Welcome Class of 2029

Welcome, Class of 2029! The Lewis Center for the Arts (LCA) is your Pathway to the Arts. This page offers information for incoming first-year students interested in pursuing the arts while at Princeton.

A Welcome Message from Chair Judith Hamera

Find Your Path to the Arts

We can’t wait to welcome you to campus! Lewis Center faculty and staff will host an Info Session on Monday, August 25 from 10:15-11:00 a.m. in Princeton Neuroscience Institute, PNI A32. Come for information on our minor programs, courses, and key dates that you won’t want to miss.

You can also connect with the Lewis Center in-person at the Academic Expo on August 25 from 1-4 p.m. at the Frick Chemistry Lab Atrium. Faculty, current students and staff will be at the LCA table, ready to answer your questions.

Contact Us

We’re here to help! In case you miss the Expo or an Info Session for a program that interests you, don’t hesitate to reach out to a staff program administrator with any questions you might have:

Don’t miss a thing! Sign up for LCA emails to hear about all of the important events happening this fall.

 

Fall 2025 Courses

Lewis Center for the Arts courses are offered in Creative Writing, Dance, Theater & Music Theater, Visual Arts (including film/video), and through the interdisciplinary Princeton Atelier. Minors are awarded in the areas of Creative Writing, Dance, Theater & Music Theater, and Visual Arts, as well as degrees in the Practice of Art track offered by the Department of Art and Archaeology in collaboration with the Program in Visual Arts. Review a list of FAQs about Lewis Center courses and minor programs or download an LCA advising guide (PDF). You will also find additional courses offered by other departments that may be crosslisted with the arts, as well as First-Year Seminars taught by LCA faculty.

 

Creative Writing

Creative Writing Courses

A professor and students sit around a large table talking.

Professor Patricia Smith teaches “Advanced Poetry” in New South’s Creative Writing Library. Photo by Jon Sweeney

Welcome, Class of 2029! We can’t wait to see you in workshops in the Program in Creative Writing. Every fall, we reserve 3 of 12 sought-after spaces in each introductory workshop for first-year students like you so that you can immerse yourself right away in the craft of creative writing by taking a small class with some of the most acclaimed writers in the world.

Katie Farris, Zoe K. Heller, Aleksandar Hemon, Yiyun Li, Jack Livings, Jenny McPhee, Lynn Melnick, Joyce Carol Oates, Kathleen Ossip, Ed Park, Patricia Smith, Lynn Steger Strong, and Lloyd Suh are among the award-winning faculty teaching introductory workshops open to first-year students. Graduating Princeton seniors often tell us they regret not taking creative writing courses sooner in their undergraduate careers. Don’t delay what may be the best classroom experience you have at Princeton!

Introductory CWR courses are open enrollment but fill very quickly. Advanced classes have prerequisites and require departmental permission to enroll. Explore fall 2025 creative writing courses and review all course enrollment info. If you’ve always wanted to study creative writing but have never written creatively before, just jump in and try it out: introductory classes are designed for motivated beginners.

Questions about the program? Email Program Manager Erin West: erin.west@princeton.edu.

 

Dance

Watch a video introduction to the Program in Dance:

Dance Performance Opportunities & Courses

Dancers perform dynamic poses under blue stage lighting, with a group in the background.

Princeton students perform a restaged excerpt of Ripple by Yue Yin during the 2024 Princeton Dance Festival. Photo by Larry Levanti

Want to perform? Students in the dance course DAN 326 “Princeton Dance Festival: Approaches to Performance & Choreography” will perform works by Mark Morris, Christopher Ralph, and Netta Yerushalmy in the Fall 2025 Festival at the Berlind Theatre from November 21-23, 2025.

Mandatory dance placement class (all students who attend will be placed in a section of the course) will be held on Monday, September 1 at 3 p.m. in the Hearst Dance Theater at the Lewis Arts complex. Let your advisor know you want to take a dance course!

DAN 326 meets 3 times each week: Mondays/Wednesdays at 4:30 p.m., plus a choreographic precept on Fridays (10 a.m. or 1:30 p.m., depending on class year and placement by faculty). On Mondays/Wednesdays, you will rehearse and learn repertoire to be performed in the Princeton Dance Festival; the Friday precept will offer instruction in choreography. You will have separate instructors for each component. Please email Cindy Rosenfeld at cr17@princeton.edu with any questions, or review Princeton Dance Festival FAQs.

