We just received an email announcing a new program – a Master’s Degree in New Media Art and Performance is being offered at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus beginning in the fall of 2005.

Keep reading for more info.

– New media and technology are transforming the arts. Well-known examples include animated films like Shrek and the Polar Express, but art also is going hi-tech for choreographers, composers, designers, photographers, even art theorists and writers. Now, for the first time in the New York area, visual and performance artists and other art professionals can learn new media skills through an innovative program that leads to a Master’s of Fine Arts in New Media Art and Performance degree. Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus will begin offering the advanced-level program in Fall 2005.

The new M.F.A. will integrate traditional live performance – choreography, dance, music, theater, film and video – with new media technology,? says Stuart Fishelson, a professor in the Media Arts department, who helped create the program.
In addition to animation technology, examples of new media for the arts include special software for choreography with movement and sound that can later be reproduced in live dance performances.

The new M.F.A. degree at the Brooklyn Campus requires completion of a 60-credit professional program which teaches about all aspects of performance using both ?real? and digital mediums. Areas of study include choreographing moving images; multimedia interactive direction; experimental imaging; electronic/digital/live composition for screen and stage; new media criticism; and history and critical theory of world performance.

A key focus of the new degree will be to build community and cross-cultural dialogues, and students will have the chance to intern with local artists, theaters and performance spaces to receive master tutorials in indigenous and new media techniques. ?Our goal is to train choreographers, composers, designers, directors, photographers, performance theorists, critics, creative writers and performing artists to become fluent in the tools of new media technology,? explains Professor Ninotchka Bennahum, creator and program director of the M.F.A.

The program will offer flexible schedules for working professionals, condensed semesters and courses taught by artists in residence. For more information and to enroll in the program, contact Ninotchka Bennahum at (718) 488-4038 or at bennahum@liu.edu; or e-mail Rick Pulos at rick.pulos@liu.edu.

Long Island University opened its Brooklyn Campus in 1926, welcoming a diverse population at a time when other major universities enforced quota systems against racial and ethnic minorities. Located at the corner of Flatbush Avenue Extension and DeKalb Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, the Campus is accessible to all major bus and subway routes and the Long Island Rail Road.