A studio course introducing students to African dance practices and aesthetics, with a focus on how its evolution has influenced American and African American culture, choreographers and dancers. An ongoing study of movement practices from traditional African dances and those of the African Diaspora, touching on American jazz dance, modern dance, and American ballet. Studio work will be complemented by readings, video viewings, guest speakers, and dance studies.

This course offers a broad, embodied introduction to the breadth of contemporary dance. We will be moving, reading, watching, and writing about dance. Contemporary issues, such as Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ rights, immigration, and American exceptionalism will be viewed through the lens of contemporary dance. We will try on the styles of essential creators in the field in an effort to understand their POV. We will create work ourselves (no experience necessary) to learn about the expressive and communicative potential of dance. We will be moving and meditating to release tension, increase personal awareness, and boost authenticity.

This course introduces students to human anatomy using movement, drawing, and dance practices. We will study the structure and function of the body from an interdisciplinary perspective, with a focus on relationships between cognition, the nervous system and movement. Class time will be shared between anatomy/kinesiology lectures and exploring the material through experiential and creative activities. We will discuss common problems encountered in fitness and every day life, while looking at the human structure in depth to evaluate possible solutions. Creative and research projects explore multiple ways the arts and sciences intersect.

In this studio course students learn and perform historically significant dance works or perform works that are created for and with them by a range of prominent choreographers. In the choreography precept, students create, perform, and discuss works weekly, practicing a variety of approaches to collaboration, improvisation, experimentation, analytical viewing, and the shaping of choreographic questions. Two performances form the culmination of the course: one is a fully produced program of dances in the Berlind Theatre and the other is a choreographic showing in the Hearst Theater.

A study on turbulence and beauty through dancing. We will be dancing through concepts of time, space, sensation and collectivity while practicing how to move between others, between desires, between matters. Along with improvisational explorations, required readings and viewings, we'll engage with dancing as a practice of being together in the messy and contingent relations constantly informing and reforming our encounters with, in and of the world. How might concepts, when shared in a multitude of ways, invite the emergence of shifting possibilities formed through dancing as study? All dance backgrounds and levels of experience are welcome.

What is the shared vocabulary of Movement and Light? How do we think about quality, timing, scale and form in both choreography and design? In this studio course we will explore light and movement to better understand how these elements inform each other in the creation of interdisciplinary and collaborative work. Students will take on the roles of both designer and choreographer, they will develop communications skills across artistic disciplines and question traditional power structures in their making process. This is a hands-on course with an emphasis on creating, revision, communication and collaboration across disciplines and cultures.