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arTistic Attention: TA Dahlia Schweitzer brings background of experience to classroom

Dahlia Schweitzer performed in her own one-woman art show in venues all over Europe, and was the lead vocalist, bassist and keyboardist of an all-girl punk band before returning to school to pursue a doctorate in cinema and media studies.(Daniel Alcazar/Daily Bruin)

By Max Mcgee

Jan. 30, 2015 1:07 a.m.

It’s easy to become disenchanted by weekly discussions, typically made mandatory by participation grades. But here in A&E;, we want to help UCLA students realize that teaching assistants are not only students themselves. Outside the classroom, they are also people with backgrounds ranging from musical festival ring leaders to comic strip satirists.

With the new series “arTistic Attention,” A&E; will feature the very people whose office hours we really should go to more and explore their arts & entertainment-geared interests to find out what really makes them tick.

If you know an artsy TA who deserves to be featured, email us at [email protected].

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As a solo performance artist in Europe, Dahlia Schweitzer danced in costume in front of video projections to music that she created in collaboration with producers in Montreal and Paris.

Whether it be a high-energy electro show at a London dance club or a lounge cabaret performance at an art gallery, Schweitzer said her shows varied based on the type of venue at which she took the stage.

Schweitzer said her strong interest in visual communication brought her back to UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television to pursue a doctorate in Cinema and Media Studies.

A graduate student in the UCLA Producer Program, Melody Sandoval, said Schweitzer is known by students as a reliable teaching assistant who brings real world experience as an artist into the classroom. Schweitzer has assisted Film and Television 113: “Film Authors,” and Film and Television 106A: “History of American Motion Picture.”


“I have always had a very interdisciplinary approach and my background is all over the place,” Schweitzer said. “I am just as likely to mention something that I learned or experienced while I worked for L’Oreal as something that I learned while being a film tech.”

Schweitzer said her music career began in New York where she performed lead vocal, bass and keyboard in a punk band called Galvanized.

“I started a band and we kind of played all over the East Village,” Schweitzer said. “It was this kind of folk-punk Bikini Kill, Bleach Blonde-meets-Joy Division kind of band.”

After five years of performing in the punk scene and trying to make ends meet in New York, Schweitzer said she decided to move to Berlin to become a full-time artist.

“I wanted to focus on my photography, music and writing, and that was the main reason that I moved,” Schweitzer said. “Once in Berlin, I discovered I was not making money doing writing and photography, so those got put aside as I could pay the bills with music.”

Schweitzer said she toured around Europe as a one-woman show featuring music performances including a variety of props, background visual projections and costumes.

As she continued writing on the side in Berlin, Schweitzer said she was offered two publishing deals. After realizing her potential as a writer, Schweitzer left her full-time music commitment in Europe and decided to move back to the United States.

Now pursuing a doctoral degree at UCLA, Schweitzer said it is refreshing to be a part of the university’s network of people, ideas and library resources.

“When you are writing, you are doing research and sort of digesting information, and then when you are teaching, it is like you are excreting that information, so there is a nice balance there between pulling stuff in and pushing it out,” Schweitzer said.

Sean Patrick Sullivan was one of Schweitzer’s closest friends during her time in New York where they worked together in an advertising agency.

“To have years and years working at New York advertising agencies, Berlin nightclubs, Los Angeles art schools, there is not just one thing that she brings to the classroom,” Sullivan said. “It is that she brings so much.”

Although her focus has shifted toward her academic work, Schweitzer said she is always open to whatever comes her direction in the arts.

“I think its this ever-present awareness that our time on this planet is so short that I really want to have a lasting impact,” Schweitzer said. “That’s the reason I love teaching, I love the dissemination of ideas.”

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