Our vision is to re-imagine creativity for the twenty-first century spanning current and emergent arts disciplines. As UCI’s creative laboratory, the Claire Trevor School of the Arts explores and presents the arts as the essence of human experience and expression, through art forms ranging from the most traditional to the radically new. Our international and distinguished faculty work across a wide variety of art forms, partnering with others across the campus; our nationally ranked programs in art, dance, drama, and music begin with training but end in original invention. The school offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in four departments including Art, Dance, Drama, and Music. Visit their respective websites for more information.
The Department of Art in the Claire Trevor School of the Arts takes a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary view of contemporary art practice. With an emphasis on experimentation and innovation, the department is viewed as a leader in genres addressing cultural identity and emerging technologies. The department provides students a solid theoretical and technical foundation from which to approach art-making as both process and product.
The Department of Dance is nationally acclaimed and has a long-standing tradition of excellence. It offers an educational environment integrating performance opportunities, creative projects, and theoretical studies with an emphasis on the traditional techniques of classical ballet and modern dance. The department offers training in jazz, hip hip, multi-level sequences, and choreography for both theatre and video dance and provides students a variety of performance opportunities.
The Department of Drama, widely recognized and ranked as one of the top ten training programs in the country, combines broad liberal study and comprehensive training in several sub-disciplines of drama. Drama at UCI produces a full season of plays, musicals, and world premieres with varying dimensions and audience/actor relationships. Our comprehensive program of acting, directing, design, stage management and theory provide hands-on participation in productions throughout a student’s course of study to open them up to the broadest possible vistas.
The curricular philosophy of the Department of Music is based on the ideals of the conservatory within the academy. The faculty is comprised of well-known composers, publishing scholars, musicologists and music theorists, conductors, and concert and recording artists. They are dedicated to the performance and creation of music within the context of the highest standards of historical, aesthetic and theoretical inquiry.
Research and Innovation are integral in all four departments in the school. Arts research, like all research, is a process of systematic investigation in search of new conclusions and new meanings. Arts innovation is the parallel and complementary activity of bringing new methods and modes to life. Learn more about CTSA faculty and students' research and innovation activities on and off the UCI campus.