Want to perform in Princeton Dance Festival but can’t take a dance course? Audition to be in a guest choreographer’s work! You may audition for all 3 opportunities but would only be cast in one. Guest Choreographer Auditions will be held September 6 & 9 and include works by Kyle Abraham, Pam Tanowitz, and Omari Wiles. Weekly rehearsals for all pieces will be Tuesdays/Thursdays from 4:30-6:20 p.m.

Want to perform in Senior Choreographic Independent Projects?

Seniors will hold workshops to introduce prospective cast members to their choreographic processes. Senior choreographic projects offer a great opportunity to perform during the spring 2026 semester in interesting new works exploring a wide range of genres, ideas and techniques. Be prepared to move, meet other dancers, and have fun!

A dancer performs a one-arm handstand in the center of a circle of onlookers.

Students show off their moves in an end of semester dance showing of “Introduction to Breaking: Deciphering its Power” taught by Raphael Xavier. Photo by Jon Sweeney

Take a Dance Course

In addition to the Princeton Dance Festival course DAN 326, the courses listed below are open to first-year students, pending availability. View all fall 2025 dance courses

  • DAN 211/AAS 211 — The American Experience and Dance Practices of the African Diaspora
  • DAN 213 — Introduction to Contemporary Dance
  • DAN 323 — The Politics of Hip-Hop Dance
  • DAN 330 —Dancing: Encounters, Collisions & Ecstasies
  • DAN 370 — Movement and Light: Interaction and Process of Design and Choreography

 

Weekly Drop-In Classes

Just want to take a class or two, or maybe try something new? Attend free, drop-in, (non-credit) dance classes. View the dance drop-in class schedule. Fall classes start Monday, September 8.

Questions about Dance?

The 2025-26 student Dance Ambassadors (current seniors in the program) are happy to answer any questions you may have! Contact them at:

Please also feel free to reach out to professor Tina Fehlandt at fehlandt@princeton.edu.

 

Theater & Music Theater

Three actors stand singing and gesturing on pedestals on stage.

Students perform during a dress rehearsal for A Life Worth Living, a new musical by Jeffery Chen ’25, which premiered in November 2024 in Wallace Theater. Photo by Frank Wojciechowski

The Program in Theater & Music Theater welcomes all new students, beginners and experienced alike, to explore theater and collaborate with award-winning professional theater artists and scholars in the classroom, rehearsal studio, and onstage! Performing roles, production, design and musical opportunities are available to all first-year students in a diverse student-initiated season of classic, contemporary, musical and student-created pieces. No experience is required. Join us at our Try On Theater Days to get started on September 2 from 6-8 PM (annual theater community day) and September 3 + 4 (casting and design/production workshops) in the second-floor theater studios at the Lewis Arts complex. The Princeton Playhouse Ensembles, a choir and orchestra focused on music for the theater and open to all, will hold auditions from Sept. 2-6. Sign up for an audition through the Music Dept. website

Students considering a minor are encouraged to explore all sides of theater making and can begin working towards student show support requirements in their first year. Keep an eye out for theater workshops including fall co-curricular classes open to all on performance, design, and production.

There is no application, audition or portfolio to begin pursuing a minor in theater and music theater — all students are accepted into the program.

Hear from Jane Cox about opportunities in theater in the video below:

Theater & Music Theater Courses

Two actors stand talking in the center of several other actors seated in a circle.

Princeton students perform Ti Jean and His Brothers by Derek Walcott in April 2025. Photo by Frank Wojciechowski

The Program in Theater & Music Theater offers courses in performance, directing, writing and composing for theater and music theater, design, technology in live entertainment, dramaturgy, theater and music theater scholarship, history and criticism, and special topics. First-year students who are committed to theater are encouraged to take THR/MTD 101, a mandatory course for the minor, and an introduction to many different kinds of theater making from a collaborative and multicultural perspective. View fall 2025 theater & music theater courses. Most available courses are open enrollment.

Questions about the program? Email Program Associate Joe Fonseca: jfonseca@princeton.edu

 

Visual Arts

A student wearing gloves and apron works with a hammer and iron rod at an outdoor forge.

