Arts and Music

When civil war broke out in Somalia in 1991, thousands of refugees fled to camps in Kenya and Ethiopia, and some were eventually resettled in the US and Canada. Many Somali refugees ended up in Minnesota not by choice, but because resettlement agencies in Minnesota worked with the US government to support new arrivals. As extended family members joined their relatives, Somali diasporic culture became an important visible, and audible, part of the cultural landscape of Minnesota. As part of this course, students will go beyond studying Somali history, culture, literature, and performance. As a class, we will pursue a community engaged model of learning, connecting with community partners in order to begin building relationships. Students will reflect on and seek out connections between the skills and interests they bring to the course and the needs and desires of Somali community partners in Minnesota.

ACE Component: Students will volunteer at Surad Academy and coordinate a public music event.

In this course, students explore the profound relationship between music and social change, examining how songs and sound have served as powerful tools for activism across cultures and movements. Through historical case studies, critical listening, and hands-on workshops, this class emphasizes experiential learning, culminating in a group project where students organize and lead a community event in collaboration with local organizations.

ACE Component:  TBD

Participants prepare for performance of a one-act opera or opera scenes. Students receive coaching and performance experience through individual and group singing/acting exercises. The course culminates with staged and costumed public performances.

ACE Component:  Students will tour to local elementary schools with a children’s opera “The Reluctant Dragon”.

This studio course focuses on advanced techniques of acting and singing for the musical stage with emphasis on opera. Students explore voice, movement, improvisation, and characterization at an advanced level. Participants receive coaching in musical and dramatic style through solo and small ensemble literature and prepare scenes for class performance. The course culminates with public performances of a fully staged and costumed lyric theater work.

ACE Component:  Students will create an “Intro to Opera” performance to tour to local schools.

This course is a survey of African-American art, from folk and decorative arts of the 19th century, to Modernist painting and sculpture in the 20th, to the multi-media productions of today. Issues of race and identity are explored through examinations of the visual productions of African American artists.

ACE Component: Students will work with the Flaten Art Museum on an acquisition project to further the development of the Flaten collection in conjunction with their collecting priorities.

This course explores in depth the issues most crucial to artists working today in an increasingly globalized art scene. Students investigate the complexities of new media, new methods of production and exhibition, and theoretical models through readings and a required field trip to a contemporary art museum.

ACE component: Students will work with galleries to acquire pieces by artists from underrepresented communities for St. Olaf’s permanent collection.

For the ACE component of this course, students will plan, research, and develop graphic design projects for local non-profit organizations.

In this intermediate photography course, students explore a variety of techniques and topics. Techniques include historic processes such as cyanotype and salted paper printing, digital photography, large-scale color printing, and traditional black and white photography. Students investigate experimental approaches and nontraditional forms for presentation, and they investigate photography from broad historical, aesthetic, and social perspectives. This course includes field trips, readings, discussion, and slide presentations. For the ACE portion of this course in 2014-15, students photographed Rice Creek watershed during the winter and spring thaw in order to study nature photography as well as to document the hydrologic patterns for the benefit of the local management unit for the watershed. For the ACE portion of this course in 2018, students captured images of the various spaces being utilized for Stephen Koplowitz’s The Northfield Experience. Select photos were then showcased in “The Northfield Experience” gallery exhibition at the Northfield Arts Guild.

This course enables the advanced studio art student to pursue further work in any chosen two or three dimensional medium or combination of media including performance, installation, and collaborative ways of working. This course is organized around an interdisciplinary theme set each year by the instructor. Within a seminar format, students read, discuss, and write on the selected topic in conjunction with topic-driven individual studio work and critiques.

Students engaged in numerous public art projects as part of this course.

• Students created temporary public art sculptures at Way Park in the first week of class. Students rearranged nature to create the pieces. This project was inspired by the work of Andy Goldsworthy.
• Students toured Public Art in Minneapolis and St. Paul with Jack Becker of Forecast Public Art.
• St. Paul Public Artist-in-residence, Amada Lovelee, visited the class to share her work and to engage students in a short workshop.
• The course instructor and Visiting Assistant Professor of Art, Michon Weeks, shared about her recent showing of 36 of her new paintings in a public art event in Indianapolis. The event was called “Art in Odd Places.”
• Students researched a range of topics related to public art including: public art controversies; temporary vs. permanent; monuments & memorials; relational aesthetics & public practice; the business of public art; and site specificity.
• Students proposed designs to a set of community stakeholders for painting the warming house at Way Park. The class painted the warming house based on the winning design.
• Students invited kids and adults from the Way Park neighborhood to create drawings for a pop-up gallery in the warming house. They shared candy, played music, and created a well-attended casual art show opening within the warming house.
• Students created individual mock public art grant proposals. The proposals were exhibited in the Groot Gallery Opening on Dec. 4th.

This course offers an engaging exploration into the field of museum studies with a particular emphasis on social justice principles and practices. Museums serve as vital institutions in society, shaping narratives, preserving cultural heritage, and reflecting the values of communities. However, traditional museum practices have often perpetuated exclusionary narratives and overlooked marginalized voices. This course examines these issues critically and explores strategies for creating more inclusive and equitable museum spaces.

ACE Component: Students will work with the Flaten Art Museum on programming related to the “Practicing Democracy: 150 Years of Civic Engagement at St. Olaf” exhibition.

This introduction to dance course allows students to broadly experience dance. Students explore dance from the following perspectives: historical, cultural and social, creative and expressive, performing, critical and aesthetic, and kinesthetic. The intention of the course is to broaden students’ perceptions about dance. Lectures, student presentations, experiential movement labs, and viewing of both live and recorded dance performances are all components of the course.

ACE Component: Students will work with Greenvale Park Community School to provide dance education opportunities.

For some “community dance” encompasses the dances that are part of a community’s social life. For others it refers specifically to a movement with the motto “dance is for everyone” that has sought to bring participation in dance to all, particularly underserved communities.

ACE Component: Students will facilitate community dance events with older adults from FiftyNorth.