The Associates of the Idyllwild Arts Foundation sponsors Spotlight on Leadership, a series at which faculty members, chairs of academic and arts departments, discuss their curricula, challenges and student projects.
At 10 a.m. Monday, Sept. 11, Inter Arts/Fashion Design Chair Abbie Bosworth with talk about the one major at Idyllwild Arts that integrates various artistic disciplines, giving students a broader scope of art studies.
The series is designed to familiarize Idyllwild residents with the school’s academic and arts programs, and the challenges of teaching to an increasingly international student body. IAA’s student enrollment is more than 50 percent international, with students from more than 30 countries attending the residential arts high school (ninth through 12th grade, as well as post-graduate students).
IAA provides pre-professional training in the arts and a comprehensive college preparatory curriculum. Majors include music, theater, dance, visual arts, creative writing, film and digital media, and inter arts/fashion design.
Bosworth will talk about her department’s approach to providing students with structured pathways to move between art forms. Ninth and tenth graders focus on different learning techniques inherent to specific art forms. Upper-class students focus on integrating several arts fields of study into a comprehensive, interdisciplinary project. Senior shows can take the form of gallery exhibitions, site specific installations, performances, films, fashion shows or published texts.
Inter-arts students explore a variety of “pathways,” finding their way through various areas of interest, including fashion design, design, storytelling, performance practice and digital communication.
Fashion design is a significant and growing component of the academy’s arts programs. Students receive in-depth training from hand and machine sewing to fashion illustration, photography and conceptual design. Fashion shows take place each winter and spring.
Storytelling, too, is a growing area of student interest, allowing students to explore writing fiction and non-fiction while working with other departments including creative writing, film, visual arts and theater.
Bosworth, with background as a writer, performer, director and teacher, is the ideal chair for the department. She is an engaging presenter and conversationalist. She teaches theater and creative writing at IAA and acting at Brockus Dance Conservatory in Redlands. She is a published playwright whose works have been performed at the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival, Cal State San Bernardino and the Ruskin Group Theatre in Santa Monica where she is a member of the New Play Development program. She also is a teacher in the IAA Creative Writing Department.
Spotlight on Leadership talks are open to all and are free to attend. They take place at the Fireside Room of Nelson Dining Hall on the IAA campus.
