THTREMUS 101: Intro to Acting

Designed to help students develop and strengthen acting skills, this course will cover techniques to enhance self-awareness, sensory awareness, and spatial awareness and will explore strategies to help develop characters and create stories.

THTREMUS 399 (section 008): Topics in Drama – TYA (Theatre for Young Audiences) Tour

This course covers a different specialized topic in theatre and drama each semester, offering an in-depth exploration.

DANCE 100: Intro to Dance

DANCE 100.001 – Non-major Modern
This course explores modern dance and is taught by senior dance majors enrolled in DANCE 482.001.

DANCE 100.002 – Non-major Queer Flow Contemporary
Queer Flow Contemporary is an innovative exploration of contemporary dance that fuses elements from various dance techniques to create a practice characterized by its fluidity and commitment to self-expression. It envisions the wrists as dynamic forces that generate and “queer” the flow of energy throughout the entire body via fluid, spiraling movements.

DANCE 100.003 – Non-major Long Form Improvisation
This course will involve experimentation with different parameters around performance improvisation, working towards improvising as a group for up to 40 minutes.

DANCE 100.004 – Non-major Hip Hop Party Dances
This course will explore such hip hop party dances as “Cat Daddy” and “Chicken Noodle Soup,” and will study their geographical and cultural contexts.

DANCE 100.005 – Non-major Interdisciplinary Performance
This course will provide opportunities for students to make performances from a variety of starting points and in a variety of modes, including dance, theatre, and performance art.

DANCE 100.006 – Non-major Intro to Krump
This course will study krump as a modernized street dance form and culture and will involve practicing krump foundation while strengthening the ability to freestyle (“improvise”) by stacking the movements to create a “round.”

DANCE 100.007 – Non-major K-Pop Choreography
Students will explore the vibrant world of K-Pop through rhythmic movement and captivating choreography in this course, which immerses participants in the captivating choreography that has made K-Pop a global cultural sensation, offering hands-on experience with iconic routines seen in music videos.

DANCE 100.008 – Non-major Floorwork Fundamentals
In this course, floorwork will be a tool to uncover functional movement patterns. Through improvisation and specific phrase works, the course will spark adaptability when facing challenges and test our memory and understanding of new coordination patterns.

DANCE 100.010 – Congolese
This course offers a study of traditional dances of the African Congo.

DANCE 100.011 – Non-major Afro-Jazz
This course focuses on an aspect of jazz dance that draws inspiration from contemporary dance forms and indigenous African dance forms, a combination producing a genre that centers on rhythm, improvisation, and exaggeration.

DANCE 100.012 – Non-major Hip Hop
This course explores hip hop dance and is taught by senior dance majors enrolled in DANCE 482.003.

DANCE 100.013 – Non-major Movement Generated
This course empowers individual expression through sensory awareness and a radical perspective. Students will find their movement language and style by using storytelling, games, set sequences, image-based movement, weight shifting, musicality, observation, imitation, touch, momentum, speed, control and taking risk.

DANCE 100.014 – Non-major Afro-Contemporary
This practical course combines aesthetics of African dance style with modern contemporary dance technique to create movement vocabularies enriched in both dance forms.

DANCE 100.015 – Non-major Modern
This modern dance course is taught by senior dance majors enrolled in DANCE 482.002.

DANCE 100.016 – Functional Improvisation
This course will explore somatic-based improvisations, creating awareness around the joints, their function, and how they are connected to the whole body.

Arts Chorale

A mixed choir, the Arts Chorale is open to any student at the University of Michigan and most members are not music majors. No audition is required; all are welcome.

University Band
Repertoire for University Band, which uses full wind ensemble instrumentation, consists of mainly grades 5 and 6 and is the more advanced of the non-major concert bands. Audition is required for placement. All interested students should enroll in ENS 346.001.

Campus Band
Repertoire for Campus Band, which uses full wind ensemble instrumentation, consists of grades 3 to 5. Playing assessment for part assignments only; everyone with experience playing a band instrument is welcome to join. All interested students should enroll in ENS 346.002.

