Advanced Art

Advanced Performing and Visual Arts classes at Poly provide numerous opportunities for students who wish to hone their craft and pursue the arts in college and beyond. In addition to courses in our visual arts and dance studios, we offer independent study for students with special interests. Our students are taught by professional artists, take part in arts partnerships with local museums, and may take advantage of study away programs. These creative options enable Poly students to expand their skills, explore their own creative vision, better understand the world, and develop their skills and techniques as they reach individual artistic goals. 

Find out more about Advanced Art Courses in Our Curriculum Guide

Advanced Museum Studies with the Met

In collaboration with one of the most renowned art institutions in the world, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Advanced Museum Studies course offers a unique opportunity for students who are interested in the public display of history and art, storytelling, and exhibition design. Students will have the chance to use the museum as a secondary classroom, exploring its collections and special exhibitions and conversing with its curators. Students will also write critical texts, conceptualize museum tours, and build their own models of visionary gallery spaces.

Advanced Modernism in Art and Literature

Advanced Modernism in Art and Literature is an exciting interdisciplinary seminar course that explores the development of diverse forms of artistic production in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The first semester focuses on visual art and the second semester on literature. During the first semester, students uncover the social, political and cultural events and upheavals that paved the way for the creation of a radical kind of art–Modern Art.

While traditionally, Modernism has been understood through a Western lens, this course examines the ways in which industrialization, the mechanization of production, and the rise of a mass consumer society affected artistic strategies, visual discourse, and narratives across the globe. The second semester will turn to literature, from the 19th century writers such as Henry James to 20th century works in poetry (Eliot, Moore), fiction (Woolf, Joyce, Borges, and Akutagawa), and drama (Beckett, Jarry). In both semesters, students will read widely from critical texts.

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Advanced Music Theory and Composition

Students who are mastering an instrument take Music Theory to fully explore the concepts and compositional systems that underlie their practice. In this course, students will develop their understanding of music theory through creative application and composition. Using hands-on learning approaches such as keyboard-style chord writing, keyboard skills, and music notation programs, students will learn about various song forms and musical genres such as classical, pop, rock, and jazz. Students will learn to analyze and critique music, gain and demonstrate a knowledge of compositional styles and history, develop an understanding of music forms and related terminology, and compose and perform their own compositions.

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Upper School Advanced Ensembles 

Advanced Concert Band, Advanced String Ensemble, and Advanced Concert Choir tracks are available to interested students enrolled in these performance ensembles. Placement is determined by audition and is granted only to the top 30%. Advanced track students will also prepare new repertoire, be eligible for additional performance opportunities, and, when applicable, work on college audition material.

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Advanced Dance

Advanced Dance is where students further develop technique, performance, and choreography skills across a variety of styles including ballet, jazz, musical theater, modern, and world dance.

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Advanced Arts Electives

For those who’ve already taken Introduction to Acting, Acting or have commensurate experience (Department Chair approval pending), students will take a journey to develop their acting techniques by studying monologues and scenes from a variety of plays, while developing their ability to create a character. To prepare them for future spotlights, students also learn skills to help them in auditions as well as techniques for acting on film and musical theater.

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Advanced Acting

Searing monologues, character development, scene work, audition skills and practice, are just a few of the techniques students pursue in Advanced Acting with our accomplished faculty and guest teachers.

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Advanced Ceramics

Advanced Ceramics offers a deeper exploration and advancement in students’ ceramics skills. It provides an opportunity to delve into more intricate aspects of ceramics, fostering a heightened understanding of both traditional techniques and wheel-throwing methods. Additionally, students develop diverse and expressive sculpting skills, further enriching their expertise in the realm of ceramic arts. Students explore practical activities aimed at refining precision and mastery of the pottery wheel, investigate diverse approaches to crafting three-dimensional ceramic art, integrate wheel-thrown and sculptural elements to craft unified and visually compelling artworks, and examine various methods for surface treatments, glazing, and texture applications. Research of art historical ceramic practices will provide a foundation for student innovation and understanding of context and culture.

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Advanced Drawing & Painting Portfolio

Through practice and visual research, students Advanced Drawing and Painting Portfolio take part in a college-level art experience designed for those ready to engage in their own unique artistic vision. Engagement will be framed by looking at historical and contemporary art, exploring diverse art practices, and participating in monthly critiques. Students will hone their skills and improve upon their drawing and painting abilities and will be expected to keep a sketchbook documenting their progress. This full year course requires extensive contemplation and artistic rigor. By the end of the year, each student will have created a portfolio ready for documentation and college applications.

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Advanced Photography Portfolio

This exciting, new yearlong course continues the journey of photography beyond the foundational camera and Photoshop skills developed in Digital Photography while also learning how to create works in Poly’s first darkroom. Students will think about photography through the lens of photographer, curator, historian, and critic John Szarkowski’s seminal essay and exhibition, “Mirrors and Windows: American Photography Since 1960.”

Students will focus on gaining a deeper understanding of the history of the medium while employing new techniques and materials that support them in forming a greater personal vision finalized in a portfolio. Projects may include emulating the style of a major photographer and shooting and developing black and white film, learning to print photos in traditional black and white film in the darkroom, learning to make digital scans from film negatives, creating a digital documentary photo essay collage, creating cyanotype prints, and more.