The College of Wooster’s first Wooster in India study abroad program will take place over winter break of 2011. Professors of theatre and dance, Shirley Huston-Findley and Kim Tritt, concieved and developed this program and will lead the trip.
The program is one of only two programs to take place over winter break, which allows students to attend even if they cannot afford to leave campus for an entire semester due to other obligations.
While in India, students will attend traditional festivals in Chennai, explore traditional Indian dance at Kalakshetra and study contemporary Indian theater with two local groups.
Students will also learn about these and other traditional art forms at Kalamandalam University of Arts and Culture in Kerala.
The trip is unique in that all students who plan to attend must take the fall 2011 class Exploring India At Home And Abroad Through the Arts with professors Huston-Findley and Tritt.
The semester-long course will explore the geography, history, philosophy, religions and cultural practices of southern India in particular.
Huston-Findley explained that as much as she loved her first trip to India in 2008, she felt her experience would have been enriched by such background information.
After studying these aspects of Indian culture for a semester, students will have the opportunity to explore the arts of India through these various lenses.
Huston-Findley explained, “We will not simply be viewing ëtheir’ art from ëour perspective.’ We will be looking at a culture and how art has emerged out of it.”
The class will also give non-art-related majors a chance to relate their experiences in India to fields more familiar to them.
Huston-Findley feels students in unrelated majors may be surprised how relevant this trip is to them, and emphasized that most theater students are not experts on Indian culture any more than students in other majors.
The students will also get to work on an artistic or cultural service project with the Wooster Nagar community while in India.
Wooster Nagar is a community that was rebuilt using funds raised by members of the College and greater Wooster community after the tsunami destroyed the area five years ago.
The students will work together to design the service project during the fall semester.
Huston-Findley said, “The project will be as large as students want or as focused as they want. It will involve a mutually engaged cultural focus with a feedback loop of educating one another in relation to the arts.”
Huston-Findley said they are currently exploring the possibility of working with India-based Wooster alumni as well, though no official plans have been made to do so. Both professors will be in India during the winter break of 2010 to complete preparations for the trip.
While the focus currently remains on the 2011 trip, Huston-Findley said some possible expansions for the future could include incorporating a study of one of the languages of India, utilizing the theatre and dance knowledge obtained abroad in on-campus performances.
Huston-Findley said, “Last year’s spring concert featured an Indian dancer doing one classical and one contemporary dance. We would love to continue that tradition and maybe even in a way that lets students become more involved.”
She also added, “I don’t think it at all unlikely that we [in the theatre and dance department] could produce a piece of contemporary Indian drama.”
Huston-Findley is also not ruling out an eventual extension of the trip to a semester-long program.
However, along with enabling more students to attend, Huston-Findley pointed out that going over winter break allows students to experience important cultural festivals and some of the best weather of the year.
The entire trip will cost around $4,000 per student, and it is likely there will be financial aid available.
There are no prerequisites for the required course, which is cross-listed between the theatre and dance and South Asian studies departments.
The professors will host a table at the Nov. 16 in Lowey at the Study Abroad Fair to provide more details about the program.
They will also host an informational meeting in February 2011, at which point they will have returned from India to present and share much more specific information about the trip.