Dance (DANC-GT)

Open only to students in the Department of Dance. Faculty and guest artists. 2-8 points per semester. Daily classes in ballet and contemporary dance techniques. Includes pointe class, men?s class, partnering, and pilates, somatics and yoga.

Writing is a powerful tool, both in the artistic process and in the world of production and career. In this course we will work to strengthen articulation, clarity, and overall writing skills. Assignments will address various applications of writing for dance, through themed writing assignments, exploration of academic and creative writing styles, and immersion into relevant scholarship and research methodologies. The course will also assist students in development of a personal trajectory in their personal thesis process. Students will emerge from the class with writing skills that give them a sharper artistic perspective, and a clearer sense of their own direction in the dance world.

Open only to students in the Department of Dance. Departmental elective for B.F.A. and M.F.A. students. Cummings. 2-4 points per semester. Choreographers work on individual and collaborative projects that explore the relationship between text and movement. Creative projects, in collaboration with the Department of Design for Stage and Film and the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, are performed in concert at the conclusion of the course.

Open only to students in the Department of Dance. Departmental elective for B.F.A. and M.F.A. students. Cummings. 2-4 points per semester. Choreographers work on individual and collaborative projects that explore the relationship between text and movement. Creative projects, in collaboration with the Department of Design for Stage and Film and the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, are performed in concert at the conclusion of the course.

Independent Study for MFA in Dance

The Science of Movement will introduce students to the multidisciplinary field of motor learning and control. This course is appropriate for graduate students with an interest in human movement, neuroscience and behavior, physical education, dance and/or athletics. No prior course of study in neuroscience is necessary to successfully engage with the course material.

Collaborative Strategies with Interactive Media (CSIM) will be an extension of Filming the Moving Body and Video Art courses by addressing artistic concerns and prompts through technology with in-depth programming. This is a graduate-level interdisciplinary course focusing on two vocational components: ● Extensive instruction in graphical computer programming ● Devising artistic studies in collaborative groups that will be presented in various formats across the duration of the course. This course aims to explore the intersection of devised performance and technological applications through theoretical frameworks, contextualizing artistic works within societal realms. Technology-focused classes serve as practical labs to refine students' technical skills for collaborative projects. Students are encouraged to incorporate their respective artistic and technological endeavors into coursework. Weekly, students are expected to bring artistic material, notes from readings and viewings, and questions for discussion. Dialogues will be structured around open-ended feedback methods. The course will address the listed objectives through individual programming tasks and collaborative projects, fostering a deeper understanding of the creative relationship between performance and technology in broader contexts: ● How does one incorporate and use semiotics when creating collaborative interdisciplinary artistic work? ● How does learning a computer programming language to incorporate media and technology in their work serve the artistic statement? ● How does technology allow performance to expand beyond corporeal boundaries?

Dance Music: A Laboratory for Choreographers and Composers

Graduate Dance Seminar provides an opportunity for faculty to share topics and creative perspectives in a modular format, usually in 4-week rotating sessions. Modules will focus on creative approaches (improvisation, composition), cross-pollination between disciplines (dance and imagery, music/dance perspectives, dance with text, etc), and other aspects of the field to be determined. The course will conform to each module's needs, facilitating both studio work and classroom-based seminars or presentations.

Graduate Dance Seminar: Insights and Approaches II

Worldmaking is a semester-long composition course for MFA students. Structured as a laboratory with body-based explorations, group discussions, and collaborative experiments, this course will offer many ways for the cohort to engage with and propose new compositional systems. Through improvisational modes, algorithmic scores, and game-based ideas we will generate relational strategies for building provisional worlds. World-building involves imagining, transmitting, testing, constructing, inhabiting and performing. Students will collaborate to search, gather and sort a new lexicon with cross-pollinating ideas. The process will be documented using analog tools, memory, written descriptions, drawings and cameras. The sensorial experiences, modalities and structures that emerge will be translated into living archives that account for the ephemerality inherent in dance. Advanced undergraduate choreographers can take this course upon permission.

Pedagogy

Current Topics in Dance Studies

Movement Science Sensors Lab

This course is designed to develop the business skill sets necessary for a successful and sustainable career in the arts. Designed for individuals across artistic disciplines, and for students of business, the course utilizes proven corporate Strategic Planning methods adapted for the arts The course provides the tools to develop and articulate clear strategies for achieving short and long- term goals, increasing productivity, effectively managing time and attaining financial literacy and solvency. Through weekly lectures and practical exercises, topics including marketing, fundraising, written and verbal communications, grant writing, work samples and internet presence will be explored. Case studies of artists who have successfully incorporated these best practices will be examined. Throughout the semester, students will apply the content of each weekly topic to their own projects. By the semester's conclusion, each student will have a fully realized Strategic Plan for their work.

Graduate students enrolled in Real-time Movement/Sound Composition join an undergraduate Ensemble course (Real-time Movement/Sound Composition, DANC-UT 600), that molds participants into an ensemble capable of performing movement/sound improvisations, i.e. collaborative compositions made in real time. This graduate course adds separate Wednesday meetings (with homework) to examine and determine strategies and structures for exploring how the differences and similarities between movement-making and sound-making, and between their compositional practices, may help diversify and regulate improvised material over the duration of a performance. Enrollment by audition - please contact instructor for more information.