Theatre & Dance Department
The Theatre & Dance Department (THAD) at Winona State offers an enriching educational experience. Our department offers a theatre major, theatre minor and dance minor, all supported by a liberal arts foundation.
Theatre students focus on fundamental skills in acting, directing and design. Dance minors study movement techniques, improvisation, and composition.
Both theatre and dance students examine the history and theory of their disciplines. Students also learn kinesthetic, cognitive, and creative skills as they develop their unique artistic voices.
Even if you are not in the theatre & dance program, you can participate in performing arts and expand your creative potential, which is an essential skill in any field.
As artists and scholars, our students:
- Demonstrate knowledge of historical and cross-cultural foundations in theatre and dance as well as current practice and critical thought
- Apply and practice skills that require collaboration, analysis, physical expression, and self-awareness
- Analyze, synthesize, integrate, and evaluate process and production of self and others within the context of the classroom, stage and studio – the laboratories of our work
- Participate in productions and artistic endeavors that enrich self and community
- Explore, expand and celebrate the human condition
- Learn to respond as artists to informed self-assessment by actively working toward improvement
- Learn to apply artistic skills to situations both within and outside the theatrical art form
- Learn to think critically and communicate clearly and effectively
- Develop abilities and readiness to participate in learning groups and collaborative processes
Productions
Each year, the Theatre & Dance Department produces multiple productions at the WSU campus theatres.
Current Art Season EventsView Flickr photo galleries of more than 25 THAD department productions.
National Association of Schools of Theatre
WSU is one of 150 schools in the country accredited by the National Association of Schools of Theatre (NAST).
The review of educational quality is made according to nationally recognized standards developed by NAST with the help of various professional groups in the field of theatre.
The review helps to determine whether the university and department are providing the educational services they say they are offering to the public, and whether the university and department are following their operational procedures.
Accreditation by NAST means that the Theatre and Dance Department have defined the educational goals of the theatre major program, and have the resources needed to achieve these goals. We are a program committed to helping students achieve success, and accreditation helps us improve their experience.