Students in Sculpture class work with the forge in the parking lot of 185 Nassau to create metal sculptures. Photo by Zohar Lavi-Hasson

The Program in Visual Arts encourages you to immerse yourself in the process of making. Whether it is a film, sculpture, photography, painting, or design project, our faculty of contemporary artists will guide you through the conception, creation, and exhibition of your works of art. Our 200-level courses are all geared toward first-year students and require no previous art making experience. Learn the skills and strategies to explore and express your life experience through art. View fall 2025 visual arts courses.

Interested in film, video and animation?

Within the Program in Visual Arts, courses are offered at introductory and advanced levels in film and video production. Students who want an introduction to digital animation should take Animation I, and those interested in screenwriting can take beginning and advanced screenwriting courses that are crosslisted in the visual arts and creative writing programs. View fall 2025 courses in film & animation.

Questions about the program? Email Program Associate Kristy Seymour: kseymour@princeton.edu

See inside 185!

Every fall, juniors and seniors open their studios at 185 Nassau to the public for Open Studios. In this video, see the artists’ spaces and works-in-progress from last fall’s Open Studios event:

Princeton Atelier

One actor in a crocodile costume crouches near an actor sitting onstage.

Princeton Atelier students perform Katrina’s Cabaret—A Blood Dazzler Production in the Hearst Dance Theater in April 2025. Photo by James DeSalvo

The Princeton Atelier offers unique interdisciplinary courses taught by guest artists and focusing on the creation of new collaborative work. A number of seats in the fall Atelier course are held for first year students.

Visit the Princeton Atelier page to learn more. Please contact Mindy Solis with questions: ms2958@princeton.edu.

Explore past Atelier collaborations through photos, words, and videos in the Princeton Atelier course archive.

 

Music

For information on programs of study and courses in music, visit the Department of Music website.

 

First-Year Seminars

First-year students have a unique opportunity to begin their Princeton journey with a First-Year Seminar, working closely with a faculty member and a small group of fellow students on a topic of special interest. Consider taking one of these seminars that focus on the arts, led by LCA faculty during 2025-26:

  • FRS 104 — “What Are We Watching? Ideas in Cinema” with Aleksandar Hemon (Spring)
  • FRS 123 — “Poetry Makes History, History Makes Poetry: Reading and Writing Documentary Poems” with Kathleen Ossip (Fall)
  • FRS 138 — “Representation in Documentary Filmmaking” with BJ Perlmutt (Fall)
  • FRS 143 — “Is Politics a Performance?” with Aaron Landsman (Fall)
  • FRS 147 — “How People Change: The Short Story and Life’s Transitions” with Sheila Kohler (Fall)
  • FRS 169 — “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Wisdom of Crowds” with Susanna Moore (Fall)
  • FRS 173 — “Acting Against Oppression” with Vivia Font (Spring)
  • FRS 174 — “Drawing Data” with Tim Szetela (Fall)
  • FRS 183 — “Performance Art Now!” with Colleen Asper (Fall)
  • FRS 195 — “Stillness” with Aynsley Vandenbroucke (Fall)

Apply for First-Year Seminars

Each First-Year Seminar requires an application. Visit the First-Year Seminars website to browse fall and spring seminars to and to review the student application process.

 

Course Spotlight

See what kind of movements inspire students in the visual arts course “Digital Animation.” In this popular class, students examine, design and produce motion while learning a variety of analog and digital techniques from Lecturer in Visual Arts Tim Szetela.

 

Don’t Miss the Fun!

Sign up for our newsletter to receive a weekly email update on arts events happening at the Lewis Center. Join your fellow Tigers at over 120 performances, exhibitions, readings, film screenings and lectures offered each year by the Lewis Center, most of them free!

Ticketed events are priced at only $10 for students and are Tiger Ticket eligible through the Princeton’s Passport to the Arts program, which makes them free to you! Just show your TigerCard at the box office—your Tiger Tickets are credited on your TigerCard.

 

Virtual Tour of LCA Spaces


Lewis Center for the Arts programming takes place at multiple locations across the Princeton campus including the Lewis Arts complex, 185 Nassau Street, McCarter Theatre Center, and other venues.

 

Questions?

Please don’t be shy—contact us if you have any questions about Lewis Center programs, courses, and performance opportunities. Consult our faculty list or browse the staff directory. Feel free to send an inquiry to LewisCenter@princeton.edu!

 

Discover Princeton Alumni

Read recent alumni news and discover Princeton alumni working in the arts by watching our Alumni POV video series.