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The University at Buffalo Department of Theatre and Dance will adapt to a virtual format for the fall season’s lineup of musicals, plays and dance performances. Nationally recognized directors and choreographers will work with esteemed faculty and emerging student talent from UB to produce innovative original productions which both entertain and explore the human condition.

As an emerging scholar, Yao Kahlil's research draws from the disciplines of theatre performance, transnational studies, and media study. His interdisciplinary work strives to explore the performativity of identity politics and uses social experiments, performance art, exhibitions, and art installations to understand transracial identities, specifically intraracial aspects of transracialism.

When Clinical Assistant Professor Dr. Danielle Rosvally conceived of a new literary-theater course to explore the boundaries of what qualifies as a theatrical space with regard to the works of William Shakespeare, she had no way of knowing quite how “unconventional” performing arts presentation would become due to Covid-19. Dr. Rosvally and her students have taken the opportunity to put the questions posed in her new Place and Space in Shakespeare class into practice in the digital medium as a result of the transition to distance learning.

Today we are celebrating our incredible seniors. Thank you for your energy, your passion, your commitment and your hard work. We are so lucky to have known you, to have watched your grow, and we cannot wait to see where you will go next. 

Creative problem solving is a strength of nearly everyone who works in and studies the performing arts. With modest resources as the norm, through an abundance of innovation, creative artists and students find ways to get things done under challenging circumstances and on tight schedules. UB’s unavoidable mid-semester transition to distance learning has been a hurdle, but students in Theatre and Dance Costume Shop Manager Donna Massimo’s Costume Construction / TH 107 introductory course have made the most of the opportunities presented.

During this period of uncertainty, dance majors in faculty professor Tom Ralabate’s DAC 442 / Choreography 2 course are making different kinds of choices. As class work continues in the digital realm students are encouraged to further trust their creative instincts, to return to the core, while retuning to their bodies.  “They’re finding interesting new ways of moving,” said Ralabate. “They were propelled to make these choices under the circumstances.”

UB alumnus Alan Zweibel, a five-time Emmy Award-winning original writer for “Saturday Night Live,” inaugurated the College of Arts and Sciences’ Visiting Professor in the Arts endowment in February 2020 with the start of a residency project at UB which included fourteen students from Theatre and Dance (THD) professor Maria Horne’s Theatre Workshop / Creative Research Lab. The multi-disciplinary project was initiated by UB Arts Collaboratory, which cultivates creative exchanges among arts disciplines.

Community Takes the Stage - In celebration of our birthday every year, we invite Buffalo’s creative community to pitch stimulating and thought-provoking “shorts” of their take on March’s global CreativeMornings theme. This year, that theme is ‘Identity’, we had our largest submission pool yet, and selected these folks to share their interpretation of the theme as it relates to creativity. Featuring three speakers, including Naila Ansari (MFA). 

This presentation considers how various choreographers are undertaking new forms of relation-building as a way to contest neo-liberal, global capitalism and the ecological crisis it has precipitated.  More or less successful, these artists are forging new understandings of corporeality as a set of interactive relations among all bodies, both animate and inanimate that, in turn, might provide new insights into how to choreograph a more sustainable, just, and equitable future.

How do you intend to share your knowledge and talent? This lecture will provide insights into the acting industry/business, self-care tips for professionals, a toolbox to create vision, and direction for personal goals. Through the presentation along with guided reflection, Actor in Action is intended to provide you with supportive skills so that you can step into action as an artist with care and intention.

Hoping to join UB Theatre and Dance next fall? Don't forget to sign up for our spring auditions! 

Returning to the popular seasonal event at the Buffalo & Erie County Botanical Gardens for the 4th time, the University at Buffalo Department of Theatre and Dance is set to help bring “mysterious and marvelous minerals” to life as Design and Technology Students in conjunction with the UB United States Institute for Theatre Technology Student Chapter translate their theatre skills to exhibit design throughout the gardens.