Campus Orchestra

The Campus Symphony Orchestra and Campus Philharmonia Orchestras offer a welcoming and collaborative environment for non-music majors, and an opportunity to perform an exciting and diverse variety of great orchestral music on the famed Hill Auditorium stage. All interested students should enroll in ENS 344.001 (Campus Symphony Orchestra) or ENS 344.002 (Campus Philharmonia Orchestra). 

The University of Michigan Gamelan Ensemble is open to all, regardless of musical training. The group will learn how to play pieces on different instrument groupings from Java and Bali, Indonesia, with repertoire ranging from traditional works to contemporary compositions.

The University of Michigan’s guitar ensemble, open to all guitarists, is a supportive/collaborative environment where students will learn how to perform with other guitarists and work with a conductor.

Open to all U-M students by audition, the Hockey and Basketball bands support their respective sports at all home games and selected tournament games.

Open to all U-M students by audition, the Michigan Winter Ensemble is a competitive color guard performance group that performs and competes in the MCGC circuit.

Out of the Blue is the University of Michigan’s prison outreach choir, a collaboration between PCAP and SMTD, overseen by Dr. Eugene Rogers. Students from across the university, alumni, and community members are encouraged to participate in the ensemble. Members can enroll as an official class either through SMTD or the Residential College, or they can join as a club.

The Men’s Glee Club welcomes you to audition for our 164th season serving as ambassadors of song. The coming year will be particularly special as we will tour to South America in May 2024 (optional for Glee Club members). The Men’s Glee Club welcomes all male-identifying and non-binary students who sing tenor or bass to audition.

The Women’s Glee Club is a SSAA choral ensemble open by audition, representing undergraduate and graduate women from diverse fields across campus. WGC gives female students the opportunity to express their love of music through performance, community outreach and travel. Repertoire ranges from the Renaissance to the present; includes folk music, college songs, and works specifically written for women’s chorus.

Guitar 110: Intro to Guitar
This introductory course in popular guitar style will teach students essential performance skills while building a deeper understanding of the cultural importance of the guitar in popular music. No prior guitar experience needed to enroll.

Guitar 111: Intermediate Guitar
This intermediate guitar course will teach students continued technical and performance-based skillsets on the instrument. Guitar 110: Intro to Guitar or comparable guitar experience recommended.

Guitar 112: Advanced Guitar
This advanced guitar course will explore in detail key guitarists throughout the diverse history of the popular music genre. A “case-study” approach will be taken to introduce the varied techniques, chord structures and melodic soloing styles of guitar greats such as Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, B.B. King, and Joni Mitchell, to name a few. Guitar 111: Intermediate Guitar or comparable guitar experience recommended.

GUITAR 150: Individual Studio Lessons

Private studio guitar lessons are available to all university students and are tailored to meet students’ specific interests and goals on the instrument. A range of engaging topics will be explored in detail from week to week while developing performance based skills on the guitar. Guitar 112: Advanced Guitar or equivalent experience recommended prior to enrolling.

JAZZ 420: Roots Music & Improv for Strings

Learn roots music repertoire in the styles of American & European traditional fiddling, and expand creativity through improvisation. All string players welcome.

JAZZ 450/550: Contemplative Practice

450/550: The Contemplative Practices Seminar
This seminar introduces sitting meditation and includes journaling, walking meditation outdoors, and contemplative reading.

455/555: Nature-based Contemplative Practice
This seminar introduces nature-based contemplative practices, which deepen our connection with the natural world by expanding our conversation with the elements.

454/554 Special Topics/”Finding Your Way”
This is a course in contemplative journal writing. Through guided, reflective writing based on weekly prompts, this course helps students explore life-path questions.

MUSIC 200: Intro to Popular Songwriting

This introductory course in pop songwriting will include a survey of diverse and iconic songwriters throughout popular music history and will teach students myriad creative skills to compose original pop songs through fun and collaborative songwriting projects.

