.edu
Pratt Institute is ranked among the top design schools by BusinessWeek and fifth in the world out of 50 art and design colleges by QS World University Rankings by Subject. Top ranked programs, a distinguished faculty of professional writers, historians, critics, artists and designers, and an ideally located campus in Brooklyn make Pratt an excellent choice for graduate study.
