The Muse program aims to get scholars out of the classroom and into the spaces where art is made and presented to the public. Please read below to learn about the many institutions, stages, museums and galleries the scholars have visited to experience the arts firsthand during evening performances or class outings.
Class Outings
While Muse Freshman Seminar classes take place primarily at Hunter, the scholars are often scheduled to meet off campus at New York’s many museums and art institutions.
Muses have visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Frick, MOMA, The Whitney Museum (pictured), the Guggenheim Museum, and the International Center for Photography, among others.
Scholars have also visited various galleries in Chelsea, including The Pavel Zoubok Gallery, owned by Hunter alumnus Pavel Zoubok, who spoke with the scholars about his career as a gallery owner.
Theatre
Thanks to Hunter’s partnerships with organizations including the Theatre Development Fund (TDF), Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and Playwrights Horizons, Muse Scholars regularly attend plays on and off Broadway as part of their year-long Freshman Muse Seminar. After freshman year, Muse Scholars also receive invitations to the theatre as tickets become available.
On Broadway, the Muse Scholars have seen Topdog/Underdog, Come from Away, Oklahoma!, The Band’s Visit, Fun Home, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, The Glass Menagerie, War Horse, and Violet.
Other productions have included Heroes of the Fourth Turning, This Flat Earth and I was Most Alive with You at Playwrights Horizons. They also attended productions of My Broken Language, In the Blood, Incident at Vichy, and By the Way, Meet Vera Stark at Signature Theater; and 72 Miles to Go, Kingdom Come and Too Heavy For Your Pocket at Roundabout Underground (pictured).
Music
Muse Scholars have attended jazz, classical and new music concerts and performances at Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Jazz Gallery, Le Poisson Rouge, 92NY and other venues.
Scholars heard Wynton Marsalis’s jazz oratorio, Blood on the Fields, performed at Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Roy Hargrove Big Band and the Catharsis jazz band play the Jazz Gallery.
At Carnegie Hall (pictured) the scholars have received tickets to performances by the San Francisco Symphony, the Mariinsky Orchestra of St. Petersburg and Orchestra of St. Luke’s.
At Le Poisson Rouge – a multimedia art cabaret space on the site of the historic Village Gate – Muses watched performances by the Gamelan Dharma Swara, Arto Lindsay, and the new music ensemble Metropolis.
Dance
Each year, Muse Scholars attend performances at New York City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival. Performers have hailed from the Moiseyev Dance Company, Ballet West, Tu Dance, Nan Jombang, The Martha Graham Dance Company, Doug Elkins Choreography, Etc., and Dorrance Dance.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has hosted special Muse Scholar Program events, with the Muse Class of ’15 invited to observe an Ailey II rehearsal and to chat afterward with dancers.
Lincoln Center has also hosted the Muses for dance performances by Paul Taylor Dance Co.and Shen Wei Dance Arts.
The Muses attended dance performances at the Joyce Theater, including Twyla Tharp (pictured), Gibney Dance and Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE.
Art
Muses have taken a few field trips out of the city to the Woodstock School of Art for painting and print-making classes. They have also travelled Dia Beacon in Beacon, NY to view some of the most famous and influential art works created in the 1960s and 1970s. Students contemplate the relationship between movement, material, and space in Richard Serra’s steel sculpture, “Torqued Ellipses” (pictured).