MUSIC 460: Composing for Change: Healing Arts

In this project-based course, students will learn to compose music, a script, choreography, or creative writing to tell stories of social injustices and agency and to celebrate the unsung gifts of marginalized individuals and communities. Students must have a working competency in the medium they choose.

COMP 222: Intro to Elements of Composition

It’s easy to take for granted that behind all music is at least one person who sat down and composed that music. In this course, students will become familiar with the practical aspects of composing – the process of thinking, listening, and working like a composer.

MUSPERF 200: Engaging Performance

This course allows students to experience the performing arts up close and behind the scenes, connecting students directly to the touring, world-class artists who perform music, theatre, and dance on the U-M campus. Students will attend live performances, talk with the artists and arts administrators, and explore how the performing arts are an integral part of our lives and the world at large.

MUSICOL 122: Intro to World Music

This course introduces students to world soundscapes and cultures through the lens of ethnomusicology – the study of music in the context of culture. It analyzes the ever-changing balance between traditional and modern ideas of music – in systems of learning, performance techniques, and ways of writing and recording music.

MUSICOL 346.001: The History of Western Music II

In this survey of European music from ca. 1750 to the present, students will develop an in-depth appreciation of classical, romantic, and contemporary music in its historical contexts, and will engage in a critical reflection on the status and role of “art music” and its educational import in the contemporary world.

MUSICOL 346.002: Science Fiction Film Music

This course explores the intersections between music and scientific fiction film and television from a variety of perspectives. It considers the aesthetic, technical, and creative choices made by influential creative figures and contemplates the impact of technological innovations in sound and cinema.

MUSICOL 346.003/130.001: Opera!

This introductory-level course on the collaborative art form of opera explores a repertory of exceeding beauty and interest while it considers this form of theatre as a fold for thinking about the value of song, empathy, myth, beauty, and the politics of entertainment.

MUSICOL 346.004: Historical Sounds

This course links sounds of the early modern period to those of our current sound worlds. Special attention will be paid to the artistic and scholarly use of modern technologies to (re)create historical soundscapes.

MUSICOL 346.005: Music, Race and Telling American History

By studying how music in movies, opera, theatre, and video games tells versions of American history, this course will explore how music acts as a powerful tool to tell stories about ourselves and others. Focusing on works including Hamilton, The 1619 Project, and Red Dead Redemption, this class centers on how ideas of race shape narratives while it looks at how race intersects with ideas about gender, ethnicity, class, region, and nationhood.

PAT 100: Music in Technology

This course focuses primarily on popular music styles, tracing the evolution of music technology and exploring how musicians influenced technological developments and how developments in music technology influenced artists. Students will attain a deeper knowledge and understanding of the field and the skills necessary to begin making music with technology on their own.

PAT 200: Intro to Electronic Music Production

This course is for students not majoring in Performing Arts Technology who are interested in electronic music composition, production, and performance.

The Piano 110 non-SMTD course is designed for non-music majors who are interested in learning beginner piano skills in a group class. No prior experience is required.

The Piano 111 non-SMTD course is a continuation of Piano 110. This course is designed for students looking to continue their piano study, or for non-music majors with some prior piano playing experience to further their skills in a group setting.

PIANO 150: Advanced Individual Studio Lessons

This course is designed to provide non-SMTD students, ranging from beginner to advanced, with private piano instruction. Students will receive a 30-minute lesson with a graduate student instructor each week.

MUSIC 210: Rap History & Songwriting

This course will focus on message, intentionality, and style, while allowing participants to explore their own artistic expression through hip hop and spoken word. No experience is necessary.

PAT 305: Video Game Music

This course charts the evolution of video game music from the first synthesized “bleeps” and “bloops” of early games to the present. The course culminates with a creative final project: composition of video game music.

WELLNESS 412: Yoga for Performers, Dancers & Athletes

This class is an introduction to yoga fundamentals and their application to athletic/dancer fitness and performance.