Visual and Performing Arts brings together Music, Drama, Art History, Studio, and Arts Management. VPA provides opportunities to study the arts in a university setting, which allows you to analyze the ideas and theories underlying and connecting the arts, and to explore the related fields of literature, history, anthropology, and other areas of the Humanities and Social Sciences.

In VPA, students may learn the histories and cultural contexts of the arts, take performance courses in music and drama, prepare for arts management careers, or pursue studies in visual art studio (painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture concepts, installation and performance art, and electronic media). Many VPA courses are electronically supported through the college’s Instructional Technology Support at UTSC, helping students learn the computer skills essential in today's employment market.

VPA provides courses at the introductory level not only for students who plan to focus theirstudy in one or more of the arts, but also for students from other disciplines and divisions.To learn about introductory courses in Music, Drama, Art History, Studio, and ArtsManagement, please click on the links above.

VPA has two specialist programmes. The Specialist Programme in Art and Culture  encourages students to work outside traditional boundaries and puts special emphasis on relationships among the arts. However, students can also use this programme to concentrate intensely in studio or any of VPA's other sub-disciplines. The introductory course Collaborations in Visual and Performing Arts is an umbrella course for all programmes in VPA and should be taken in the first year. This course will introduce the student to the concept of collaboration within the arts. VPA's other specialist programme, the Co-operative Programme in Arts Management, gives a physical link to the world of business or management of the arts through a series of volunteer and paid work placements in arts organizations. Also attached to Arts Management is the important new Cultural Pluralism and the Arts initiative, which has received major funding from the federal government and now contributes two courses to the college’s curriculum.

VPA students and faculty gain much from their direct involvement in Cultural Affairs, the umbrella under which the College coordinates its theatrical productions, concerts, exhibitions, and other arts events.

Images on this site were provided by Ken Jones, Lenard Whiting, Scott Dutrisac. Studio gallery pictures were provided by Shelly Bahl.

Overview of Music

The Music curriculum is designed both for students who intend to pursue a career in the arts and for students whose interests are more general. Students who have taken music at high school or elsewhere will find a selection of historical, theoretical, and practical courses in music, while students with no previous background can begin musical studies here.

Major or Minor programs are available in Music; however, many students choose to take general interest or performance courses only. Most upper-level music courses assume the student has some ability in reading music, and all continuing students are encouraged and helped to acquire this skill as soon as possible.

General Interest Courses in Music require no previous musical experience. Listening to Music, Music of World's Peoples, Music for the Theatre, Jazz, Popular Music, Film Music, and the Repertory Choir assume no previous experience in music. In addition to Music of the World's Peoples, another half credit from this list can be used towards the Major Program, (with the exception of Listening to Music).

Performance Courses are available in Band and Choir. Entrance to ensembles is by interview/audition held during Orientation. For information about auditions see full course descriptions on Web Study Guide.

Overview of Drama

The Drama Program has been devised to serve students who intend to major in Drama, students who intend to specialize in Visual and Performing Arts, and students who have a casual interest in drama and theatre.

We offer two types of courses that complement each other: theoretical and practical. The theoretical courses are in the history of theatre and in special aspects of theatre history and theory. In the practical courses, students become acquainted with all aspects of theatre production in studio situations, both as actors and as technicians. Progress from each practical course to the next is by permission. Participation in public productions at UTSC is strongly encouraged.

VPDA01H Introduction to Performance I begins the students' experience of the practical study of basic acting techniques in a workshop atmosphere.

VPDD01H Supervised Performance offers students the opportunity to put to use the skills they have acquired in the introductory, intermediate, and advanced performance courses through the practical study of major theatrical productions.

In VPDB04H Experiencing the Live Theatre and VPDC04H Writing About/For the Live Theatre, students attend and review theatrical performances, thereby developing their ability to make enlightened critical responses to what they see.

We also offer courses that survey Western, Asian, and Canadian theatre history, as well as courses that concern themselves with special topics in theatre and drama studies.

Beginning in 2003/2004, admission into the practical side of the program is by interview. (Details follow)

Interview needed; students will not be required to perform prepared pieces. Students should make an appointment; call 416-287-7119 (Divisional Office, Humanities, UTSC) to arrange. Interview dates: mid-April and mid-May.

These ten-minute interviews will take place in the Leigha Lee Browne Theatre, and will take the form of consultations in order to evaluate the qualifications and degree of enthusiasm, commitment and promise of prospective students. Information as to the nature and requirements of the program will be provided at the interview.

Overview of Art History

There is more to art history than most students think. Once it was mostly a chronological Europe-centred study of painting, sculpture, and architecture from ancient times to modern. Contemporary art history still provides plenty of opportunities to study the Parthenon, Michelangelo and Rembrandt, but there is a great new diversity, both of art and of perspectives. Art history at UTSC also includes VPHB51H Art, the Museum and the Gallery, and the Religion in the Arts courses VPHC55H Hinduism and Buddhism and VPHC56H The Judeo-Christian Traditions, in which students meet with their instructors at Toronto galleries and museums both to study original works of art and to explore current ways of collecting and presenting it.

Art history Major and Minor Programs begin with a pair of courses: VPHA46H Ways of Seeing: Introduction to Art Histories, and the interdisciplinary course VPAA05H Collaborations in Visual and performing Arts

VPAA05H3 Collaborations in the Visual and Performing Arts, An introduction to interdisciplinary collaboration in art and culture.
Drawing on a wide range of examples from the disciplines of visual art, music, and theatre, in high art and popular culture, this course explores relationships between and across the arts, tracing the history and development of inter-disciplinarity.
This course is required for all first year students taking other courses in VPA

VPSA62H Foundation Studies in Studio, An introduction to the importance of content and context in the making of contemporary art.
Limited enrolment: 20 per section
Exclusion: VIS130H, (VPAA60Y), (VPAA62H)
Co-requisite: VPAA05H

Overview of Arts Management

The Co-operative Programme in Arts Management is designed for students with an interest both in the arts and in business or management, and normally requires four to five years to complete. It combines academicstudy in a wide variety of subjects with practical work experience, preparing students for permanent employment as arts managers, or for further studies in Business Administration, Museum Studies, Drama,Music, Art History or Studio.

The introductory course VPAA10H Introduction to Arts Management examines the context of the arts in society in general and Canada in particular, the status of arts management as a professional discipline, the various elements of the cultural ecology in Canada, including arts organizations and government agencies, and the historical and contemporary challenges facing the arts. The course is open to all students in the College.

For further information,see http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~coopam/index.html